Afternoon at the Lake

 This afternoon we headed over to Clearlake for an afternoon at the lake at Clearlake State Park. We had a great hike and got to see turtles, Acorn Woodpeckers and American White Pelicans along with a wide assortment of waterfowl. Naturally I dragged along my infrared camera. I had fun creating images of landscapes around the park. We couldn't turn down an invite for dinner! Chef Joe made us an incredible dinner of a beautiful green salad followed by a freshwater bass and bay shrimp soup over riced cauliflower. The finale was both terryaki and pesto salmon. What a superb meal and a wonderful afternoon. Enjoy the images! 

God's love and blessings to all, chris

Flutterbies

 Yesterday Lenore suggested we go down to the garden. I was all up for it as I haven't done much photography lately.  I grabbed my Canon EOS 7D and mounted a Tamron 180mm macro lens on it. When we arrived at the garden I did a slow walk through looking for something to photograph. The first thing I noticed was that there was a lot of butterflies. They were fluttering around a Butterfly Bush and some tall Zinnias. Just the perfect height for photography. I had a great time just standing next to the bush. There were Painted Ladies and Skippers coming and going. One Monarch floated by but it didn't stay long enough to get a good photograph. I'm sure it is half way to Monterrey by now! Last night I edited the images and here are three of my favorites.  God's blessings upon your day, chris

Simple Set Ups

The past three mornings I went out into the yard and created some simple set ups. On the first day I duct taped a branch to the side of a small platform feeder  about ten feet out from one of our bedrooms. Within minutes of setting it up the birds were using it.  I got some nice images from it. The second morning I grabbed an old knothole feeder I had lying around and I used some wood screws to attach it to the same post. The birds loved it and so did I. This morning I added a fall colored background behind the feeder. For some reason the birds weren't as cooperative. I had a long, long wait before the birds started using the feeder. Eventually they came in and  I was able to create some images. I hope that you are all enjoying your week. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Wave Therapy

Last week I spent a late evening on the Mendocino coast watching the sun go down and watching the waves roll in. The weather was perfect as it was about seventy degrees and the fog and smoke combined to create some amazing light. All of these images were created with my Canon EOS 7D MKII and a Canon 100-400 mm IS v.1 lens or a Canon EF -S10-22 mm wide angle lens. God's love and blessings to all, Chris  #teamcanonusa

Images From the William Schwerin Collection

Today I really dug in to one of the small boxes of B+W negatives from my Grandfather's collection of photography. I'm in possession of most of the negatives and the rest of his collection is spread across five different families. Which is just a nibble of the whole picture because my Grandfather photographed from before 1920 clear up until the late 1960s. He used a variety of cameras from medium format folders in B+W to 35mm color negatives and slide film. He even used a 110 instamatic for short lived period. He was quite prolific, photographing trips as a young merchant marine to family gatherings and social events. In addition to photography he was quite the entrepreneur. Running a variety of businesses during his lifetime. Schwerin Brake shop that he founded is still in business on Bush St in San Francisco today. Here are some images I discovered today.  God's blessings to one and all,     

Chris

Finding My Grandfather in Me

Just recently I restarted setting up the process to digitally record my Grandfather Schwerin's vast collection of negatives and prints. In cleaning out our garage I discovered even more brake boxes of negatives that I had forgotten we even possessed. They were in brake shoe boxes because he owned a brake shop, Schwerin Automotive, on Bush Street in SanFrancisco. It's still in operation today. His collection is a mish mash mix of everything which brings me to my main point. I'm pretty much the same way. Maybe slightly a bit more organized only because I haven't had relatives along the way combing through my stuff and tearing apart photo albums and boxes. His collection is so very much like mine sitting out in our garage right now. His images are in negative sleeves and brake boxes while mine are in slide sheets and slide boxes. Either way it is a beautiful mess.

God's love and blessings to all, Chris

New Norm

It has now become the new normal that late summer and almost all of fall is the fire season where I live in the coastal mountains of Northern California. It is really hot and dry. People are nervous. I check on Calfire and the local community fan page whenever  I hear sirens or helicopters.  Our phones are all set up for NIXL reports in the case of fires. We have a to go box packed and ready to go in our living room.  Sadly we should have two boxes but like many others we haven't gotten around to getting the rest of it ready.  Hopefully I can finish that after  I finish posting this. Normally we are smoke free but this past week there has been an offshore breeze blowing the smoke from the August fire complex directly to us. The air quality has been thick and unhealthy. Visibility was knocked down to less that a 1/4 mile. At times i couldn't see past the trees in the backyard. I was just a thiock wall of gray.  This morning the ocean breeze kicked in and pushed the smoke eastward the other way. Here are two images I captured of this mornings sunrise over the Little Lake Valley and the Mendocino Range. Both images were captured with a canon EOS 7D camera with a Canon EF 28-200mm lens. AV mode, ISO 800 at F 13.0 .  God's blessings and safety to all the first responders out there dealing with the fires.