Urban Waves

I just completed an assignment / contest submission for Rivera and Rivera Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. The guidelines were to document the city in a way that represents yourself, and your own artistic vision. Given my love for the ocean and LA's proximity to the coast, I decided to try and find waves in an urban environment. I focused on architecture with strong curves, reflection and pattern. I was actually pleasantly surprised by just how many wave like architectural abstractions I could come up with. Here is a composite of some of my final images.

Joshua Tree

I took some time off the weekend and escaped from my urban and coastal life to go to one of California's most beautiful national parks. Joshua Tree is only about 130 miles from downtown LA, and is an amazing pristine desert environment.

The joshua trees are everywhere and majestically rise out of the sand with their angular branches. After watching the sunset and shooting some silhouettes, I spent the rest of the evening gazing at the stars and the Milkyway overhead. It was great to see the sky again after so long in LA.

At 5 AM the next morning, I pulled myself out of my cozy sleeping bag to shoot some images at sunrise. As I was setting up my tripod I noticed a fox about 30 yrds away, but before I could change lenses he was gone. Next time I will be ready. Overall the trip was a well needed break, and I look forward to going back soon.

New Blog Feature!

From now on when ever I post new images I will be sure to include a short Tech Info blurb explaining what equipment I used, the lighting, and how I created the images. I hope this will be helpful to new photographers, and shed a little bit of light on how things get done.

I will also be posting some new gear profiles and work flow explanations in the future.

Aloha,

QD

Stand Up Paddel, Laperouse Bay, Maui

Right before I left Maui for Ca, I shot some stand up shots with long time friend Ashley Baxter down at Laperouse Bay. Laperouse is past Big Beach in Makena and is one of the most beautiful places on Maui. What makes Laperouse so special is that it is almost always offshore making it the perfect place to score flat water and escape the trades. The sunset was a bit hazy which made for some beautiful soft light.


Here are a few select photos that I quickly pulled out while going through all of the images.






Tech Info:

Gear:
I used my 70-200 f2.8 and 400 f2.8 for the land shots, and my 17-40 in an Aquatech housing for the water shots.

Lighting: Natural light, hazy diffused sunset.

I shot from a low angle to make Ashely stand out against the ocean surface. The shallow depth of field caused by using a wide aperture, really helps to make my subject pop from the background in the telephoto images.

Sunrise in Manhattan

I was going through and editing some images for a new project I am working on, and I came across this image from last year. Its one of my all time favorite barrel shots. I took this image on a small but very clean day of surf at Manhattan Beach. I didn't get much else from the session, but I did get this shot taken right at sunrise.

Maui in HD!

I have put together a short compilation of some of the stock footage I have been filming with my 5D Mark II. All of the footage was shot around Maui, from Hana, to Iao Valley, to Makena.

Makena Skim Sessions Vol.1

I have always had a desire to get back into filming and editing. I finally had some free time to put a quick short together with some of the clips I shot this summer. This is Volume 1 of a series of Makena Skim Sessions movies I will be producing. All the footage was shot exclusively with the 5D Mark II and edited in Premiere Pro CS4.


Makena Skim Sessions: Vol. 1 Summer 09

Location: Makena Beach
Riders: Kegan Conway, Chris Vail