Look above the San Diego County beaches and you won’t have to wait long for a flock of pelicans to pass overhead. In graceful flight, they travel back and forth along the shoreline in formations. They’re fun to watch, but don’t get right under them. You know what can happen, so wear a hat just in case.
It was the annual Easter sunrise service atop Mt. Helix, in La Mesa, just a few miles east of San Diego. Everything went as planned, except for the lack of the sun and the threat of rain, but that didn’t matter. The meaning of the service was not lost on those who came to worship and rejoice in the true meaning of Easter. More Photos.
San Diego is home to a yearly menu of races. Just about everything from the Marathon to 5Ks. They all attract thousands of people from all over. Having shot them many times offers the knowledge of what the lay of the land is, but also presents the challenge of how to be different. Getting a clean finish line shot of the men’s and women’s winner for the sports pages is a must. After that, almost anything goes. I like to take these opportunities to experiment and see what I can do to be different than the last time I shot the same race. The exposure was 1/8 of a second at f8 on ISO 50 with the lens set at 35mm. The camera was panned left to right during the exposure. More Photos.
I’m a sucker for big airliners, time exposures, and the angles that offer different points of view than we see in San Diego. While on a visit to Los Angeles, I ventured to LAX where everything with wings and engines departing and arriving to and from all parts of the World can be seen and heard day and night. It had rained almost continuously for the two days prior to my visit, so the air was clean and clear. Just a few blocks away from the airport is a neighborhood on a hill that overlooks half of the airport, so it was just a matter of setting up the camera on a tripod, playing with the exposure until I got what I wanted for the light streaks, and then waiting for the right opportunity to fly by. The exposure was ¼ of a second at f5 on ISO 400 with a 300mm lens. I followed the plane as it took off and kept firing the camera continuously. Only one or two frames with the right light streaking, sharpness and silhouetting was the result.Howard Lipin
For the first time in six years water flows over the Lake Hodges Reservoir spillway in Escondido, just north of San Diego. A somewhat rare occurrence considering just a few months ago the water level in the lake was dangerously low, only 20 percent full due to the seemingly never ending drought. My original idea was to shoot the water at sunset, and hope for a combination magenta/blue sky, or as I like to call it, Sky Blue Pink. But Mother Nature wouldn’t cooperate. The sky was overcast and no sunset. In color it looked pretty lifeless, so I desaturated the color to make it turn into black and white, and then boosted the contrast. The exposure was for 2.5 seconds at f20 on ISO 50 with a 70-200mm lens set at 200mm on a tripod and triggered with an electronic cable release.
When over 1,000 Buddhist statues were moved to the new location of the store that sells them, it became a three-block pilgrimage. Followers from all over the area converged to move the statues in this spiritual way. Participants chanted, Om Mani Padme Hum, the Mantra of Compassion, during the short trek.
When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks, people listen. It also attracts photographers jockeying for position trying to get a photo better than everyone else. Conventions by their very nature are difficult places to shoot something different. The light is terrible, the access beyond the front of the stage is almost impossible, and when a camera shutter decides to blow, it further limits what can be done. That’s what happened while I was photographing the man a person attending the speech was overheard saying is more important than the President.
I like a good rain. It cleans the air and makes for interesting cloud formations after the rain stops. I didn't have a lot of luck chasing many of the formations in San Diego, so I went to East San Diego County, and La Mesa, where I found the American flags and a pretty good set of clouds above. It may be the first full day of Spring, but don't tell us that. Between one and two inches of rain fell in less than 24-hours.
I was going through some photos shot last year and came across Charger Girls tryout photos. It might be a long while before they grace the sidelines of football games as the NFL owners and the players, play a 9 billion dollar game of chicken. More Photos.
As political unrest spreads from one country to the next in the Middle East, protests in The United States supporting the ouster of one dictator after another continues. One Sunday afternoon a group of protestors took to the streets of San Diego calling for the end of the regime in Iran. Most of the protestors themselves are from Iran and other countries in the region, and many were reluctant to give their names. They fear what might happen to family members still there.
Just about everyday the price of gas keeps rising, the result of revolutions going on in faraway places around the World. I have a feeling we're going to be photographing gas stations for a while, so finding different ways to do it is the challenge.
It seldom snows in San Diego County low enough on the mountains so it can clearly be seen from the downtown skyline. When it does, it's a big deal. Like everything else weather related in this semi-arid desert, we make a big deal out of it while the rest of the country looks at us and says, so.....what's the big deal. Because it happens so seldom, we like to make a big deal out of it, savor the moment, and take pretty pictures of it.
