edulphoto

Some of my best photographs from 2020

Algunas de mis mejores tomas de este año

The Emerald city

It had been 20 years since my last visit and I finally got a chance to travel back to Seattle with my camera to wander the streets for five days and land some shots. Although this part of the country is infamous for its rainy and gloomy weather, I was fortunate and blessed to have nothing but sunshine the entire time I was there.

Habían pasado mas de 20 años desde mi ultima visita y por fin se me dio la oportunidad de regresar a Seattle (pronunciado si-a-tel) con mi cámara y andar rodando sobre sus calles durante un periodo de cinco días para lograr unas tomas. Aunque esta parte del país es muy reconocido por su clima muy invernal y muy lluvioso, corrí con la fortuna de haber tenido días muy soleados y cálidos durante mi visita por dicha ciudad.

Some of my favorite beach pics from the year so far.

Algunas de mis fotos favoritas de la playa de este año.

City under quarantine

I had planned on doing a gallery about the city of Hollywood in the spring of 2020. Unfortunately right when I started planning out the shooting dates, COVID hit, and everything starting shutting down. At first I thought I was going to have to put the project on hold. However, when I finally made a trip out to the streets of this city in Mid May, I realized that the COVID quarantine would work in my favor. The streets (which are usually packed with traffic and tourists) were empty and that made ideal conditions for my style of shooting landscapes.

Había echo planes para tener una galería de la ciudad de Hollywood en esta pagina disponible para la primavera del 2020. Desafortunadamente cuando empece a formalizar las fechas y los planes para las tomas, llego el COVID y empezaron a cerrar todo. Al inicio pensé que iba a tener a que abandonar el proyecto por un tiempo, al menos hasta que terminara la cuarentena. A medios de Mayo cuando aun estaba cerrado todo decidí tomar un viaje a dicha ciudad y me di cuenta que la situación con el COVID podia funcionar en mi favor. Las calles de la ciudad (que por lo general se encuentran congestionadas con el trafico y los turistas) estaban solas y eso me daba las condiciones ideales para mi estilo de fotografía.

When I started shooting landscapes I quickly came to realize (like every landscape photographer out there) that bright sunny blue sky conditions were not the ideal setting for “good” outdoor photography. The sky has no depth without clouds, the light is bright and very white, and the hard sun makes for some hard shadows on everything. It took me a while to learn how to adapt the hard shadows into my composition making them work for me instead of against me. Shadows can help add depth or framing to the protagonist of the photograph, and sometimes, the shadows themselves become the protagonist.

Cuando inicie a tomar fotos de paisajes me di cuenta enseguida (al igual que muchos fotógrafos ) que los días soleados y sin nubes no son los días mas ideales para lograr “buenas” fotos. El cielo no tiene profundidad sin nubes, y la luz del sol es muy blanca y causa sombras muy fuertes en todo. Devore un buen de tiempo para aprender a adaptar estas sombras fuertes en mis composiciones y hacerlas funcionar en mi favor en vez de en mi contra. Si se busca el ángulo adecuado, las sombras pueden ayudar a darle profundidad a la foto, o ayudar a enmarcar al protagonista de la foto, o hay veces que las sombras se pueden convertir hasta en las propias protagonistas de la escena.

La Cantera Rosa

I had been wanting to go to Morelia for a long time. I had been drawn to visit this city because of the photography work I had seen others do there. Although the city is not known for being a popular tourist destination (like Guanajuato or San Miguel de Allende) I think this city is one of Mexico’s best kept secrets and hidden gems. The history, the architecture, the gastronomy, and the culture give this city so much character and depth that it has easily made my list of top 3 favorite cities in Mexico.

Ya tenia un buen rato de querer hacer un viaje a Morelia. Me llamaba mucho la idea de visitar a dicha ciudad por el trabajo fotográfico que había visto que otros lograban. A pesar de que esta ciudad no es reconocida como una cuna del turismo (como lo es Guanajuato o San Miguel de Allende) para mi resulto ser una pequeña joyita de las tierras Mexicanas. Su historia, arquitectura, gastronomía, y cultura le da mucho carácter y profundidad que fácilmente se ah injerido en mi lista de top 3 ciudades favoritas de Mexico.

Las Flores

Balboa park in San Diego has been a training ground for my photography since day one. Its mixture of museums, theaters, botanical gardens, and cafe’s make it the ideal place to practice landscape photography. During the last month the flowers have come full bloom at the park. I’ve decided to post some of my favorite shots in this gallery.

El Parque Balboa en San Diego a sido un campo de entrenamiento para mis habilidades de fotografía desde mis inicios con la cámara. El parque brinda una mezcla de museos, teatros, jardines botánicos, y cafes haciendolo un lugar ideal para darle practica a la fotografia. Durante las ultimas semanas, las flores han brotado por sus jardines. Eh decido compartir algunas de mis favoritas tomas en esta galería.

jaune 55

It’s been two years since my trip to Paris. Without a doubt the galleries that have received the most visits on my website have been the Paris themed galleries. Because of the popularity of these galleries (and because of the fact that it’s been two years this March since I was there) I decided to look back through all my RAW files and see if I could find any little gems I might have missed in my first galleries. The photographs here (with the exception of a few) are new previously unseen photographs. I decided to “dress” the photos in a jaune 55 (yellow 55) tone. I feel this tone accents the color of the buildings and the statues real well and gives the city a warm feel, despite how cold it was when I was there.

Han pasado dos años desde que fui de viaje a Paris. No queda ninguna duda que las galerías que han tenido mas éxito en mi pagina web han sido las galerías de dicha ciudad. Por causa de tanta popularidad (y por el echo que este mes de marzo se cumplen dos años de mi visita a la capital francesa) decidí hacer una búsqueda por mis archivos RAW de este viaje para ver si me encontraba un “tesorito” que previamente se me había escapado. Las fotografías aquí (con la excepción de algunas) son fotos nuevas, que no se habían publicado ni compartido. Las decidí “vestir” con un nivel de tono jaune 55 (amarillo 55) para darle un sentido mas cálido a las fotos de esta colección, aunque cuando yo estuve ahi la temperatura estaba muy fría.

Every winter I take a photography trip some where and it’s usually someplace cold. This year I decided I wasn’t going to freeze my fingers off during my photography trip, so I chose hawaii (the island of Oahu to be exact) as my destination.

I had never been to Hawaii before, and although I had been warned by others who had traveled there about the expensiveness, the traffic, and the hoards of tourists everywhere, I found myself falling in love with this amazing place mainly because of its shear natural beauty.

I spent six days on the island of Oahu and managed to drive around to different parts of the island photographing everything that looked good to me outside the windows of the Hyundai Elantra I rented.

Although I didn’t get to photograph everything I had written down on my “shootings list”, I managed to land some good shots everywhere I went. I am happy and grateful with my results, and hope to go back someday to the spots I didn’t get to this time.

Pipeline.

In the surfing world it’s considered to be “the one” surf break one would hope to surf one day.

I had known about this surf spot ever since I moved to California and started doing leisure surfing on the weekends. Although it was never my intention to become “good enough” to surf there, I always had the desire to be there to experience it in person one day. That day came true on a Monday afternoon when I took a trip to Oahu’s north shore.

I was very fortunate that the waves were big that day, and they were very consistent in size and form. The experience of sitting on the sand surrounded by other photographers with giant telephoto lenses strapped to their cameras was amazing. The sound and the energy given off by the wave when it crashes into the shallow reef is surreal.

I shot all the surfing photographs in this gallery within a 3 hour time period with my 70-200mm lens, and although I wish I would have taken a 400mm for closer shots, I am very happy with the results, and feel grateful to have had the experience to see and photograph the surfers of this amazing place.