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Thirsty Thursday: Distant Bridge

Rambler: Terry
Drink in Hand: Ventana Red Table Wine

Once again, we find ourselves seemingly out of time to write a proper blog post...but perhaps that doesn't matter. Perhaps, it's okay to dig through the archived photographs. You never know what you'll find or what you'll end up posting. Tonight I took a few minutes to browse photographs from Switzerland, random hikes, the Alabama Hills, and even street photographs from trips to Portland. I ended up settling on just a couple coastal shots. I think I liked the wideness of the shots with the crystal clear sky. It makes you feel small and you can feel stress just fade away. You'd think I get tired of shooting the coast, but I don't. Such a beautiful coast. Sometimes I don't think we make over to the coast enough. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it!

Thirsty Thursday: On the Coast

Rambler: Terry
Drink in Hand: 2008 Cobblestone Chardonna

​So, it's been another long week.  Actually, to be honest, it's been a long couple of weeks.  I don't know what it is lately but it's been rough.  I'm not sure why but it has. I'm sure it's been just me.  I hope everyone else has had a good couple of weeks.  The highlight of last week was our short little trip down the Big Sur coastline. I think we may need to do this more often as neither of us has taken very many photographs this year.  2013 is currently making itself out to be one our thinnest years as far as photography is concerned.  Perhaps that's okay.  Maybe we'll finally be able to sift through our early photography years (a.k.a., 2004-07ish).  

We should probably try and get out a bit more...at least as far as shooting is concerned. There was something about being behind the lens again trying to capture the moment.  Trying to create a feeling.  I'm sure things will pick up as winter turns to spring and we get into the swing of things this year.  Until then though, you may be seeing some old photos of ours for Thirsty Thursdays​.  Here's too looking forward to the end of the week and the start of a couple days of break.  Perhaps raise your glass to taking a few more photographs.  Cheers!

 
 

Thirsty Thursday: Garrapata State Park

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: 2009 Redtree Pinot Noir

Another Thirsty Thursday is upon us once again...time to pour something yummy and plan out a weekend adventure. This week we highlight one of our favorite places to play with our cameras.

A few month ago, cash-strapped California released a list of state parks it intends to close by next summer in order to save money. There are 70 parks on the list. Beautiful places, and quite a few parks that Terry and I like to visit. One of the places on the chopping block is Garrapata State Park.

I was shocked to see Garrapata on the list. Its an incredibly beautiful and popular stretch of coastal highlands, rocky shorelines, and sandy beaches that is essentially the gateway to the Big Sur coast. Its one of our favorite places sunset spots, especially in winter when the passing winter storms produce spectacular clouds and some big waves.

I don't know if the state will close access to this strip of coastline. To be honest, I don't see how they could restrict access to the numerous trails that drop down to the beaches from the Highway 1 turnouts. I don't want to think about losing access to this beautiful area. A decision has been made that I don't understand. All we can do is soak up as many beautiful sunsets as possible before this little piece of natural heaven is taken away.

These photos are from February. It was a magical afternoon of shooting. You might recognize a few from our Flickr stream. We need to get back to Garrapata soon...before its too late!

If you'd like to visit Garrapata State Park yourself, head south from Carmel on Highway 1. The first turnouts are about 9 miles south of Rio Road in Carmel.

Hope you find yourself at one of your favorite places this weekend! Get out there and enjoy it!

Thirsty Thursday: Mystery Rolls

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: Naked Grape Pinot Noir (yeah, I bought it because of the name...don't judge me!)

Something a little different this Thursday...not so much about a cool place to go shoot, but rather about an attempt at shooting some film! About a month ago I walked into the local camera shop with 3 rolls of exposed Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white film in my hands. I bought this film when we lived in Japan...yep, that's right, purchased 2006 most likely. It was well past the expiration date! I found one roll already exposed when I was organizing some camera stuff when we moved into the new house. The other two rolls I took recently. Actually, that's not even true...I found my film camera with a 1/2 exposed roll in it. So I had a roll and a half of mystery images (I had no idea what that old stuff might be) and a roll and a half that I had shot within the last few weeks. I waited the requisite week to get the processed film back from the lab and then had to wait a few more days for Terry to scan the film with our Nikon CoolScan film scanner before I actually got to see what I had.

It turns out that the old "mystery roll" was pretty old...from 2008! That also means it was exposed, tossed in a box, moved Lousyana, endured the heat of that place, moved back here to California, and finally shown some chemical bath love. Back in '08 a friend was considering buying a digital camera, so I loaned him my digital camera when he went out to shoot with us at Point Pinos one evening, and I shot film with an old Nikon full manual camera. Here are a few from that evening.

I played around with the blur tool in Aperture and made this one look a little bit like a tilt shift. Best I can do since Terry won't let me get an actual tilt-shift lens.

A few months later we went to Yosemite. I guess I took the camera with me to finish that roll from the summer evening at the beach. I don't even remember having it with me. But of course I took a Tunnel View photo in black and white--because no one has ever done that before!

Fast forward to 2011...I decided to try a roll in my Canon Elan 7E on our way north along the coast to Pescadero. I used the Photodiox adapter with the Nikon 50mm manual lens. It was pouring down rain, but I couldn't let this bike go without a quick photo. Terry kept making fun of me because I kept looking at the back of the camera after snapping the shutter--but there's no instant feedback in the form of a LCD screen on the back of a film camera.

To finish off that roll I took the camera along on a quick hike with the dog in Ft Ord and shot a few here at home.

With all the bike riding / racing I'm doing these days, its not easy to get away to shoot for a whole day, much less an entire weekend. But changing up the routine in familiar locations proved fun. I got something different than my normal images and that makes me happy.

Get out and try something new or different this weekend. You might be surprised by the results!