Thursday, November 29, 2012

Kolob Flashback

I'm up at 3am and I figure it's as good a time as any to make another long overdue post.

I first visited Kolob Canyons a few years ago. It was snowy and icy at the time and quite picturesque. I drove away with a pretty nice photo of the mountains. I liked the photo so much that I put it on my Capital One credit card. So basically this is me reminiscing about that little road trip.
   

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Iron Gate Hollyhock

It has been a little over four months since I last updated this blog. Talk about slacking! So I figure a quick and easy post is in order. I say quick and easy because this photo is pretty much unedited outside of a little cropping and dialing back on the exposure.

This sun-backlit hollyhock was in front of the Iron Gate Inn in Cedar City, Utah. It's a nice little bed and breakfast that's just a few minutes walk from where we watched a surprisingly incredible performance of Les Misérables.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Welcome to Earth

I spent the fourth bouncing around. I started with breakfast with Chris and Sha and then hopped over to TC's Rib Crib to hang with Angie, Joe, Doug, and Jieun. Then it was back to Mountain's Edge for a BBQ with Edris and family/friends. Finally, went up to Summerlin to watch the Red Rock fireworks from Jieun's rooftop with Angie and Bawoo.

I basically just picked some settings (ISO 50, F/11, 30 seconds) and this was the first and only image I captured of the show. Aside from some levels, the image is unaltered. After the Station Casinos nine-minute light show, we had the perfect vantage point for all the illegal pyrotechnics going on around us. Great day overall.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Forest of Generals

When I visited Sequoia National Park last year, I didn't make it to General Sherman, the largest tree in the world by trunk volume. It was just too much of a hassle because of road construction and winter conditions. General Sherman is located in the so-called Giant Forest, aptly named because it is home to five of the ten most massive trees on Earth.

Here, you can see Laura and me to give you some scale.



We actually entered from the north and visited Kings Canyon National Park first (the sister park to Sequoia). Within General Grant Grove is (you guessed it) the General Grant tree. It is merely the second largest tree in the world.



I give credit to Laura for spotting the angle for the following photo. Good eye.



And finally, I decided to have some warped fun with panoramas. This is where it might have been fun to play with a fisheye.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Pike Place

I really only had one item on my Seattle to-do list and that was to visit Pike Place and see some flying fish. Well, the highlight for me was actually all of the awesome fresh fruit. The white nectarines they were handing out were extremely sweet. And this was the first time I had ever discovered Rainier cherries. I love how colorful and sweet they are.



As for the flying fish, I did get to see them. I wasn't sure where to go, but I noticed a crowd gathering around one particular seafood vendor. Although it's not the best photo, I'm happy to have caught anything at all.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Haystack Rock

I just got back from a road trip from Seattle to Vegas. One of the many highlights was Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon. It's a gorgeous part of the country, but I'll be honest. The main reason I wanted to see it was because of The Goonies. If you need a nostalgic trip, here's a fun fan video.

Photographically, it was the perfect time to be there. It wasn't quite the golden hour, but it wasn't long before sunset—totally unplanned and completely serendipitous.
 

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Kiss Mini-Golf

Interesting concept. If you're a Kiss fan, this place is definitely worth checking out. The actual mini-golf area isn't as big as it could be. It's like they crammed the entire course into one side of the space. But nevertheless, it was a fun 18 holes.

Oh and I won =)





Team Yelpstars

It's about time I do a little catching up on my blog posts. Here are a few photos from the AFAN AIDS Walk almost a month ago. It was nice being on the UNLV campus instead of random downtown roads, but there were bottlenecks in a few spots. Great morning overall, though.









Monday, April 30, 2012

Camping, Kalbi, and Kimchi Jjigae

I went camping with a few friends last Friday night. It was just a quick overnighter out at Lake Mead. This photo was taken soon after the sun rose the next morning. The title of this post has nothing to do with the photo, but it does sum up the night very well. I like the idea of going out into nature and enjoying non-typical camping food. It was so mashisoyo!
 

Friday, April 6, 2012

Denominazione di Origine Protetta

I'm down with DOP. Yeah, you know me!

Nelson's "Steppin' Out" series of unofficial Yelp events marches on. This time, it was round two at Chef Marc's Pastavino & Deli. Like round one, the chef started us off with a Grana Padano presentation—we watched him open up an 85-pound wheel of 2-year-old cheese. Yum.

Grana Padano is similar to Parmigiano Reggiano. Here is a good About.com article on them. "DOP" is a designation that certifies that the cheese comes from a specific geographical area.





Then it was on to our five-course meal. I only posted two of the five below (plus my complimentary cannoli). By far, the favorite dish of the night was the squid ink risotto topped with a scallop medallion and surrounded by a sea urchin sauce. OMG. The combination of flavors in that dish was exquisite to say the least.





Tuesday, April 3, 2012

TWiT Brick House

After my little excursion to Muir Woods, I went onward to Petaluma to check out the new TWiT studios. A couple of years ago, I visited the old TWiT Cottage almost unplanned. This time, I made sure to go when I could check out a couple of shows.

I've been a big fan of Tech News Today ever since Tom Merritt started it. Ironically enough, I haven't really been watching the TWiT Photo show, but I'm glad I got to check that out. Catherine Hall was in Las Vegas for the WPPI convention, but lucky for me, Trey Ratcliff filled in and it turned out to be a very inspiring show. I even got to meet MySpace Tom!





Monday, April 2, 2012

36oz of Santa Fe

This is just the aftermath of the beer taster tray I had at Santa Fe Brewing Company. For $8, you get 4oz of each beer they have on tap that day. When I went, they happened to have, well, you can do the math.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Standin' on a Corner

If you're a fan of The Eagles, you'll be familiar with the lyric depicted by the photo below. If not, you can watch this Youtube video with helpful lyrics. Winslow, Arizona is right off I-40, so it's a worthwhile minor detour.



Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Planet of the Redwoods

One of my favorite places is Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Northern California and the so-called Avenue of the Giants. Muir Woods isn't quite at the same level, but it's a much closer drive and conveniently located just north of San Francisco. Also, it's where Caesar leads his fellow primates in the recent Rise of the Planet of the Apes film. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out.









Tuesday, March 27, 2012

LACMA Lamps

I'm slowly going through the photos from my previous two trips. These come from the beginning of my SF trip last month. On the way to the bay, we took a detour to see the "Urban Light" display at the LA County Museum of Art. It comprises of 202 restored cast iron street lamps that once lit the streets of LA—definitely worth seeing.



Thursday, March 22, 2012

Water on the Rocks

I saw something today that said, "water on the rocks" (referring to ice water, basically). I really like the idea of ordering "water on the rocks" the next time I'm at a restaurant. Anyway, it made me think of these photos I took last month when I was up in San Francisco. These were taken by the Sutro Baths ruins on the western edge of the city.



Monday, March 19, 2012

Snow Blower

You know those people who hate snow? Those people who have moved from colder climates and mock us Las Vegans when we get all excited about the slightest snowfall? I now understand where they're coming from. Fresh powder is indeed beautiful, but I certainly don't want to deal with it in my everyday life.

I have to give it up to Jason for busting out the snow blower and clearing up around my car yesterday morning. At the time, we weren't sure if I was even going to be able to leave. But if he didn't do all this ahead of time, I wouldn't have been able to jet as quickly as I did when we found out that I-40 had reopened. Once mother nature gave me that window, I booked it and got the heck out of dodge. Or in this case, Flagstaff, Arizona.

Petaluma Heritage

I stitched up this panorama a while ago, but I wasn't sure if it was worth posting. I found this mural in Petaluma, California after visiting the TWiT studios last month. This photo makes me want a fisheye lens (even though I feel like they are kind of gimmicky), especially since I now have a full frame body.

This is a good time to transition to a new "format" for this blog. Since I haven't been doing the daily thing for quite some time anyway, I'm just going to randomly post photos I've taken, regardless of when they were taken.

Edit: I just noticed a glitch in the stitch. Do you see it?

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Giant Canvas Redux

My brother's girlfriend's mother makes fabric representations of photos and she asked me last Christmas if she could make one out of my Zion Narrows shot. But rather than just the actual image, she liked the picture I took with me in front of it. Thing is, I never kept the full resolution of that. So long story short, I took another one. And so I figured I might as well post it on here since I haven't done anything so far this month.

On a historical note, that camera body sitting by my foot is my broken 30D. It's the camera body I used to take the Zion photo.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Let's Run

UNLV held a public preview of the brand spanking new Mendenhall Center practice facility. The place is state-of-the-art and will be a great recruiting tool. It can only help us to maintain this meteoric rise we've experienced this season. I'm looking forward to catching a few practices down the road.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Happy 4710!

It's the year of the dragon. My blog posts have definitely slowed down to a trickle, so I figured I needed to get out and shoot something. The Bellagio Conservatory always puts on an impressive display, but I think they may have outdone themselves this time.

Note that I've posted six photos. I wanted to make sure it's a lucky number.











Friday, January 13, 2012

Audi Skylight

CES this year was pretty blah. The only things that interested me were the 55" OLED TVs (those are stunning) and the Galaxy Nexus phone (which is already in the market). The LG booth was showing the most impressive footage—who knew that K-Pop would look so good in 3D? I hate 3D, but Lucky Goldstar may have found my weakness!

This blog post comes from the Audi booth. They had so much fluorescent lighting, you'd be forgiven for thinking they had a skylight above them. It was pretty cool, except I really don't care about cars unless you're revolutionizing the electronics within them. This photo is simply me shooting straight up at their lighting array.