A weekend in HDR among other things...

Last weekend my sister in law visited us and we went on a local bay area tour of sorts. While the people pictures end up on Facebook.. the Nature pictures and select pictures of me.. end up here! 

There is always an incentive to write a blog post to chronicle local travels, no matter how many times we have visited the place, if we have something new to show.. 

 While editing the pictures where yours truly is smiling, one thought kept coming to my mind.. I look like someone.. but it is not my dad. Six seven years ago, I used to look like a carbon copy of my dad when he was that age.. this time the smile was different. The percentages of "knowingness: sarcasm : resignation" was different.. It was like the basic composition of my face had changed to a different part of that ternary phase diagram. After staring at it for a long time, it struck me! 

I am slowly turning into the next version of my only maternal uncle aka "Ambi Mama"! At first I thought, it must be the receeding hairline, but NO! There is more to this than hairline. Going to take a shot of me with my rudhraksham and towel and match the color balance and you will see soon.. 

As always.. one thing leads to another and before you know it, a post that started off as a weekend in HDR suddenly changed to my facial resemblence to Ambi mama.. Let's get back on topic.. 

 HDR pictures.. 

 This was really one beautiful evening to be out there. Full moon, perfect weather and most important of all, great company! 

This time I took my camera, but did not have the filter kit.. Next time we visit, going to throw a dark ND filter in front of the lens and take a longer exposure shot to blur the waves.. 

That weekend hopefully starts off some travel with family and is a harbinger of better pictures to come this year! 

Spring is in the air

The little one made a spring hat at school. Ended up too small for her head. Guess Kindergarten engineering did not account for any shrinkage factors during the making of the paper hat.

It is really nice and colorful. She was reluctant to pose because it did not fit..

Now that hat gets to languish in the garage till its one year expiry date and then goes bye bye

The photograph on the other hand gets to be revisited every now and then.

We made it to our favorite hangout, the Natural bridges in Santa Cruz last week to let the kids play in the sand, watch the tide pool creatures and just get some sun. The water was still cold enough to make me stay off it.

Here are some photographs..

Break is over and the kids start school again tomorrow. The kids had to stay content with trips to Livermore and Santa Cruz, but they did enjoy the time spent at home with grandma and caught up on sleep. Lots of sleep.

The routine begins tomorrow!

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Finding Santa in Santa Places

Every year on Christmas day, we seem to hit some place (usually a beach town) which starts with Santa!

Maybe it is our subconsious seeking out the old man with the beard in the white foam on the beaches, we do not know.

This year, it was a trip to Santa Cruz to visit the Natural Bridges and the Monarch Butterfly preserves. We were in two minds, what with the rain pouring down in occasional bursts all through Christmas eve, but we decided to do the drive anyways.

It was with mixed success. The storm had blown out most of the butterflies and the rest of them decided to close their wings and huddle together. When they do that, you cannot really distinguish them from the leaves on the tall eucalyptus trees. Save for the occasional lone butterfly that was fluttering aimlesslly, we did not catch any magnificent site. Well, we at least know where this place is and will make another visit next year.

On our way out, we went down to the beach to see the natural bridges. Oh, what a sight it was! The sun went behind the clouds and made the whole place look something out of this world. It was a photographers dream, for a full four minutes before the rain came down and forced us to run to our vehicles.

No photos of the butterflies, except this pink one!

The magnificence of the Natural bridge! There were two bridges, but one collapsed recently.

Playing with the lone gull that was scouring the foam

Jr.'s first photo using the Digital Rebel. Not bad!

Finally, the stitch shots...

From atop the Butterfly preserve, looking down to the beach..

6 shot stitch

16 shot stitch. If only I could get the sun shining through the hole under the bridge. Now that would be some shot!

Here is to Santa Cruz!

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