Fall Photos...so far

Today, I have done a whole lot of nothing.

For some reason, this year has been incredible busy.

I don't want to complain about how busy I have been because I have had some amazing opportunities this year.

But today, I really enjoyed staying home. Which gave me the chance to edit a few photos.

This week, I was able to take my camera with me to a couple of our favorite California locations, and take some photos at home.

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Pizza My Heart at Capitola Beach

Pizza My Heart at Capitola Beach

Capitola Pier

Capitola Pier

Homemade Vanilla Bean Scones

Homemade Vanilla Bean Scones

Strawberries

Strawberries

Thank You gift

Thank You gift

3Strands bracelets from Mercy House Global

3Strands bracelets from Mercy House Global

What photo is your favorite? And what have you been taking photos of?

Capture Your 365

Kind of a slow week for me on the photo prompts, but I will be sharing a couple of extra photos with you this week!

chocolate chip cookies
chocolate chip cookies

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

Day 146 – In The Kitchen: Our pastor’s son recently got married down in Southern California and they had a reception with our church family after their honeymoon. For the reception, the groom requested homemade chocolate chip cookies. So I baked a couple of batches of my favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (it is worth getting the trial membership for this recipe!)

smiles
smiles

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec

Day 149 – Smiles: Trying to get these two to cooperate for this picture was hilarious! They kept giggling and squirming. Not the sharpest image (shutter speed was too slow for the focal length), but I love how it captures the sweet relationship my children have for each other.

flowers
flowers

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec

Day 150 – Butterflies: There is no butterfly in this picture, but these flowers do attract hummingbirds quite often. Maybe I will be able to capture a butterfly or hummingbird picture one of these days.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have a couple of extra photos for you this week. Here is the first one:

stoppe reception
stoppe reception

ISO 400, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/50 sec

Remember the wedding reception I was baking the chocolate chip cookies for? This is the bride and groom. While I have never photographed a wedding (and I am not sure if I will want to!), I did have fun taking pictures at this reception.

San Francisco
San Francisco

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 sec

Remember this photo that I posted a few weeks ago from our photography field trip to San Francisco? I entered it into the Arts & Crafts contest at our local town festival last weekend. I ended up winning a first place ribbon and Best of Show! So exciting!

Ready to join in the fun? Be sure to visit Capture Your 365 to print out this month’s photo prompt list. Be sure to let me know if you are participating so I can visit your blog.

I went on a field trip!

Now I know I usually post something about Compassion on Mondays here on my blog, but I just have to share with you what I was able to do on Saturday this past weekend. Since last fall, I have been taking a photography class through a local photographer. He teaches through one of the charter schools, but he is open to having adults join in his classes, which I have really appreciated! My camera now sits in manual mode almost 99% of the time while I am shooting pictures, and I love having the control over the settings.

So on Saturday, our class went on a field trip to San Francisco for a whole day excursion. The city was quite foggy which was a little disappointing because I was really looking forward to going to a spot I had never been before. The plan was to end our day at the Marin Headlands around sunset time to get night time shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was not going to happen, there was just too much fog to make that trip over the bridge. So we started heading back home…or so we thought.

There is an island part way across the bay as you are driving back over the Bay Bridge. We decided to give it a try. So, with all of our camera gear and whatever warm clothing we had with us, we made our way across a hill to set up our tri-pods for some shots of the San Francisco skyline.

San Francisco

ISO 100, 135mm, f/22, 30 seconds

At first, it really wasn’t quite dark enough

San Francisco

ISO 100, 100mm, f/25, 30 seconds

Amazing what a difference a few minutes later can make

San Francisco

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

Then someone suggested that I open up my aperture and change my white balance settings in my camera. Can you see the light trails in the bottom right corner from a boat?

San Francisco

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

The only difference between the last picture and this one is the white balance settings. Which one do you like better?

13_May_SF no edit_005_edit

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

We did move around a bit on the hillside to get just a little different perspective

San Francisco

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

Again, the only difference in these last two photos is the white balance setting in the camera. Which one do you like better?

We were all out on the side of the hill for just over an hour shooting pictures. I had a great time adjusting settings, moving around to different spots, and learning how many white balance settings I have in my camera. There is always something new to learn, right? Now I have to tell you that these photos are straight out of my camera, I have not done any editing on them yet in Lightroom. I know they need a little work, so hopefully, I will have a bit of time this week to play around with these…or any one of the almost 300 pictures I took on Saturday.

Did you take pictures of anything fun this past weekend?