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.

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The 2011 series features these new speakers: Beth Forester – Joe Photo – Angie Monson – Drake Busath – Boudoir Divas – Kevin Hudson – Joel Grimes

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Just want to say that finding out about Photovision some years ago was a HUGE blessing, and it is probably the single most important inspirational and motivational tool I have! God bless you all, and thank you for your time and efforts!

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The content you provide is relevant and valuable to my business. I drink up every segment and find myself watching segments again, and again. This is money well spent. I highly doubt I would get more out of those $1000+ conferences and workshops.

Photo Vision is like a convention or seminar in the comfort of my home and at a time that works best for me. Plus it is much more economical. How much better can it get? Current information from amazing photographers and in a format that I can pause, rewind, or watch over and over again if I need to. You don’t get that anywhere else.

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.

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

The beginnings of a tree.

The trip started with a flight out of Oakland that went to Seattle. There was suppose to be a two hour lay over in Seattle before the flight to Fairbanks. Because of problems with the mysterious paper work, the Alaska Airlines flight aboard a Boeing 737-800 arrived later than expected, and instead of two hours in Seattle, it was just a tram ride in the airport and a 30 minute wait. The flight from Seattle to Fairbanks was suppose to last just 2.5 hours. Turns out the folks in Alaska don’t switch to Daylight Savings Time ( DST ), and so the flight from Seattle to Fairbanks, Alaska was instead a 3.5 hour flight because of the time change. Who knew that in a state where the sun almost never sets during the summer months there wouldn’t be a need for Daylight Savings Time?

The first photo was taken from the flight into Fairbanks from an altitude of approximately 38,000 feet. Sure looks like it would be cold in Alaska. That wasn’t the case, the high both days my wife and I spent in Fairbanks was 77 degrees. So much for all the cold weather clothes that got packed.

*** Special Alaska Summer Travel Advisory ***

This is the most important item you can take on your summer trip to Alaska. No it’s not mosquito repellent ( yes take that ). It’s a binder clip. At every hotel we stayed at, the window drapes never really completely closed. That’s not much of a problem in an area where there is a nighttime. On the other hand, if the sun never really sets, it’s nice to have the window drapes completely block out the outside light. Using the binder clip to completely close the drapes created a much more effective light barrier.

The Inuit statue in downtown Fairbanks appears to be floating on the clouds.

View from the paddle wheeled Riverboat Discovery.

Breakfast was served while we traveled at 40 miles per hour in the Royal Caribbean Cruise line rail car.

Visitors to Denali state park are offered scenic views of the the surrounding mountians and some wildlife.

The lobby of the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge which offers spectacular views of Mt. McKinley, which is also know by it’s Athabascan name Denali.

The mountain ( Mt. McKinley or Denali ) as viewed from the Susitna river aboard a Mahay’s Jet Boat.