Christmas Tree Bokeh!

Over the years I’ve seen blurred images from Christmas lights and thought, that’s cool! Once in awhile I’d give it a go. This year I found a beautiful tree that my Mom decorated and started taking photos of it. I first started with regular in-focus images and slowly started to turn the focus ring out of focus. I then started playing with the zoom ring as well!

I’m quite pleased with the images! Here are a few more(Also, Here’s my Bokeh Gallery for better viewing and options to purchase):

Can you find the Duck?

When you’re at THE WAVE you can hike up the hill a bit and find more pools and more gnarled rocks! A friend of mine pointed out what looks like a duck taking a drink of water in this scene. I hadn’t noticed it until he mentioned it. Can you see the Duck?

I used the Dynamic Contrast filter in Perfect Photo Effects 9.5 to subtly pull out the details in this image. I can’t wait to get my hands on the up coming Perfect Photo Studio 10, which is due out soon.

THE WAVE at Paria Canyon Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness

A definite “Bucket List” Item for any Photographer or Adventurer!

THE WAVE
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The Wave is specifically located in the North Coyote Buttes area. It’s just across the border into Arizona. From Kanab you’ll take Highway 89 towards Page, AZ and then look for HouseRock Rd. which happens to be a dirt road. Take HouseRock Rd to the Wire Pass trail head and that is the trail to THE WAVE. There is a secondary way through Jacob’s Lake if the top of Houserock Rd been washed out as there are a few washes that you have to cross, a 4WD is a good idea! THE WAVE is an area protected by the BLM which has set it up as a permitted area. 20 permits are distributed each day through a lottery system. 10 are granted via an internet lottery and 10 are granted through a daily lottery at the Kanab, UT BLM office. The daily lottery is held each day for passes granted the following day! You can’t show up at the office and win a permit to go in that day, if you win it is only for the next day only! It’s a true lottery for 10 spots at the office. I’ve sat through 3 lotteries at the office and there have never been less than 90 people entered for the 10 slots. At the office you sign up as a group up to 6 people and you can’t enter the lottery more than once at the office, so you can’t sign up 6 times for each of the people there. Online is a different story each of the 6 can technically enter for 6 slots which gives you a slightly better chance, but also realize that everyone else is doing the same thing online. We won our permits through the online lottery. I personally didn’t win but was fortunate to have a friend that did win and allowed me to tag along and I would have done the same had I won.  Check out the BLM Wave Permit page for the latest info.

Obviously a few will ask, What if I don’t get a permit and just hike in, without a permit?

There are a few reasons:

1. The area is a protected land that will hopefully survive human interaction for generations to come
2. It can be dangerous as there have been deaths due to heat and dehydration as there really isn’t a well defined trail and it’s easy to get lost. We met a lady from the BLM office at the trail head at 5pm to ensure that all permit holders had made it out safely. I’m not sure if she’s there everyday or not, but they want to ensure that everyone gets out and is ok. The BLM provides detailed maps with photos along with your permit.
3. It’s also just not cool as there are some that have spent years applying for permits and have not won. The day we went in there was a couple that had applied for the Lottery 5 times and finally won on try #6. They were very upset when a couple of girls showed up at 7am and hiked in. Granted the two girls hiked in and out without getting into trouble, but the BLM office was notified about their incursion.
4. If by chance they happen to send a BLM Park Ranger out and find those without permits there is a ticket and a fine give to those with out permits. The fine is in the hundreds of dollars, and can go higher based on circumstances.

Witnessed this amazing sunset over the South Coyote Buttes

Paria Canyon Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area

Our first visit to this area was in the middle of the day with no hopes of making sunset as we had other places to go. That previous visit was enough to know that I wanted to one day come back and stay for sunset! After a cloudy afternoon the cloud deck lifted just enough at sunset to turn the whole area pink!

Pink Reflection – South Coyote Buttes
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More images from South Coyote Buttes can be found here: http://www.sandquistphotography.com/Collections/Southwest/South-Coyote-Buttes-Vermillion-C/

South Coyote Buttes is a BLM permit area that requires a 4WD to get there. I fell in love with the area after my second visit, maybe that had to do with the fantastic sunset with incredible clouds!

Ok, I admit I’m a Disney Fan! I enjoy spending a week at Walt Disney World. I enjoy spending a few days at Disneyland too! I find the response I usually get when I mention that we spent a week in Florida, at Walt Disney World, in July interesting. The usual response is, “Ugh, you seemed to survive”, or “well you have little kids”.

I like it too! Yes, there are many other places on my list to visit, but right now Disney World works! I don’t mind the crowds, I do mind the expense(but who doesn’t), I enjoy the experience and the energy!

I also get a chance to take a few photos along the way too! Here’s a little different capture of the Spaceship Earth at EPCOT.

Had fun trying a few iPhone Vertical Panoramas… The iPhone’s camera ability to capture these is quite remarkable.

Here are two examples:

Vertical iPhone Panorama at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Cinderella’s Castle Vertical iPhone Panorama at the Magic Kingdom

Anyone with an iPhone can shoot vertical panoramas by holding the phone in a horizontal orientation when taking a panorama!

On a recent trip to Walt Disney World I packed all my camera gear tripod included on the airplane with the idea that I would attempt to do some night photography at the parks!

Our first day was spent at the Magic Kingdom with plans to take a break during the afternoon Monsoons to go hang out at the room  and spend some time in the pool if the weather permitted. Then head back into the Magic Kingdom for the Parade and Fireworks.

I grabbed my tripod and camera and headed back to the park with my family. I was a bit worried that security might say something to me about my tripod as there are signs posted at every entrance that “Selfie Sticks” are not allowed in any Disney Park.
Thankfully, tripods are still allowed and I trudged on. We find a place near the theater to sit and wait for the Parade with the idea to follow the parade up Main St. and find a spot to set up for the Fireworks at the end of Main St. The plan worked perfectly! I found my spot on a little rise in the middle of Main St. Not wanting to leave my little rise in the middle of the street I allowed a few people to filter in, in front of me. This was fine until the lady showed up with her LED Mouse Ears! I asked nicely if they could be turned off, or taken off during the show and the answer to both questions was no. So I got a few nice Firework shots with glowing mouse ears obscuring the bottom of the castle. I knew I was going to capture a few heads in the frame, but I wasn’t planning on the ears…

Oh well, it was still good fun! I chose an aperture of ƒ/6.7 and a 3 second shutter speed at ISO 200… I was pleased with the streams and colors. After looking through firework photos from the evening the glowing pink ears are starting to grow on me…

I’m still not sure where the best place is to capture the Fireworks at the Magic Kingdom… I’m thinking the only way to really good ones is either a lightly populated night, a special VIP spot, or a two foot taller tripod!

I made my family suffer through the first night (they are not big Firework fans, they can take them or leave them… ) and so we never sat through another show so I didn’t get a chance to try again!

In the Summer of 2014, I spent the first week of July in the Southern part of Iceland! I took over 3500 still images! Most with my Canon 5D Mark III and many with my trusty iPhone 5S. I was trying to figure out how to preserve all those images so that they could be viewable in some way. Not all are keepers, but all tell part of the story.

I dumped all the photos into Lightroom and made some minor edits(in hindsight maybe I should have cropped the vertical images to get rid of the black bars on the sides, or just selected the horizontal ones, I don’t know). I then exported all the images in their full resolution as JPEGS into a folder order by number. I then opened up those images as an Image Sequence in the Pro version of Quicktime 7(Note this does not work with Quicktime 10, you need Quicktime 7 PRO). This creates the video which can then be imported into iMovie or the editor of your choice. I have very limited video editing skills, so this is an area that I need to work on, but I added a few stills and slowed down and sped up a few areas.

I am sure there are a few different ways to accomplish this, but this worked well for my needs.

In the end I think it’s a fun way to take all the photos from a trip and turn them into something..

Today’s photo is a Yellow Lilly from my Mother’s garden.

Taken with a Canon 5D Mark III and edited in Adobe Lightroom CC and Perfect Photo Suite 9.5

Recently my son and I ended up at the Apple Store to kill sometime!

Killing time at the Apple Store can be dangerous to one’s pocket book!

My son we playing with the various iPad Air and iPad Air 2’s and trying to figure out which would would be best for him! Meanwhile I was hanging out by the Apple Watch table. I have been thinking about getting an Apple Watch since they were introduced but wasn’t sure. I haven’t worn a watch in probably 10 years and had barely missed one.

There are a couple of things that interested me about the Apple Watch. One is Health Tracking, being able to get quality heart rate data while exercising is intriguing. Another is the ability to better manage calendar items and short text notifications. I have never been in the habit of checking my iPhone calendar even after I have it synced with the family calendar, I still miss stuff and get in trouble for not being aware of events. Also, there are times when you get a quick text message, like “coffee?” or something rather trivial, but still important and I have to dig my phone out of my pocket to check the message. Granted, both of these are “first world” problems and in the scope of world hunger and California’s water problem no big deal. As a fan of tech these were reasonable justifications in my mind.

So I eventually started chatting with one of the employees at the Apple Store and started discussing these items of interest. After that conversation I walked out of the Apple Store with a Smoke Grey Apple Watch Sport! I’m currently compiling a list of items that I find helpful about the Apple Watch!