S.F. Zoo

OK, this blog has been used for the sole purpose of my Photography class up until this point, but now that the semester is over I think I'm going to keep this one going rather than start a new blog altogether. It will probably end up with a lot of pictures though!

So .. Saturday was a fun day with Karolina! It's so sad, we don't get to see each other as much now that she's not working at Target anymore. We were talking about going to San Francisco and we narrowed our choices down and decided to either do Pier 39 or the S.F. Zoo. We ended up going to the Zoo since we did Pier 39 last time and it's been ages since either of us have gone.

In true San Francisco fashion it was cold and windy! My poor little fingers could barely hold my camera steady five minutes in!!


Karolina right before we started off our day on an African safari!


I lost my headband in the hood of my sweater like an idiot.


Look who grew a set of antlers!! It was great, they have tons of these boards up around the Zoo where you can turn yourself into a whole herd of different animals. Karolina has the rest of those photos so I can't share them just yet.


Watching these two was pretty entertaining. They really looked like they were dancing some sort of routine and every time they squaked or whatever it is they do the sound their bills made reminded of me of all those plastic animated toys with the clamping sound they make every time they move.

Oh, and they are Marabou Stork, in case you were wondering. Fitting for the Mother's Day theme the Zoo is working with for the month of May.


I couldn't help myself when this kid decided to shove his fist in the lion's mouth. He's lucky he didn't end up with nothing but a bloody stump when all was said and done.


Lucky Lemurs! They get heating lamps!


That sure is one big kitty!


And lazy too!


Ever wondered how a Tiger would get into a pool? Well, he backs in so he can test the tempertature with his toes - of course!!


Karolina got to pet a little Hedgehog - and so did I. Their little spines feel so weird.

Believe me, I have so many more photos. When I get them all added to Flickr I'll post the link.

My final and more

So I think I have decided that this Blog isn't going to disappear with the end of this semester. It'll give me something to do over the summer, that's for sure.

Now, for my final. I decided to use a series of shots that I took while I was in Disneyland for a few days back in March. Let's just say I took a lot. I had it in my mind while I was there that I would shoot the final project while we were there but I got a little distracted and didn't really remember until the one night that I stayed in the park until closing with my tripod because I wanted to do some night shots which have never been my strong suit. I really wanted to do something that I wasn't used to so that was the solution. Of course it was also the one night we were there that it chose to rain. How joyous, really. Anyways, here are my four favorite shots (if you click in the images you should get the full-size).

A Day of Fun

I went out with a friend today to have a silly day outside and we found a hidden stash of bubbles in her garage so we decided to have some fun them today.









I have also finally finished editing the 1500+ photos I took at Disneyland and figured I would share a few of my favorites.


it's not always easy taking pictures while spinning in the crazy teacups

My Grandmother

The assignment that we're working on right now is to retouch a damaged photograph. I was on the verge of having to distress and image all on my own because we seem to have zero old photographs in my house! All that we have are old oil paintings it seems like, but no pictures. I didn't find any until about an hour before our first open lab. I don't even know what possessed me to look into an old lock box, but I did, and guess what I found?

It's a photograph of my grandmother (on my step-dads side) that I am absolutely in love with. Now the question is can I give it any justice?

Corruption & Sunshine

I always seem to get hit by some little mess when it comes to these assignments! This week I got struck by the corrupted files - what a mess! I haven't had a lot of chances to get night shots because of my work schedule, and the one time that I did I completely lost all of my images. I went to retrieve them with my card reader and my laptop wouldn't recognize the device and I couldn't figure out why until I troubleshooted with our PC. Sure enough I got that lovely little pop up message that said something along the lines of: Sorry! You're SOL today, the files you are trying to reach are corrupted. Fun times.

I'm going to see if I can get one more night in before turning in everything on Wednesday so I can have them on my contact sheet at the very least, but we'll see.

We did have some nice weather today though, so I had a little outdoor craft day. I love the sun!

Sharks Hockey

Just a couple of extra shots from last night's game of HP Pavilion and the boys on the ice. I played around with the levels and curves on these for the first time.

HP Pavilion

Last night I went to my first hockey in roughly 2 months. As much as I love hockey and the San Jose Sharks, let's just say that it was long overdue. I've been taking my cameras to games for roughly 3 years now, but until last night's game against Dallas, I've never challenged myself by shooting the whole game manually. It's not that easy. Actually, it's nowhere close to being easy. But I also got to test out my newest lens (55-200 mm), which was very much needed with my seats far away from the ice. Sports are never easy to shoot because of how fast the action can be, especially when you have shaky, cold hands! Too bad you can't take tripos in!

I had fun going around during the intermissions after each period of play (that is when I wasn't busy eating something) and here's what I shot: