Shooting Mid Day

I just wanted to share a couple images that I shot a couple of days ago. Normally I wouldn't bother shooting landscapes during the day. Reason being that the lighting is flat and does not add much dimension or color to the scene. Instead, I prefer to shoot early morning or even better, about an hour before sunset or, "the Golden Hour" At this time, lighting is more dramatic and brings about a nice saturation of colors.

I had lunch at Estrella Mountain Ranch and as I usually do, took my camera along. This particular day, the skies were overcast with big, puffy white and gray clouds. The way that the sun rays beamed through the clouds and cast shadows on the mountains really caught my eye. It gave them a 3-dimension appearance to what would normally be a boring, flat scene at this time of the day.

Here are a couple from the day. These were shot at 105mm. The first one was F11 and the second was F10. I actually used 3 frames to process each of these images, HDR style.

(Frames by Jason Hermann)

Weekend Getaway

I sneaked away in March for a long weekend with Babe the Pug, my friend Lori and her two kids. Destination...Oceanside! The weather was gorgeous, as it always is in Southern California. The sights and sounds from our porch were amazing. We could hear the waves crashing to the shore all night long.

The third image was taken from our deck.

The Desert Bloom

Springtime...it was my favorite time of year growing up and it is by far the prettiest time of year here in the Arizona. We had a decent amount of rain this past winter which usually brings about a lavish display of color when the wildflowers bloom in the spring. For the out-of-state visitors who have never witnessed it, the brilliant colors are a striking contrast to our normally dry, brown desert and definitely worth a look.

I had the opportunity to take a drive to Tucson a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to accomplish two goals. One was of course, the wildflowers. The second... I had been wanting to check out the old Barrio District. This is an area of old adobe buildings and houses that survived an urban rebuild. Most have been torn down leaving a small section that consists of a few blocks of streets that are lined with some unusual architecture that is plastered in a variety of colors .

The lighting conditions were less than ideal but I managed to snap a few pictures here that I'm happy with. On the drive home, we stopped at Picacho State Park to see if there was any wildflower activity. Unfortunately, we arrived at the worst time of day for photography but I didn't want to leave without something. Here are a few pictures from the day.

My friend and I drove to California on Superbowl weekend. We stayed in San Clemente and on Sunday, we drove down to the San Diego area. My main objective of the trip was to get a couple of photos of the San Diego skyline. I have been to this area many times but the timing was always off. This time, I planned accordingly and was set up and ready when the light was right. We arrived in Coronado just about sunset. Here are a couple of images that I was pleased with.

A Few Of My Favorite Models

Thanks to Lori for lending me such cute and cooperative kids to photograph. And thanks to my beauty girl, Babe the Pug.