A snowy and cold South Bend night. Shot on the iPhone 13 Pro.

A cold morning in January. Taken with the iPhone 13 Pro.

It is Summer here in the Capital District of New York now. The temperature is increasing and the foliage is completely filled-in. I have noticed a large number of American Robins this year feeding in our yard; sometimes seeing four or more at the same time hanging-out in the grass.

Taking a stroll through the yard with the Canon 7D Mark II, I came across this juvenile American Robin hiding amid the underbrush bordering our lawn. Using the Canon EF 100-400MM F/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens, I slowly moved to within about eight feet of the bird and was able to use the lens to zoom-in closely to photograph the bird while it perched in the under brush.

The color photos shown here were post-processed in Adobe Lightroom and the black and white photo was edited in Adobe Photoshop with the Nik Software Silver Efex plug-in.

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Continuing our California vacation series, on this day we visited the campus of Stanford University. The weather was gorgeous and the sky was bright blue which contrasted nicely with the campus’ California Mission themed architecture.

We walked through the main quad and adjacent quads, the Stanford Memorial Church, the bookstore, and out to the athletic complex and the football stadium. All photos were taken with the Fujifilm X100F handheld.

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After leaving Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we headed to the scenic 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach.

Stopping frequently to take photos and enjoy the amazing views of the ocean and wildlife, including many birds, seals, and possibly the world’s fattest squirrel, we eventually ended up in Carmel. The day was overcast and gray leading to an interesting sky filled with clouds.

All photos were taken with the Fujifilm 100F handheld. To simulate a long exposure to capture the motion of the water, many of the images are compositions of stacked and blended individual images using Photoshop to mimic a long exposure.

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Continuing our California vacation, we drove down to Monterey one day to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. After touring the aquarium we spent some time walking Cannery Row and then took a drive down the coast on 17 Mile Drive ending our day in Carmel.

All photos were taken with the Fujifilm X100F.

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Continuing our California vacation series, on this day we woke early and drove out to Yosemite National Park and visited the Yosemite Valley.

This was my first visit to the famous park and I have to say pictures do not begin to capture the immense scale and beauty of the valley. Also, on the early July day we visited it felt as if there were a million people there. My advice: arrive early, park, and ride the available buses; parking is scarce as the day progresses.

All photos were taken with Fujifilm X100F. Several of the included images are a composite panoramas of single images created in Photoshop because the scale of the natural features could not be captured close-up in a single 22mm image with the X100F.

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Day 3 in San Francisco. On this day, we drove into downtown San Francisco and visited the Palace of Fine Arts, famous Lombard Street, and Coit Tower. Later in the day we drove north over the Golden Gate Bridge and up to Muir Woods National Monument.

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Today’s post is a summary of Day 2 in San Francisco from our 2019 Summer Vacation. On this day, we drove downtown early and parked; walking the town throughout the day. Destinations were the Ferry Building for breakfast, Chinatown for lunch, the Modern Museum of Art to view the Andy Warhol exhibit (among others), and finally Pier 39 to view the seals, Alcatraz, and people watch. We got our steps in this day.

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Finally. I have been working on these images from our 2019 Summer vacation to San Francisco, the Bay Area, and surrounding attractions for almost a year now. 2019 was a hectic and busy year culminating in a significant medical event near the very end that took me out for quite a while. 2020 … well … it’s been a year of recovery, social distancing and work from home. All new experiences for me. This Summer vacation trip now seems like it was a lifetime ago.

The next several posts will be a photographic summary of our 10 day trip to Southern California. As usual, I had my Fuji Film X100F with me as we explored San Francisco and its surroundings by car and on foot.

On the first day, we visited the California Institute of Technology, Golden Gate Park, Ocean Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Fisherman’s Wharf.

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We have welcomed two new puppies into our home this past month.

The second is Jake, a Black Labrador Retriever.

We have welcomed two new puppies into our home in the past month.

The first is Arthur, a Golden Retriever.

It has been a busy Winter and Spring which has slowed the picture taking and posting down quite a bit. Throughout the Spring I have been mostly photographing my son’s soccer games.

For Father’s Day Weekend, we spent a couple days in Burlington Vermont for a soccer tournament. We stayed downtown at the Marriott Courtyard, which was convenient for getting out-and-about to take some photos when we were not at the soccer field. I managed to walk just short of 10 miles while out taking pics; visiting Church Street, the lake shore, and the University of Vermont during the weekend.

Typically I take the Fuji X100T for travel photography, but I decided to only travel with one camera bag this weekend. This meant the Canon 7D Mark II was the camera body available and I put the EF 135MM F2L lens on for most of the pictures this weekend; only going to the 50MM F1.8 when I was at the University of Vermont. I love the 135MM L lens and it is great for portraits, however not so great for shooting architecture. Many of the wide (and long) shots are compositions of multiple photos stitched together in Adobe Lightroom. It does feel great on the 7D Mark II and makes for a well-balanced setup. Walking around, while not as discrete and compact as the Fuji, is manageable and I get quite a bit more reach than the 35MM equivalent Fuji.

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There are a number of Eastern Cottontails that have taken up residence on our property. The rabbits mostly are harmless with the exception of the early-summer vegetable garden, which we have fenced off this Spring. The bunnies also attract the hawks and owls periodically, who do a decent job of keeping the bunny population in control.

The photos here were taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and the Canon EF 100-400MM F/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens handheld in the yard from about ten feet away from the rabbit. Color adjustments were done using Adobe Photoshop CC and bokeh adjustments were applied with the new Nik Analog Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop from DxO. I’m happy to have the Nik Collection back because I really missed Silver Efex Pro from black and white conversions; there is just something about that software that just works.

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