Yes, Music Allowed!

We went to see the "Dennis Jones Band" last night at Dos Lagos. While, as you can see from the picture below, there are a few things you can't do at Dos Lagos, music is definitely allowed!

This band was great!  Awesome blues and Jazz.  Dennis Jones can really play that guitar!

Dos Lagos is having free concerts on Friday and Saturday nights form 7 pm - 9 pm.  Located just off of the 15 fwy about 7 miles south of the 91.  It's worth the drive.

Had to get a B & W in here.  The sound man checks "the sound"

South Coast Winery

We are members of SCW.  A few days ago we went to pick-up our membership wine.
South Coast Winery is located in Temecula California.  SCW was voted best overall winery in California for 2008 & 2009.
The vines are full with grapes right now.  Grapes will soon be harvested to make wine.  If you get the chance, Temecula wine country is worth the drive!
Here are a few photos of the grapes:

We also did some wine tasting.  A must when you go to a winery.

Hangin' with the locals

We spend the day in Idyllwild on Tuesday.  Idyllwild is a beautiful mountain town in the San Jacinto mountains (that huge mountain range on the right side on the way to Palm Springs).  We met some of the locals there:

Here I am talking with Mike and his buddy Frankie.  Mike, the big guy next to me, is the owner of the Red Kettle, cool Diner that serves great burgers and awesome malts!

This is Mikes Harley.  He rides it everywhere!

The Harley keeping an eye on Mike and Frankie!

Frankie's boots.  He's 91 years old and still kicking strong!

If you're ever in Idyllwild, be sure to stop in and say hi at the Red Kettle!

Selective Focus, Fast Lenses & High Speed Sync

I made a decision a long time ago to only buy fast, pro lenses.  Here are a couple of portrait examples of why fast lenses allow you to be more creative.  The drawback is that these lenses are bigger and heavier, and can cost 5 to 10 time as much.  Ouch!

Both of these photos were shot in bright daylight at an f-stop of 2.8 @ 70mm.  Slower consumer lenses at f/4.0 or higher would render both subject "in focus."  In order to get great looking skin tones with no shadows in bright daylight, you need to add some type of fill light.  Be it a reflector or flash.  Notice the nice catchlight in her eyes.  There was a flash positioned off camera right with a warming filter attached to give a warm skin tone.  The flash was on high speed sync using a shutter speed of 1/640 of a second.  Without high speed sync on your flash, you could not get this shot.

Dos Lagos

So, last night we decided to go to Dos Lagos.  A nice outside shopping and event center in South Corona.
The three images I posted here were all shot with the Nikon D3 and Nikon 16-35 f4 lens.

This beautiful horse. was busy pulling her carriage around the event grounds.  Shot at f4 @1/20 ISO 200.

The band that was playing was great!  Playing beautiful spanish style music.  Maybe they were just happy because Spain is going to the World Cup Soccer finals for the first time ever!
I really like this picture because of the kids running around having fun.  I wanted to capture their movement so I shot this at a slow shutter speed of 1/10 of a second.  Not bad for a handheld shot.  what do you think?

My wife, who is also an excellent photographer, took this shot with the D3.  I love how she captured the shape and scale of that bamboo covered walkway.  This, like the previous shots, was taken using only available light.

World Cup Champions 1954 & My Mom!

That's my mom standing in the convertible bug!
This is a scan of an original B&W print from the 1954 Homecoming parade for the World Cup Soccer Champs! Many of the players came from the town of Kaiserslautern  including team captain Fritz Walter. That why they had a HUGE parade! The devil was (and is) the teams mascot...

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My mom almost married Fritz Walter the captain of the winning German soccer team!  He later had a stadium named after him in Kaiserslautern.  Very cool!

Wild Animal Park in San Diego Ca.

We went to the WILD ANIMAL PARK IN San Diego yesterday.  Here are a few photos:

Good Hair Day!

Natural Beauty!

Good lookin' bunch!

"I think I fell in love today, with my stick!"

"Sis, put that stick down!"

Mom and her baby


We all had a great time!  The weather was PERFECT and the park was not crowded at all!