Dead Fish Tell No Tales

Just 2 of the hundreds of dead fish washed up from the Salton Sea

Salton Sea, California

April 2012

Fear

When photo excursions go bad:

For once, I remembered to pack the tripod, the right lens, had a charged battery, and most importantly, the initiative to get out and shoot! Being a lover of long exposures, I've been wanting to go out to Joshua Tree at night to shoot the trees, stars, cloud trails and wide open landscape since I bought my camera 3 years ago. Fast forward to Saturday night. It was just past midnight and we were 20 miles into Joshua Tree from the wrong entrance with hardly any gas...all the makings of a bad horror movie I would pay to watch. We couldn't bring ourselves to get out of the car into the surrounding blackness and instead bolted back towards the freeway. I've never seen my gas tank hit zero miles but lucky for us, the slight downhill slope on the 10 allowed us to roll into Chevron without the car breaking down.

Joshua Tree: 1, Sara: 0

March 2012

People Watching, International Edition Pt. 2

More backlogged from our honeymoon: Grumpy old men; People-watching people-watchers at Montjuic; Cool chick; Old couple in the park; Handsome construction worker at Sagrada Familia; Hug-a-boos on the street corner; Parc Guell cowboy.

I couldn't stop the black & white in Barcelona.

Barcelona, Spain

October 2011

Rain and/or Shine

The Eiffel Tower and Versailles (Versailles was the only place we could use the self-timer). 2 of maybe 5 photos of us together on our honeymoon. The scenery was more interesting anyway.

Paris, France

October 2011

People Watching- International Edition

Backlogged from our honeymoon: Couple inside Notre Dame; A very well-dressed toddler playing on a very dirty sidewalk; Children's cooking class on same sidewalk; Violinist at Sacre Coeur.

Paris, France

October 2011

Rice-a-roni

Before coming home from Monterey, we decided to spend an extremely quick weekend in San Francisco. It was freezing cold and we didn't do much other than shop and eat. I did manage to snap a few pictures here and there though.

Shopping in Union Square:

The GIGANTOR Forever 21, which I was very excited about (despite the hour-long line at the fitting rooms) because they had a huge Love 21 section. Bought this dress in magenta (the model's weird pose is hiding how cute this dress actually looks on) and this sweater (hate the large diaper safety pin closure, but it's so soft and comfortable so I just wear it open). The store was 3 floors; I only made it through 1.

Yerba Buena Gardens:

Conveniently located around the corner from our hotel and across the street from St. Patrick's Church (pictured below). It was sunny that afternoon (but still freezing!) so the grass was full of people laying out.

St. Patrick's Church:

Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco:

I didn't actually visit it but enjoyed taking pictures of this fountain out front. There was also a wedding procession leaving St. Patrick's Church next door, so I watched the wedding party while they were taking pictures on a trolley parked out front. It wasn't as creepy as that sounds...

And finally, it got too cold out so I went into a bookstore inside Metreon (right next to Yerba Buena Gardens) and bought this adorable little 8 oz bottle of Coke at a coffee shop.

So that's it, last Saturday in a nutshell. Happy Labor Day!

Lover's Point

On Thursday morning, my sisters and I drove out to Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. Our main goal was to get their before sunrise since it's one of the only spots on the west coast where you can see the sun rise over the ocean. I guess Lover's Point (formerly known as "Lover's of Jesus Point") has a unique east-facing location, and the rocks kind of cut out into the ocean, making the sun appear to rise over the water. Well, we made it on time, but unfortunately it was one of the foggiest mornings of the entire week and we weren't able to see anything. We still had some fun climbing the rocks and relaxing to the sound of the morning waves, and I had a chance to experiment with long exposures (something I've wanted to do for awhile). I love the motion and "airy-ness" (yes, I just made up a word) a long exposure can create in a photo. I was really hoping to catch the clouds moving and wonderfully blurred colors from the sun, but the fog made this impossible for an amateur like myself. Instead, I came up with these:

The mist in the photos is actually the waves crashing against the rocks. I almost lost my camera, tripod and self while hiking up and down these rocks but luckily, we all made it out safely. All of these photos, except the last, were 25-35 second exposures, so it was actually very dark while I was taking them. Ah, the magic of photography :)

*My sister was snapping iPhone pics of me with my gear as I tried my best not to plummet to my death

I definitely need to go back to Lover's Point when the weather is more permissible!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Fishies, penguins, turtles and lots of jellyfish!

Such a cool place to visit! Jellyfish really freak me out, mostly because of their alien resemblance (i'm deathly afraid of outer space, space travel and aliens), but I was taken aback by how vibrant and photogenic they are in a tank! I wish I had jotted down information about these sea animals, but I was too busy being snap-happy with the camera.

Pacific Seahorse

"These Latin lovers tango by moonlight. In the afterglow of the California sunset, these seahorses twirl and tango beneath the waves. Couples rendezvous each night during the breeding season to dance and renew their bond."

- Monterey Bay Aquarium

I wish I had better pictures of this! More fishy pics from the Aquarium coming soon.

Solvang!

a.k.a. Little Denmark, just miles from where I was born (Santa Maria, California). We stopped for a quick lunch at the Big Bopper Drive-In on our way up to Monterey last week. Such a sweet little town!

**Not shown are pictures of the Hamlet Hotel (so nerdily awesome) that I did take but can't seem to find.