Category: Travel

Wasteland Weekend!

 

Wasteland Weekend is a four day long apocalyptic theme, Mad Max style campout and festival. This was our first year attending and it won’t be the last. I love desert camping.

My goal wasn’t to spend too much of my time doing photography, but I couldn’t resist once I arrived and was glad I brought the Fuji X-T20. All these images were shot with the 18-55 and 35mm 1.4.  I was extra charmed that someone camping near us got married out in the desert complete with a stylish vehicle to take them to and from the ceremony location.

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Urban Decay in Oakland

I finally toured the old 16th Street Train Station in Oakland, and we didn’t even have to hop any fences. This gorgeous old building is now being cared for and one can rent it out for events, including weddings!

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More below the cut, the back of the building is covered in some terrific graffiti….

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Fuji X-Pro1 at Lassen National Forest

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We took a much needed roadtrip up to Lassen National Forest a week or so ago, and spent a day wandering the park. It was a relief to see so much snow, although we’re still way under the amount of water that California needs. I’ve been thinking of expanding my Fuji kit and upgrading the body at some point, although honestly what really makes me excited would be a new lens for this kind of landscape work – the 18 or 14mm would be useful. I also have my eye on the 56mm 1.2 for portrait work, as I’ve been using the Fuji more frequently in the studio as well. The above images were all made with either the 35mm or 18-55mm.

Ha Long Bay and Vietnam with the Fuji X-pro1

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I’ve just returned from spending a few weeks in Vietnam and Thailand during which I gave my Fuji X-pro1 quite a workout. It performed perfectly, even in the middle of a rainstorm. Luckily, we had clear weather for our days in Ha Long Bay. Most of these images were shot with the Fujinon 18-55mm lens, which I picked up as a carry around lens for this trip, and while it’s perfect for vacation snapshots and casual shooting, it still doesn’t beat our the 35mm 1.4 for image quality and sharpness. They’ve now released a 23mm prime that looks fantastic, but costs nearly $900.

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Destination Booking – Taliesin West

I’m incredibly excited to be shooting a wedding next month at the beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright property, Taliesin West. This photo of the front of the house was shot way back in 2009, during one of our winter trips to Arizona to visit my partner’s family. Can’t wait to go back and grab some updated images in the beautiful desert springtime.

 

Cylindropuntia bigelovii, ‘teddy bear’ cholla

There’s an enormous patch of cholla cactus on the southern slope of the road leading towards highway 10 on the way out of Joshua Tree, I always like to stop here and take a few photos. On this particular visit I couldn’t stop myself from talking to another photographer about his gear – he was lugging along a medium format Mamiya with a fancy digital back, apparently this was his fancy xmas gift to himself! Lucky guy!  These cactus’s are nasty things if you get the spines in your flesh, but they’re beautiful, and these were in flower. I spent a few minutes playing with another one of my presents – a set of Zeikos macro filters from David. These are a really affordable addition to your camera kit and as you can see, the quality is pretty good. I shot these with the Canon 50mm 1.4 and the 10x filter.

Macro samples below the jump..

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