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Massey Monday: She's been hanging out on a beach somewhere...

Perhaps it's time to bring Massey back...Massey Monday that is. She's been modeling all along, just we haven't been sharing. You can still catch glimpses of her in the distance every now and then (on her favorite beaches)...

See this image in our Portfolio along with the rest of them!

Thirsty Thursday: Throwback Film Love

Rambler: Beth
Drink at Hand: No. 209 Gin + tonic 

Well, its been awhile since we got our ducks in a row to post on a Thursday. Don't really have a good excuse other than that we've been busy. Nothing big, just lots of little stuff that take away from spending time with the photography blog. So, here we go, with a little throwback because, well, Thursdays. 

Between 2003 and 2007, we were lucky enough to live in Japan. Besides being just a beautiful country with amazing culture and melt-in-your-mouth fresh tuna sushi, its a country that takes its photography very seriously. Back in 2006 when these photos were taken, digital was quickly gaining momentum, but I believed that film was the purest form of photography. I had a Canon 20D, but I loved film. Terry had already embraced digital and was running amok and producing some great imagery with his Rebel, but I still loved my Canon Elan 7e. And when I really wanted to immerse myself in a creative shooting project, I'd take an old fully manual Nikon loaned to me from Terry's mom to get my film fix. Sure I had to wait a week to see the results, but I didn't mind. 

Part of my film love might have been the camera stores in Tokyo. There was one not far away in Tachikawa. They had long refrigerated cases of film, not unlike the dairy aisle in an American grocery store. Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa, 35mm, 120, negative, slide...it was all there. The Air Force base where we were stationed had a dark room, so I could even play around with my own black and white processing. 

When we left Japan, I no longer had a dark room or massive camera stores with huge film selections. I was busy with grad school, and I upgraded to a Canon 40D as shooting digital was just easier and far more affordable. Without access to a place to browse and buy film, and without a lot of time to shoot creatively, the film cameras sat idle in the camera cabinet. That idleness continued until a little over a year ago when our house was burglarized and both of my film cameras were stolen (and ironically the digital cameras were left untouched). Now I have no film camera and I miss having that option. 

So tonight, a few frames from a ski trip to Zao in Japan. The snow in Japan gets a lot of hype, and I can say that the powdery goodness is definitely worth the hype. The Zao snow monsters are unique, and as you can see I had a little obsession with trees at the time. Especially frosty trees. Sometimes I look back and cringe at my photographic technique (and am happy with the way I have evolved and progressed as a photographer), but I still love how pure these frames captured on film turned out. 

Might have to find myself another film body soon. But in the meantime, I have plenty of digital work to keep me busy! 

Thirsty Thursday: Moving Water

Rambler: Terry
Drink in Hand: Ice Water

Since we returned from Iceland, we've been stuck in two worlds...as far as photography is concerned. Our beloved Aperture is dead and we are migrating to Lightroom. Our Iceland images are the first of ours to live completely within the Lightroom workflow. While there are many things that Lightroom does better than Aperture, I'll miss its simplicity and the way the image was the highlight of the application. Such is life...adapt and overcome. I only really say this because learning a new tool is time consuming so processing images has slowed to a crawl. We're learning fast, but unlearning years of process and workflow is slow.

So, for tonight, it's just one image from Iceland. One of the many shots of moving water that we captured. More to come soon...promise.

Thirsty Thursday: Backyard Guitars

Rambler: Beth

Drink at Hand: Junipero G&T...now out of Junipero, time for a new gin to try!

Thirsty Thursday here again! Time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. Astute followers of this news outlet might remember that cool guitar featured in this week's Two Word Tuesday. Well, here's the rest of the story. 

We have some good friends who are getting married in about a month. A couple weeks ago the groom's sister hosted a wedding shower for the happy couple. The shower was really a thinly veiled excuse for us to all get together and drink a lot of wine. And somewhere along the way the guitars came out and we all sang along to familiar tunes in the bright California sun. 

And one in color because, well, strawberry. 

Get out there and enjoy some backyard music this weekend. 

Thirsty Thursday: Oak Trees

Drink in Hand: 2010 Barbaresco
Rambler: Terry

This post is for my Mom. During my parents' last day visiting us, Mom wanted to get pictures of nine different oak trees (she has a frame for nine pics). So, there we were driving around on the 101 between Monterey and Gilroy trying to find lone oak trees. We definitely found enough of them but I ended up only shooting a few of them. I'm pretty sure she able to get a least nine and I can't wait to see hers. Here's a few of mine. Believe it or not, it was a bright sunny day!

Thirsty Thursday: Luzern Night Bikes

Rambler: Beth
Drink at Hand: 2010 Longhand Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir

Good evening and welcome to another Thirsty Thursday...time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. Since its getting a little late, I figured a few night photos were in order.

We spent our second night in Switzerland in the beautiful medieval town of Luzern. Absolutely beautiful during the day, and thanks to our jet lag, we had plenty of time to explore at night, too. Thanks to a random (and apparently not so gentle) TSA baggage inspection, we were down to one tripod between the two of us. I let Terry have the tripod to take some photos of the city reflecting in the the river and I headed over to the car-free area.

Bikes were whizzing through the car-free area at a steady rate. I love visiting other countries where bicycles are the predominate mode of travel through the city. It was a cold night, the sky trying to spit rain, yet these hardy Swiss folks were simply going from Point A to Point B under pedal power. I bumped up the ISO of my new 5D Mark II to 3200, knowing that the increased noise would look good in black and white. So I played around panning and stalking the night riders. Here's what I came away with...

I think Thirsty Thursday is having a good influence on me tonight...I might actually go ride my bike this weekend, perhaps with camera in hand. We hope you can get out and have your own little adventure this weekend, too!

Thirsty Thursday: Color-Free Joshua Tree

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: Fog Head Chardonnay...Monterey County makes some yummy chards!

Welcome back for another Thirsty Thursday! Time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. I found out today that I might head to the desert for work in a few weeks (who knew you could grow lettuce in the desert?!), which made me think back to my trip to Joshua Tree National Park last year. I had the privilege of having the park shown to me by a couple of incredible local photographers who just wanted shoot with some friends for a few days. It was a fun week.

I revisited the photos from that trip in the archives this week (mainly because the "archives" are getting much too large for our storage space) and found a few I didn't share yet. In that group were 3 images that I processed in Nik's Silver Efex. I'm in love with Silver Efex (now Silver Efex 2) for black and white processing. So enjoy a few rockscapes from Joshua Tree. Visiting there in winter is really nice. Just make sure to bring some pilars to get the cactus spins out of your shoes.

Get out there and do something fun this weekend!