A couple weeks ago, the VP notified me that one of my photos was now featured on the home page of the Aquarium’s website. As the home page image rotates, here is a screen shoot showing my photo that was used.

You can view all the photos from the post, including the jelly photo HERE. Note: I did flip the jellyfish photo upside down as I thought it made a better photo that way.

The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy saw the tragic death of Ayrton Senna, the driver considered by most to be the best ever. That day at Imola Senna was driving the Williams-Renault car when he lost control at the Tamburello corner. The number 2 car is shown with after market decals with Rothmans livery as it was on the car during Senna’s last drive.

The Ferrari F2001 was driven by Michael Schumacher to the FIA world driver’s championship with 9 race wins during the season and a total of 123 points out pacing the 2nd place finisher in the championship David Coultard with 65 points. The car shown is the “King of the Rain” model  which features Bridgestone Potenza rain tires and after market decals which show the tobacco livery the car raced with. Ten years later in the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Michael showed he was still master of the wet by finishing 4th in out matched Mercedes race car.

Mika Hakkinen drove the #8 West McLaren-Mercedes Adrian Newey designed car to his first of two FIA world driver championships. Michael  Schumacher was the runner up that year with 80 points to Hakkenen’s 100 points. The MP4-13 McLaren featured a 3.0 liter V10 engine which helped the team to also claim the 1998 Formula 1 Constructors championship.

The 1992 Benetton – Ford #19 car is shown in it’s Belgium Grand Prix configuration with rain tires that helped Michael Schumacher win his first race ever at the Spa-Francorchamps track which featured rain during the middle of the race.

This Paul’s Model Art 1995 Benetton Renault B195 was the first Michael Schumacher car to have the Number one as he had won the drivers’ championship the year before. The car shown is as it was raced in the German Grand prix with rain tires and Bitburger livery. Schumacher would capture his 2nd FIA World drivers championship by scoring 102 points over 2nd place driver Damon Hill who finished the season with 69 points.

Michael Schumacher drove the 2002 F2002 Shell-Vodafone Ferrari to his 5th World Drivers’ Champion tying the number of championships that Juan Manuel Fangio has. The 1/18 scale modelFerrari is show with it’s full Marlboro livery and simulated race condition dirt.

March 16, 2012 Update – It’s official, even the FIA don’t like the design of the new step noses. With all the F1 teams in Melbourne Australia for the 2012 season opening race at Albert Park circuit, FIA race director Charlie Whiting revealed that he hopes the teams have “nicer” front noses by the 2013 season. He added, had the FIA know how the front noses would have turned out under the current regulations, those regulations might have been changed. Mr Whiting, it’s called the rule of unintended consequences. The 2012 F1 season opener will take place this Sunday at the 5.3km Albert Park Circuit which has a lap record of 1.24.125 seconds set by seven time world driving champion Michael Schumacher  during the 2004 race.

The colors look so wonderful on the trees, on the ground they just look like a big colorul mess to clean up.

Photo Details: Canon 40D, 100 mm f2.0 lens. Exposure: ISO 400, f4.5 at 1/200 of a second on Manual Exposure.

Image Exposure Details – Canon 40D with 400 f2.8 lens, ISO 500, 1/250 of a second at f5.0.

The actual line from the movie Top Gun is, “Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby”. Which gets the reply from the tower, “Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full”. That of course didn’t stop Tom Cruise aka “Maverick” from buzzing the tower. Here the Blue Angels are seen going vertical.

Since they couldn’t “buzz the tower”, the six Blue Angel jets do a fly by over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The four Blue Angel Boeing F/A-18 Hornets fly in formation with their landing gear and tail hooks down with the clouds from the recent storm adding interesting colors.

427 Cobra Shelby signed by the master – Carroll Shelby

My reflection in the hubcap as I try and capture the details from all the angles. It turns out it’s pretty warm out there in the parking lot taking photos of the automobiles. The aren’t kidding when they say it’s “Hot August Nights”.

Here is a little extra info about this 1961 Corvette. It features a Paul Newman Car Creation Chassis – New 2003 LS-1 Engine – New 2003 4L60E Automatic Transmission – Refurbished 1996 Corvette Independent front and rear suspension – Thunderbird Power rack and pinion steering – 36 rear 3rd member with 3.07 gear ratio – Dakota Digital clock and Gauge package – New 17 inch centerline wheels – Flow Master exhaust system – Candy Apple Red Paint job by House of Kolor – Lexus Crystal white Pearl Coves – Flaming River steering column with custom built steering shafts – Edelbrock Ceramic coated headers – Stainless steel 1961 gas tank with pump.

I spoke with the owner of this 1939 Chevy. He mentioned having spent about $100,000 on the car. It had a quite beautiful paint job.

The selective focus used in this photo makes the Reno casinos appear as miniatures. This photo was taken with a Canon 5D using a Canon 45mm TS-E at ISO 1600 at 1/20 of second at f/3.2.

]]> http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2011/08/19/hot-august-nights-reno-nevada-25th-anniversary-photographed-with-canon-45-mm-tilt-shift-lens-ts-e-45mm-f2-8/feed/ 1 http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2011/07/28/majestic-sunday-night-traffic-on-the-golden-gate-bridge/ http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2011/07/28/majestic-sunday-night-traffic-on-the-golden-gate-bridge/#comments Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:33:11 +0000 admin http://ksimonian.com/Blog/?p=3808 This past Sunday while driving home from an engagement session in San Francisco I stopped at the Marin side vista point of the Golden Gate Bridge to see if the heavy evening traffic would make for a nice photo. That’s the amazing thing about the Golden Gate bridge, even a traffic jam on the bridge can make for a nice photo. Here are the details on how this image was made. I was hand holding a 70-200mm f 4.0 zoom on my Canon 5D Mark II and took the photo at 1/25 of a second at f 4.5 ISO 2500 using the image stabilization ( IS ) feature. The IS made it possible to take a steady photo at 1/25 of second with the lens extended out to 200mm. While the traffic made for a nice photo, I don’t think that was on the minds of the travelers who were slowly moving across the bridge at 8:48 PM on a Sunday night.

The Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower and other San Francisco landmarks from the Marin side vista point at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Early morning photo of Lily of the Nile just before it blooms.

Several factors make for a good fireworks photo. The first and most important is the use of a tripod to steady the camera during the long exposure. Usually you want to get three on four bursts on each exposure. So somewhere between a 20 second and 40 second exposure is required. The next important factor in a good photo is to find a way to frame to fireworks. You can do by either including an object on the ground to give size and dimension to the fireworks, or using something to create a silhouette around the fireworks. That’s what I did in this photo as the pine trees are silhouetted against the fireworks.

In this photo you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, Treasure Island, the Oakland Harbor, and the white cranes from the apocryphal story that George Lucus based the Imperial Walkers on them in the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. I had to look up the meaning of “apocryphal story”. What it means is, the story isn’t true, but it won’t go away.

]]> http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2011/02/07/golden-sunset-ground-fog-on-the-golden-gate-bride/feed/ 3 http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2010/12/23/total-lunar-eclipse-winter-solstice-december-20-21-2010/ http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2010/12/23/total-lunar-eclipse-winter-solstice-december-20-21-2010/#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:48:34 +0000 admin http://ksimonian.com/Blog/?p=2992 On Monday December 20th – December 21st a total lunar eclipse was viewable by as many as one billion people across North and South America in the night sky.  What makes this eclipse so rare is that it falls on the exact date of the Winter solstice. The last time this happened was December 21st, 1638. It will not take 372 years for the next occurrence  of both events as it will happen again on December 21, 2094.

This photo is a composite of 20 different shots starting at 9:30 pm PST December 20th and ending at 1:36 am December 21 taken at N 38.00 W 122.06 ( the larger moon in the center is an enlargement of the first image )

You can now view the image full sized HERE.

December 2011 Update: If you missed this Lunar eclipse last year,  you can view another eclipse this coming Saturday December 10th starting at 4:45am Pacific Standard Time for those folks on the Pacific side of North America. For details on viewing the eclipse and a global visibility map visit NASA Science News.

Spotted Jellyfish – also known as a Lagoon JellyVisitors view the flood of water that comes crashing down this exhibit every minute or so. The people inside don’t get wet, while the people outside can get wet if the venture to close. A Weedy Sea Dragon seahorse is one of the many amazing seahorses on exhibit at the aquarium.

Just a mile or so down down the coast in Pacific Grove by Lovers Point the waves were crashing against the rocks.

Some of the “wild life” on the rocks.

After the leaves change to those beautiful colors they slowly but surely fall to the ground.

Upon arriving at the Oakland Alameda Coliseum the only thing that appeared out of the normal for a picture day was much of the lighting equipment used during the filming of the movie Moneyball ( to be released next summer ) was being packed up and hauled away. Since all the lighting equipment was outside the stadium it didn’t effect me or the team picture, or so I thought. Things proceeded as normal, that being drive down the ramp to center field, unpack the lighting and the bleachers and set up in the normal spot of shallow center field for the picture. By 3pm all the set up was done, it was now just time to wait for the players, managers, and staff to arrive for the photo.

Being that the team picture is photographed with the team back lit by the sun and flashed with powerful strobes as the main light, I usually check the strobes every so often just to make sure they work. Well at 3:10 something was wrong, the strobes that had fired just 10 minutes before weren’t working. There appeared to be no power getting to the power pack. OK, the first and most logical thing to do is check that the power cord is still plugged in both the outlet and into the power pack. OK, the cord is still plugged in both places. What else could be wrong? Maybe the outlet suddenly stop working. OK, try all the other outlets on this on the circuit. Nope, no luck there, no power. Next step, go to the truck and bring out one of the two backup power packs and plug it into the cord and hook up one of the lights checking to see if the original power pack has gone kaput. Nope, the backup isn’t working either. Next backup step is to pull out an extra power cord and plug the power pack into another outlet some 60 feet away.

Success, the backup power pack is now working correctly. I turn off the backup power back and once again hook up the strobes to the original power pack. It works just fine,  like it did 15 minutes ago, before the problem happened. Feeling just a little stressed by the last 5 minutes, I go over to my truck to grab a drink of water. While there I notice a technician now working on the junction box that the power cord was originally plugged into. When he finished working on the box, I asked him if the power had been turned off? He mentioned that movie production ( here’s where Brad Pitt fits into the story ) had used the junction box for electrical tie ins, and they were removing them all today. So of course the power had to be turned off for a while.

Now it all made sense. While on the field before any notice of the problem, my assistant and I watched another technician drive up to the location of the junction box which was out of our view, and then drive away a minute or so latter. It didn’t occur to me that he was turning off the power that both I and the Oakland A’s were counting on. OK, time to relax a little a get ready for the team picture. The team picture went of without a hitch, and you can see the result below. Had the young lad who originally turned off the power, done so during the 5 minutes the shoot lasted, there might not have been a happy ending to the whole day.

So that’s how Brad Pitt sorta, kinda, maybe almost ruined the Oakland Athletics team photo.

Former Pittsburg high school pitching ace J. Paul Flores stands in for the players during a light check.

Movie update: The movie Moneyball which stars Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright, Kathryn Morris, and Chris Pratt is scheduled to be released on Friday September 23, 2011. The movie is based on the book Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game, which was written by Michael Lewis. The screenplay was written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The movie was directed by Bennett Miller and was produced by Columbia Pictures.

2011 Team Picture update – No Brad Pitt, No Problems

Glad to report the 2011 Oakland A’s team picture went off without a hitch as there were no complications from any movie productions this year.

On the subject of movie productions, the news is that Moneyball is set for a world premiere at Oakland’s historic Paramount theater on Monday September 19th with a 6pm show time. As earlier reported in this blog, the movie then opens for it’s regular release on Friday September 23rd. If you can’t wait till the 23rd, you can view the trailer which features Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Columbia Pictures release presented by Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, and Rachael Horwitz here at Youtube.

2012 Academy Awards Update – February 26th, 2012

The movie Moneyball had three Academy Award nominations. When the winners were announced live on February 26th to the world, the movie Moneyball was no hit. The movie was nominated in the best picture category. The 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture went to The Artist. Brad Pitt was nominated for best actor in a leading role, the winner was Jean Dujardin for his role in The Artist. And finally, Jonah Hill was nominated for best actor in a supporting role. The winner for best actor in a supporting role was Christopher Plummer for his role in the movie Beginners. At age 82, Plummer became the oldest person to win an Academy Award acting award.

You have to get up pretty early to catch the sunrise this far north. This sunrise photo was made at 5am local time.

View of the the main dining room, Cascades, is an luxurious  two level restaurant featuring a grand staircase, statuesque columns, and indeed a cascading waterfall as the room’s name would suggest.

At the smaller ports of call such as Icy Strait Point on Hoonah island, visitors take a tender to reach land. This view of the ship was taken from a tender heading to Icy Straight Point.

The view of the ship’s main lobby and glass elevators that run up to the 13th deck.

A sunrise self portrait on the 12th deck of the ship.  That’s my shadow cast by the sunrise on the exterior of the ship. On the right side of the photo, you can see my footprints, and only my footprints on the morning dew. Nobody else was on deck at 5:10 am local time. It was their loss. It was a beautiful sunrise on the port side of the ship.

The unofficial state bird of Alaska. That would be a mosquito. Though we didn’t see many, those we did see were about twice the size of the mosquitoes see down here in the lower 48 states.

The jogging track on deck 12 offers amazing scenic views while affording one the opportunity to stay in shape.

A view of the Hubbard glacier. Watching the glacier calving as ice and snow fall from the 400 foot tall sea wall is one of the highlights of the cruise.

The Mendenhall glacier which is just outside of Juneau, Alaska

View of  container ship being unloaded in Vancouver British Columbia as we pulled into our final port destination.

Sunset view of the Holland America cruise ship the Zaandam about to pull out of Juneau, Alaska, the State’s capital city.

Don’t forget to view more photos of the trip by viewing the link below.

I noticed these signs at most of ports we visited. It just struck me as funny.

A close as I came to a real bear

A radar device seen during sunrise