Dane

My friend, Dane, shot from the hip at my sister’s ranch

The original image, straight from the camera.

Some quick notes on the image processing. He’s a black dog shot on a bright overcast day, so he’s almost gone in the original image. Luckily I shoot RAW so there was plenty of latitude for processing in Lightroom. After some color balancing to warm up the shot, I used the local brush to select all of Dane and boosted his exposure by .80 and bumped up the Clarity a bit. Added a little bit of vignetting to the shot. That’s all I did, but it gave it a bit of an HDR feel – not sure why.

Gooey Goodness

We got a hold of this for Kevin’s birthday. It took a bit to get it to flow properly, but once it did – wow. Delicious and fun. Strawberries, marshmallows, poundcake, bananas, Starburst(!?) and more were available for bathing.

Eventually followed with this:

Fun. Fetti.

SF Bay baylands, shot from a Southwest Airlines flight after having just taken off from San Jose. I’m a sucker for the colors and patterns.

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education Center at the top of the frame.

Parking for trucks in an industrial yard in Alviso, CA.

Le Ovo

We took a fieldtrip with our students to see Cirque du Soliel’s Ovo in San Jose. The show was entertaining, creepy, and wondrous all wrapped up into a big egg. I took this photo while people were entering and finding their seats, and right before one of the ushers told me photography wasn’t allowed inside the big top. I would have loved to have been able to shoot during the show – the characters, lighting and shadow play were fascinating. As it was, I had to just relax and let them take me on the journey. Sometimes I forget that not taking pictures can be rewarding, too.

Jim Cameron on stage

Sunday night was the annual VES Awards. This year we honored Jim Cameron with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ed Catmull with the Georges Melies Award.

Bill Paxton did the introduction, which was part honor and part roast (“Jim calls his parents on his birthday to congratulate them.”).

Read more about the Visual Effects Society.