Lake Arrowhead

A few weeks ago, my husband took me on a surprise photo shoot to Lake Arrowhead Village.  We arrived at sunset and the lake looked peaceful and beautiful.  For me, every photo shoot is an adventure and a learning experience.  I am lucky to have a husband who is familair with camera settings and he has an excellent eye for lighting, but most of all he is extremely patient with me.  I positioned my tripod and adjusted the camera settings then started taking pictures of the lake. Then I turned around, and I was mesmerized of what I saw, it was like a postcard of Lake Arrowhead.  The sunset was just about gone, the reflection of the lights danced on the water beautifully and in the restaurant people were enjoying themselves at dinner.  It was a great evening and a successful photo shoot.  On this trip, I learned that I need to prepare a camera equipment checklist of the following items:

• is the battery charged and is it in your camera bag
• place extra memory cards your bag
• know how to unfold and fold the tripod
• take test shots and make adjustments as necessary
• remember to breathe and enjoy the moment

My Lightroom Experience

On Sunday, August 19th my husband and I spent the day learning about Adobe Lightroom Classic Creative Cloud (CC). The class was held at Samy’s Camera in Santa Ana, CA.  Our Lightroom instructor, Natasha Calzatti explained and navigated Lightroom like an expert user.  For me, an amateur photographer learning about composition and space, this session helped me gain a better understanding of highlights, shadows, vibrance, and white balance.  This is my takeaway from the class:

·      Lightroom edits photos by adjusting pixels, unlike Photoshop which embeds pixels.

·      Calibrating your monitor. It’s important because every monitor displays colors differently.  Calibrating your monitor will help obtain true colors on your prints.  There are several tools on the market that you can use, such as Spyder 5 Elite or X-Rite Photo Color Calibration, but please do your own research.  

·      Lightroom works from a Catalog and picture Collections are pulled and viewed within a virtual space.  The original images are never physically altered.

·      Use Metadata to tag, identify, and organize your pictures.  This will help you quickly find images once you have thousands in your collection.

·      Lastly, in Lightroom there is no saving of images.  You have the ability to export an edited copy of images to various avenues such as to a hard drive, email format, website or printing lab. 

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed this class, the highlight of my day was my husband surprising me with a new Canon EOS 6D full-frame camera with 20.2 megapixels. We finished our day with dinner at 3-Thirty-3 Waterfront in Newport Beach.  I can’t wait to venture out and shoot photos with my new camera and apply the lessons learned in our Lightroom class.  New photos will be posted here and my portfolio section. Please come back and check them out.

‘Til next time…

3-Thirty-3 Waterfront view from our table

#CABO50

My husband's 50th Birthday celebration in Cabo was a success!  We were blessed to have shared five days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with a few of our family members.  Cabo has many beautiful hotels along the Sea of Cortez, but we stayed at the Grand Solmar Land's End Resort located on the Pacific side.  The Grand Solmar Resort is spectacular with breathtaking views of the ocean waves crashing against the rocks and shore.  This definitely was one of those five-star hotels with exemplary service.  This was a great opportunity for my husband to show me a few tricks in taking high quality photographs.  We also captured special moments in celebrating life with our family.  We hope you enjoy these photos.

View fullsize

18mm f/11 1/400 sec  ISO 100

18mm f/5.6 1/4000 sec ISO 100

18mm f/4.5 1/1250 sec ISO 100

Grand Solmar Land's End Resort 

#Cabo50

Today I’m feeling blessed and excited. We’re traveling to Cabo to celebrate my husband’s birthday and more than anything, to celebrate the man that he is. Amazingly smart, strong, and handsome. Steve is my best friend and we enjoy life together.  He has opened my eyes to photography and I find it so enjoyable and relaxing.  During the next few days in Cabo, I’ll be updating my blog and documenting our vacation in Cabo through a lens.  Stay tuned...

First Photography Class

My first class in photography was held at Samy's Camera in Santa Ana, Ca. The class taught me the basics like how to stand, hold my camera, what all the settings mean and what they can do. I also learned to remove the lens shade at night! I wish I had removed the lens shade for graduation photos.  Oh well, you live, laugh, and you learn. I believe these are life experiences.  Since my first class in photography and with the mentorship from my husband, I've been able to take some decent photos and have a much better understanding of camera settings and what they can do for me.  

You can find my most recent photos in my blog and more photos nested in my portfolio page.  Please check them out and let me know what you think. I still need to master night time pictures and a whole lot more.  My next class is Lightroom and I can't wait!