Take a Moment to Enjoy the Sunset

I've been working hard indoors all day. Been working on some projects, administrative duties, you know, all that boring desk job stuff we as photographers became photographers to avoid doing.

I glimpsed the sunset out my window and decided to head out front to enjoy it for a little break. It's a good idea to focus your eyes on something miles away after focusing it on a computer screen a few feet away all day.

I've seen a lot of sunsets in my day, but this one was stunning. I almost wished I was out taking pictures, but then I relaxed and decided to just enjoy it. I stood in the middle of my street staring up at the delicate curves and soft wisps of orange and pink while the faint music of a violin struggled to make its way to my ears. A neighbor must have been practicing. I imagine I looked a little weird standing barefoot in my street gazing up at the sky like it was going to disappear. I say this based chiefly on the double take of the girl across the street probably wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

I enjoyed this sensory massage for a little bit, snapped some pics with my iPhone and headed inside to get back to the grind. This little experience reminded me how important it is to pause and enjoy the sunset every once in awhile. Luckily for my line of work, that often times goes hand in hand with the job!

Photographer's Tools: Tide Charts

In this first installment of my "Photographer's Tools" series (wherein I will discuss tools and tips to help photographers make better pictures), I will cover an often overlooked tool for photographers: Tide Charts. Whether you live by the ocean like me or you are planning on taking a trip to the coast, you better make room in your camera bag for tide charts (figuratively of course, who really needs to "make room" for a tide chart? That's just ridiculous).

In my own experience, and I think many photographers would agree, the success of a good image lies in the pre-shoot preparation. Whether you're shooting a scenic or a portrait, it's all about how prepared you are when the time comes to click the shutter. Tide charts can give a little window to the future that will help make your coastal shots that much better.

I personally love to include rocks and tide pools in my coastal pictures. Rock formations along the beach and boulders strewn across the white sand seem to make a regular beach picture so much more unique. They add texture, weight and shadows to otherwise mediocre photos. The mussels and sea life found in tide pools at low tide create even more interesting additions to a landscape and are amazing photo subjects all by themselves. With tide charts, you can find out to the minute when the tide will be at its lowest. You can plan ahead knowing that these rocks at this location will be exposed at this time of day. And by scouting out the location ahead of time, you can even get a mental image picture of your shot before you set foot on the beach.

For example, I know the beach of Crystal Cove State Park in California like the back of my hand. When I looked at the tide charts the other day and saw that low tide would be at 6:57pm, I knew this park would have some interesting rocks and tide pools to play with for some sunset shots. I didn't waste any time looking around other beaches or deciding where to go. Since I knew the tide would be low, I knew Crystal Cove was the place to be.

This brings me to my next point: I only went out and took pictures on this day BECAUSE the tide was low at sunset. Normally I don't bring my camera out for any landscape work if there are no clouds in the sky. I am bored easily by cloudless skies and this day was clear as a summer afternoon (seeing as how it WAS a summer afternoon). But I knew low tide at sunset would be a pretty good bet, even with no clouds, so I packed my gear and headed out. Had I not checked the charts and had I not known what gems low tide could bring me, I would have stayed in and done other work. I'm sure glad I went, because I had a lot of fun and was really pleased with the results.


With amazing devices like the iPhone, tide charts can be at your finger tips at any moment in any place. I don't have to print out a tide chart every month and remember to slip it in my bag, I have all the information at my fingertips. A great site that I have bookmarked on my iPhone is www.tidesonline.com. Its simple interface and logical layout make for a great online tide chart.


These charts are not only valuable for the low tides. If you know of a place, for instance, that would be perfect at high tide at sunrise, use the chart to find a date when the high tide is right when you need it. Or if you know that the waves are biggest at high tide at this particular beach, find a date when the high tide is at the right time and get out and shoot them.

If you do go out at low tide and are navigating across tide pools, please be responsible. Tread lightly and watch where you put your foot. That slimy rock might actually be a sea slug and those mussels latched onto the rocks are not, in fact, indestructible and they are living animals. And be smart. If you know it's mid-tide but the tide is coming IN, don't put your camera bag where the tide will catch up to it and don't get trapped on that rock outcropping as the tide moves in around you (almost happened to me, folks).

Tide charts are your friend. They are incredibly accurate and give some hint at what the future holds along your favorite beach. Use them.

Aperture 2, You Win

Alright, I caved and bought the Aperture 2 upgrade. Was I wrong about the things I said in my previous post? No (for the most part). True, proportional spacing in grid view shouldn't have been dropped in this upgrade and, yes, the jumpy scrolling is annoying as all hell, but there are some pretty awesome changes that actually do outweigh my quibbles.


I will admit that I can understand the advantage of unchecking proportional spacing in grid view in Aperture 2. It's hard to explain without a firsthand demo, but having it unchecked makes things more orderly when organizing pictures, splitting up stacks, creating stacks and all that jazz. It should still be an OPTION, though, not a requirement!

And it seems the "ignore stack groupings" option on smart albums has been replaced by the (surprisingly) more useful "include stack picks only." The way smart albums work in Aperture is a little different than in previous Aperture versions. It's almost like it automatically ignores stack groupings, but still lets you know when an image is part of a stack. It indicates, for example, that both of these images are 5-star, but they are 2 of 5 total images in the stack. It just doesn't show those other 3 images.

As for the jumpy scrolling: That's just straight up stupid. I can't for the life of me figure out why they swapped out the intuitive, logical smooth scrolling of Aperture 1.5 for this jerky ridiculousness. I really hope my dozens of complaints get through for the next update.

Now for the reasons TO upgrade:

- Vignette tool: Incredibly handy
- Smoother straightening: This was a major frustration point for me in 1.5
- Metadata and Projects panels in the HUD: Full-screen mode just got useful
- Retouch tool: Surprisingly effective
- Flip tool: FINALLY
- Interface: I can customize this thing until it's unrecognizable and it makes better use of my screen real estate
- Tether: So easy to do
- Customizable hot keys: I love hot keys even more now
- RAW Processing: WAY better results than in 1.5
- Background export: I can keep working? WHILE images are exporting?! Sweet!
- Faster: Don't ask me how, it just is

Here are some images from my first batch using Aperture 2 - an engagement photo shoot for my awesome friends, Bubba and Lisa. The new adjustment tools made my job much quicker and easier. Thanks Aperture! (queue cheesy 80's high five)

P.S. You may notice the large majority of my recent work is all portraiture stuff. Don't fret, nature is still my main game. It's just that summers in Southern California for the nature photographer, shall we say, leave something to be desired. The weather is boring, the heat is relentless, the crowds are ridiculous and the vegetation is...crispy. I'm not a sell-out and I'm not money-motivated (but I do need to, you know, eat). I wouldn't be doing this portraiture work if I wasn't loving it.

Storm Drain Shoot

I did a photo shoot with a friend of mine the other day. We went down to a storm drain in Irvine that has some really awesome graffiti. It was a lot of fun and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Here are some of the final products. Click any to see a larger version.

Utah: Land of Huge Trains (and hot chicks)

I took a little trip to Utah over the weekend for a family reunion. I wish I could say I had some awesome pictures as a result of this little vaca, but nay. It was only a couple days and my agenda for the weekend was spending some quality time with the extended family. Not the kind of trip where I can venture off into the wilderness for a little one on one time with me and the landscape.

I did, however, get to check out Union Station in Ogden. There are some gigantic trains there. I had no idea how big some of these old-timey trains really are. That picture above - that's my brother next to one of them. He's about 6-foot tall. Driving one of these things must feel like you're driving a building. Especially for when they were made, they must...

Alright, enough about the trains. I'm stalling. There are a ton of hot chicks in Utah. That's what this post is really about. In all the places I've been, Ogden, UT has the highest density of smokin' hot ladies I have ever seen! I live in Orange County. You'd think "the OC" would be the hotspot for hot girls. Not so. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying OC girls, or girls in any other part of the country, are less attractive than Utah girls or that there are fewer. I'm just saying that, per capita, the density of beautiful 20-something to 30-something women in Utah is off the charts. Utah must be the mecca for hot chicks. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was a new gorgeous woman standing there, walking by or taking my order. It was mind-boggling! I couldn't tell you why this is - in fact, I don't really care. But it is true. I even confirmed this observation with 3 other guys.

So my point: No point really, just wanted to give everyone a head's up in case you 20-something bachelors out there pass through Utah. Keep your eyes open.