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Here are three shots from a recent venture into a nearby garden. I really dig the detail on the bees. They look like aliens.
Shooting at f/4 and 1/1250th at ISO 125 I was able to stop motion, get good detail, with a nice shallow depth of field – I LOVE MY NEW...
So I upgraded to a big boy lens the other day and it has really brought back my passion for taking pictures.
This shot was inspired by my creative girlfriend. She bought matching wrapping paper and ornaments for Christmas this year and after some morning Saturday shopping I came home and impressed myself with my wrapping job so I decided to take a picture – of course
I positioned the presents to capture the holiday vibe in our living room. The shot came out great right inside the camera but I’ve been so into the Hipstamatic / Instagram photos on her iPhone lately I decided...
I travel quite a bit for work and I take my camera with me everywhere and sometimes I get to take photos if I have some free time. I really didn’t think that this trip was going to be one of those times with an itinerary that read: office, airport, airplane, car, hotel, sleep, car, convention center, car, hotel, car, airplane, car, hotel, sleep, car, convention center, car, hotel, car, airplane, home. Which meant I was constaly stuck looking through a window as I traveled across the Pacific Northwest. Luckily windows are clear and you can take pictures through them. I ended up...
Two weekends ago Sarah came up with the great idea to get out of town and go wine tasting up north in the central coast. We didn’t have much of a plan or clue of what we were going to find up there and that was half the fun. I asked my buddy Nick for some recommendations and with that we headed up north. We stayed in Solvang which is a cute Danish tourist trap of a city in the Santa Ynez Valley. We got lost, tasted terrific wines, and ate delicious pastries so the whole trip was deemed an amazing success.
Have you been up there? How does it compare to Napa/Sonoma...
Here are my favorite shots from my family’s 2nd Annual Westley Family Picnic. I tried to approach the shots with a journalistic/candid approach and not get too many posed shots. I was shooting with my on-camera flash the whole time to fill out the shadows on everyone’s face and in post production I really tweaked the shots to get a summery saturated high-contrast look by overexposing, boosting blacks and clarity, and making them high contrast. I’m super happy with them especially the ones of the kids jumping out of the trees.
Do you think the pictures look to...
The photos in my last post Jump! were taken at the top of our El Moro hike and these couple of photos were taken on the way up to the summit. The first three photos taken of the flowers and what I think is a gourd were all overexposed and then give a strong kick of blacks to bring all of the colors back into the exposure.
For these sunsets I went back and forth on which one I thought looked best and really just couldn’t make up my mind between the zoomed in one with only the black and golds or the pulled back image with the blue sky and the silhouetted coastline. What’s...
How fun are impromptu photo shoots? On a hike through El Moro Canyon we got to the top and after taking a couple of random shots Matt had the great idea to use the flash to capture us mid jump over the sunset and the shots turned out pretty fun.
The light was constantly getting darker and I had to constantly change the flash output and open up the aperture but they all turned out great in my opinion. Even the last one where the flash didn’t fire and we got the silhouettes turned out great. The change in the lower point of view after the first two photos really enhanced the look of...
I haven’t put a new post on this website in six weeks so to all of my loyal followers, all three of you, I’m sorry for the lack of new content Luckily, I had the chance to go to the circus this last weekend and they let me shoot with my DSLR. So vioala – a new post.
The circus was a lot of fun though we were a bit weirded out walking in – the place was 80% empty, smelled like sweat, and . . . it was a circus. I was thinking of Heroes the whole time.
So here are my favorite 14 images from Circus Vargas. I had to shoot at a high ISO the whole night. On the...
This Monday I was very fortunate to get an invite to a super secret private show at La Cave put on by Steve Belmonte of PunkRockers.com for a few of his friends and coworkers. We were treated to amazing music by Xanimo and Dead Sara. This was only my second time shooting a band during a live show and it was a blast. If your band or a friends band is looking to get some shots at a show or for a marketing shoot me an email at john@johnrwestley.com.
Here are three of my favorite shots from each band -
Xanimo
Dead Sara
So which photo is your...
I really don’t quite remember when I was introduced to HDR photography, definitely within the last year or so, but I do remember how cool I thought it was. To be able to capture an image that is closer to what the eye really sees seemed very beneficial to me. The science of it is that our eye can see about 11 f-stops (exposure levels) where as a camera can only capture about 5. So what HDR does is take multiple pictures with exposures at the extremes of dark and light with normal exposures and slams them into one photo to create a High Dynamic Range photo.
A couple months back during...
This shot was taken in Mission Bay. It was a really foggy day and I liked all the hues of blue. Looking at the shot I focused on the first and closest sailboat and shot with a wide open aperture to get the best depth of field. In post-production I added in the vignetting in the coroners and the border.
A lot of people don’t like when borders or frames are added to pictures. They say that it’s dressing up a weak photograph. I go back and forth. Sometimes they do make a weak photo look better but other times they simply give a photo a different look and...
Every Friday the website www.photofriday.com puts out a new prompt for pro and amateur photographers to submit a photo that best encompasses that given weeks challenge word. This week it was “blurred” and even though I have a ton of photos in my catalog that I love with blur I decided to shoot something new.
The field behind my parents house has really tall bright green grass and yellow and blue flowers and we had wanted to shoot there for awhile. We shot a ton of photos but I ended up liking this style the most.
To get the effect what I did was hold the camera above my head...
I’m thinking of changing my website to “John R Westley: The Opportunistic Photographer” and this shot would be the perfect example of why. While in New York for work I was blown away at the view from my room and knew that I had to take advantage of the setup. We were there to drum up media support for Tom’s new book Life! By Design and had great meetings with the Huffington Post and Parade Magazine.
At first I just took pictures out the window of the cityscape and buildings.
Coming back to the room the first night I really got stoked with how amazing the...
In a couple weeks I’m moving back to Huntington Beach and Orange County. It’s already making me nostalgic for San Diego and I haven’t even left yet.
The picture below I’ve had for a long time and I stumbled upon it tonight and decided to play with it. There’s about five different effects on it and I decided to not play it safe and after every effect I would flatten rather than leave the layers in Photoshop to be able to go back if I didn’t like the look. Turns out after seven different layers and tweaks I ended up with this and I kinda like it.
What...
A couple weeks back my friend Stacy from stacy marie :: photography and I went downtown to try an idea we found in the Photojojo book where you offer people lollipops to take their picture. We decided to mix it up and bring some props for fun.
About 1 out of 15 people agreed to take a picture and all who did had a blast. We were only there for about 45 minutes but the results are great and we are going to do it again for...
For six weeks I lived with a host family in Alajuela, Costa Rica and travelled everyweekend to different beaches to surf – good...
Studying abroad is amazing. If you have the opportunity – do it! Do it...
“Taco Shop Nights” is my entry for the PhotoFriday.com‘s NIGHTLIFE contest this week.
I got the idea from a Photojojo article. This photo is a panographie (collection of multiple photos laid on top of each other to make a larger photo) of the taco shop on the corner a couple of blocks from my house in Mission Beach. It took probably 10 minutes to shoot all of the exposures for this one shot. Each one was shot at a different overlapping angle and a slightly different exposure. Back in photoshop it took just about 45 minutes to batch edit, size, mess with opacity, and...
With my buddy Matt we travelled from Mexico City to Oaxaca to Playa Zicatela by bus to spend four weeks on the beach surfing Puerto Esconido. On the way back we were able to visit the pyrimads of Tenochtitlan and the amazing museums of Mexico...
For ten days in July 2003 I was in Peru to explore Cuzco and hike the Inca Trail to Maccu...
After two hours walking around Seattle I can tell you this – it’s very cool. I was pretty lucky to not have it rain on me my first time there. The locals said it’s been a really dry winter because of El Nino. Darn kids. Right from the on set I liked the town, when I got my rental car and got onto the freeway my windshield was filled with the view of Mt. Rainier all huge and snowy. I was told that it’s not too often you get to see it so I knew I was going to have a great day.
After meetings at the convention center I walked down Pike St. and explored and ate. I...
Went up to South Lake to visit friends and snowboard last weekend and though it wasn’t a photo trip I was able to get a couple quick shots.
These two below are from Nevada beach and I really just liked the idea of having snow on sand since that’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. The day was pretty cloudy so I processed the photos as black and whites.
The next picture below seems to illicit a cry of fake from everyone I show it to but I swear it’s real. The story is that we were riding Sierra at Tahoe and it started to snow. My girlfriend Sarah was taking a rest...
Back in December I took some photos of my buddies Tim and Thomas bodysurfing a pretty heavy wave somewhere in SoCal. It’s a secret spot … but only if you don’t know where it is.
The wave is much heavier and steep than the photos convey because I was shooting from about 60 ft up looking down on the waves.
I really like this sequence of some random guy getting hung up on the drop, losing all his speed, and getting obliterated.
Click on the thumbnail below to see the...
Sarah and I went on a whale watching tour out of San Diego on the Hornblower and we saw a ton of whales. The day was a bit hazy and my lens didn’t quite have enough reach to get really tight pictures.
The picture that I am most happy with is the three whales off of Point Loma all blowing air out of their spouts at the same time. What’s really cool is how the spray of all three look like...
Last September my buddies Matt, Kyle, and I went to New Jersey and New York for two weeks. Our plan was to go to Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore and wait for hurricane surf. While on the shore it rained for 5 of the 6 days we were there. The one day it didn’t rain though was amazing! We surfed for 6 hours that day, 4 in the morning and 2 in the evening, without too many guys in the water and clean 4-6 beachbreak barrels.
At the end of that trip Kyle and Matt flew back to So Cal and I stayed in New York. I was very, very lucky to have Kyle’s cousin Kristin offer up...
I took this picture in my hotel room at the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. We were there for our Leadership Forum from January 26th-27th. My work pictures are here.
I really liked the layout of the place – it was super hip. My room was really red but this shot turned out...
After a week of rain in Southern California the sun finally came out and I made some stops to Mt. Soledad and La Jolla Cove to take some photos of the animals and...
This is the last picture I have on my Twitter background right now @johnrwestley
I took this picture while out with the San Diego Photography Group Meetup trip to Joshua Tree. We were blown away when we were driving from one spot to another in the park and saw these guys tight rope walking – couldn’t believe it. It had to be 200 feet up. I shot this with my 70-300mm lens and actually pulled it all the way back because the scene looked a lot more dramatic with the ground in the foreground. Because that lens is not that sharp and the colors were rather flat I converted to...
Here’s the 3rd of the 4 pictures on my Twitter background @johnrwestley
I dare you to find a better picture of the Vegas sign. Not trying to be cocky but I googled the hell out of it and I believe this one blows them all away. First off I probably need to give credit to my cousin Pat. He lives there in Vegas and showed me a great time while I was out there for a convention and at the end of the night he took me here so I could get a picture of the sign. Notice how there are no people in the shot – we probably waited 35 minutes. Pat a bit begrudgingly.
This picture is an...
Here’s the 2nd of the 4 currently on my Twitter background @johnrwestley
This was taken at my friend’s Craig, Danielle, Nick A, Nick M, and Nori’s Halloween Haunt 2009 Party. I really hadn’t taken pictures of partys or events before other than with my pocket Powershot. However, it really was a great time. When you have your SLR with and on the top flash everyone gets really excited. My on the top flash though is probably older than me. My dad bought it when he got his Canon A1 and it is completely manual. It was trial and error all night but the results...
So I try to send people here via my Twittter page @johnrwestley. But what I just noticed is that because I am so slow to setup my galleries you can’t even see large versions of the pictures I have on my twitter page. So here they are as four blog posts on a rainy SoCal day.
This picture was taken outside my place in Mission Beach – well when you walk to the beach from my house. I call it “Slippery Sunset”. The colors were pretty that night but there wasn’t much to offer as far as composition so I fiddled with a technique I had seen online where you pan...
Click on the photo to check out the...
Went out to shoot the sunset a couple of days ago with the intention of not taking any cliche pics and ended up with a backlit sufer under the pier with a reflection of the pilings in the wet sand. . . great, mission accomplished. Not.
.
Like this one of the seagull though. Really appreciated him (or her) posing for me for so...
Sometimes you don’t have your camera with you, sometimes all you have is a camera phone. These days camera phones can produce some really good pictures with the right conditions – heck, my blackberry camera phone has more megapixels than my first digital pocket camera.
This weekend we were snowboarding at June Mountain, and I had decided I would bring up my Canon camera the next day so all I had with me was my phone when I saw this beautiful cloud formation while getting ready to strap in for the last run of the day down Canyon Trail to the parking lot.
Because I knew what I...
I’m really happy with these three images. They are from my first time shooting with my new Canon 50D. This first image of the surfer getting barreled on the left I had planned out in my head with the setting sun and the clouds turning gold but took about 45 minutes to get. The surf was super inconsistent and not really opening up too much for a surfer to get into. This wave is actually the inside section which worked out great because behind the wave I was able to hide all the surfers in the lineup since I was shooting on the beach and from a lower perspective. Then with...
Wecome to my blog!
This is a film photograph that I took a long time ago that I still really really like. It’s a self portrait that was done by taking multiple exposures while moving the surfboard around. My dad actually pushed the shutter on all of these and helped make the pictures somewhat symmetrical by counting the lines on the garage door in the background to determine how high the board should be. I love this...
Bees Up Close
Posted by John
on Dec 13th, 2010 |
no responses
Here are three shots from a recent venture into a nearby garden. I really dig the detail on the bees. They look like aliens.
Shooting at f/4 and 1/1250th at ISO 125 I was able to stop motion, get good detail, with a nice shallow depth of field – I LOVE MY NEW...
It’s Beginning to Feel a lot like Christmas . . .
Posted by John
on Dec 4th, 2010 |
no responses
So I upgraded to a big boy lens the other day and it has really brought back my passion for taking pictures.
This shot was inspired by my creative girlfriend. She bought matching wrapping paper and ornaments for Christmas this year and after some morning Saturday shopping I came home and impressed myself with my wrapping job so I decided to take a picture – of course
I positioned the presents to capture the holiday vibe in our living room. The shot came out great right inside the camera but I’ve been so into the Hipstamatic / Instagram photos on her iPhone lately I decided...
Through a Window
Posted by John
on Sep 15th, 2010 |
one response
I travel quite a bit for work and I take my camera with me everywhere and sometimes I get to take photos if I have some free time. I really didn’t think that this trip was going to be one of those times with an itinerary that read: office, airport, airplane, car, hotel, sleep, car, convention center, car, hotel, car, airplane, car, hotel, sleep, car, convention center, car, hotel, car, airplane, home. Which meant I was constaly stuck looking through a window as I traveled across the Pacific Northwest. Luckily windows are clear and you can take pictures through them. I ended up...
Central Coast Wine Weekend
Posted by John
on Aug 8th, 2010 |
one response
Two weekends ago Sarah came up with the great idea to get out of town and go wine tasting up north in the central coast. We didn’t have much of a plan or clue of what we were going to find up there and that was half the fun. I asked my buddy Nick for some recommendations and with that we headed up north. We stayed in Solvang which is a cute Danish tourist trap of a city in the Santa Ynez Valley. We got lost, tasted terrific wines, and ate delicious pastries so the whole trip was deemed an amazing success.
Have you been up there? How does it compare to Napa/Sonoma...
Family Picnic
Posted by John
on Jul 19th, 2010 |
one response
Here are my favorite shots from my family’s 2nd Annual Westley Family Picnic. I tried to approach the shots with a journalistic/candid approach and not get too many posed shots. I was shooting with my on-camera flash the whole time to fill out the shadows on everyone’s face and in post production I really tweaked the shots to get a summery saturated high-contrast look by overexposing, boosting blacks and clarity, and making them high contrast. I’m super happy with them especially the ones of the kids jumping out of the trees.
Do you think the pictures look to...
El Moro Hike Scenery
Posted by John
on Jul 7th, 2010 |
2 responses
The photos in my last post Jump! were taken at the top of our El Moro hike and these couple of photos were taken on the way up to the summit. The first three photos taken of the flowers and what I think is a gourd were all overexposed and then give a strong kick of blacks to bring all of the colors back into the exposure.
For these sunsets I went back and forth on which one I thought looked best and really just couldn’t make up my mind between the zoomed in one with only the black and golds or the pulled back image with the blue sky and the silhouetted coastline. What’s...
Jump!
Posted by John
on Jun 22nd, 2010 |
one response
How fun are impromptu photo shoots? On a hike through El Moro Canyon we got to the top and after taking a couple of random shots Matt had the great idea to use the flash to capture us mid jump over the sunset and the shots turned out pretty fun.
The light was constantly getting darker and I had to constantly change the flash output and open up the aperture but they all turned out great in my opinion. Even the last one where the flash didn’t fire and we got the silhouettes turned out great. The change in the lower point of view after the first two photos really enhanced the look of...
Night At The Circus
Posted by John
on Jun 11th, 2010 |
one response
I haven’t put a new post on this website in six weeks so to all of my loyal followers, all three of you, I’m sorry for the lack of new content Luckily, I had the chance to go to the circus this last weekend and they let me shoot with my DSLR. So vioala – a new post.
The circus was a lot of fun though we were a bit weirded out walking in – the place was 80% empty, smelled like sweat, and . . . it was a circus. I was thinking of Heroes the whole time.
So here are my favorite 14 images from Circus Vargas. I had to shoot at a high ISO the whole night. On the...
Live! at La Cave with Xanimo and Dead Sara
Posted by John
on Apr 22nd, 2010 |
2 responses
This Monday I was very fortunate to get an invite to a super secret private show at La Cave put on by Steve Belmonte of PunkRockers.com for a few of his friends and coworkers. We were treated to amazing music by Xanimo and Dead Sara. This was only my second time shooting a band during a live show and it was a blast. If your band or a friends band is looking to get some shots at a show or for a marketing shoot me an email at john@johnrwestley.com.
Here are three of my favorite shots from each band -
Xanimo
Dead Sara
So which photo is your...
Downtown San Diego at Sunrise + HDR How To Video
Posted by John
on Apr 14th, 2010 |
2 responses
I really don’t quite remember when I was introduced to HDR photography, definitely within the last year or so, but I do remember how cool I thought it was. To be able to capture an image that is closer to what the eye really sees seemed very beneficial to me. The science of it is that our eye can see about 11 f-stops (exposure levels) where as a camera can only capture about 5. So what HDR does is take multiple pictures with exposures at the extremes of dark and light with normal exposures and slams them into one photo to create a High Dynamic Range photo.
A couple months back during...
“Overcast” Photo Friday Challenge
Posted by John
on Apr 9th, 2010 |
2 responses
This shot was taken in Mission Bay. It was a really foggy day and I liked all the hues of blue. Looking at the shot I focused on the first and closest sailboat and shot with a wide open aperture to get the best depth of field. In post-production I added in the vignetting in the coroners and the border.
A lot of people don’t like when borders or frames are added to pictures. They say that it’s dressing up a weak photograph. I go back and forth. Sometimes they do make a weak photo look better but other times they simply give a photo a different look and...
“Blurred” Photo Friday Challenge
Posted by John
on Apr 3rd, 2010 |
one response
Every Friday the website www.photofriday.com puts out a new prompt for pro and amateur photographers to submit a photo that best encompasses that given weeks challenge word. This week it was “blurred” and even though I have a ton of photos in my catalog that I love with blur I decided to shoot something new.
The field behind my parents house has really tall bright green grass and yellow and blue flowers and we had wanted to shoot there for awhile. We shot a ton of photos but I ended up liking this style the most.
To get the effect what I did was hold the camera above my head...
Killing Time
Posted by John
on Mar 29th, 2010 |
6 responses
I’m thinking of changing my website to “John R Westley: The Opportunistic Photographer” and this shot would be the perfect example of why. While in New York for work I was blown away at the view from my room and knew that I had to take advantage of the setup. We were there to drum up media support for Tom’s new book Life! By Design and had great meetings with the Huffington Post and Parade Magazine.
At first I just took pictures out the window of the cityscape and buildings.
Coming back to the room the first night I really got stoked with how amazing the...
Psychadelic Big Dipper
Posted by John
on Mar 19th, 2010 |
one response
In a couple weeks I’m moving back to Huntington Beach and Orange County. It’s already making me nostalgic for San Diego and I haven’t even left yet.
The picture below I’ve had for a long time and I stumbled upon it tonight and decided to play with it. There’s about five different effects on it and I decided to not play it safe and after every effect I would flatten rather than leave the layers in Photoshop to be able to go back if I didn’t like the look. Turns out after seven different layers and tweaks I ended up with this and I kinda like it.
What...
Photos for Lollipops
Posted by John
on Mar 17th, 2010 |
2 responses
A couple weeks back my friend Stacy from stacy marie :: photography and I went downtown to try an idea we found in the Photojojo book where you offer people lollipops to take their picture. We decided to mix it up and bring some props for fun.
About 1 out of 15 people agreed to take a picture and all who did had a blast. We were only there for about 45 minutes but the results are great and we are going to do it again for...
Costa Rica Travel Gallery
Posted by John
on Mar 16th, 2010 |
no responses
For six weeks I lived with a host family in Alajuela, Costa Rica and travelled everyweekend to different beaches to surf – good...
Chile Travel Gallery
Posted by John
on Mar 14th, 2010 |
no responses
Studying abroad is amazing. If you have the opportunity – do it! Do it...
“Nightlife” Photo Friday Challenge
Posted by John
on Mar 12th, 2010 |
no responses
“Taco Shop Nights” is my entry for the PhotoFriday.com‘s NIGHTLIFE contest this week.
I got the idea from a Photojojo article. This photo is a panographie (collection of multiple photos laid on top of each other to make a larger photo) of the taco shop on the corner a couple of blocks from my house in Mission Beach. It took probably 10 minutes to shoot all of the exposures for this one shot. Each one was shot at a different overlapping angle and a slightly different exposure. Back in photoshop it took just about 45 minutes to batch edit, size, mess with opacity, and...
Mexico Travel Gallery
Posted by John
on Mar 8th, 2010 |
no responses
With my buddy Matt we travelled from Mexico City to Oaxaca to Playa Zicatela by bus to spend four weeks on the beach surfing Puerto Esconido. On the way back we were able to visit the pyrimads of Tenochtitlan and the amazing museums of Mexico...
Peru Travel Gallery
Posted by John
on Mar 8th, 2010 |
no responses
For ten days in July 2003 I was in Peru to explore Cuzco and hike the Inca Trail to Maccu...
Two hours in Seattle
Posted by John
on Mar 3rd, 2010 |
one response
After two hours walking around Seattle I can tell you this – it’s very cool. I was pretty lucky to not have it rain on me my first time there. The locals said it’s been a really dry winter because of El Nino. Darn kids. Right from the on set I liked the town, when I got my rental car and got onto the freeway my windshield was filled with the view of Mt. Rainier all huge and snowy. I was told that it’s not too often you get to see it so I knew I was going to have a great day.
After meetings at the convention center I walked down Pike St. and explored and ate. I...
Snow on Sand, and a Snowflake
Posted by John
on Feb 26th, 2010 |
one response
Went up to South Lake to visit friends and snowboard last weekend and though it wasn’t a photo trip I was able to get a couple quick shots.
These two below are from Nevada beach and I really just liked the idea of having snow on sand since that’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. The day was pretty cloudy so I processed the photos as black and whites.
The next picture below seems to illicit a cry of fake from everyone I show it to but I swear it’s real. The story is that we were riding Sierra at Tahoe and it started to snow. My girlfriend Sarah was taking a rest...
Bodysurfing Somewhere in SoCal
Posted by John
on Feb 18th, 2010 |
no responses
Back in December I took some photos of my buddies Tim and Thomas bodysurfing a pretty heavy wave somewhere in SoCal. It’s a secret spot … but only if you don’t know where it is.
The wave is much heavier and steep than the photos convey because I was shooting from about 60 ft up looking down on the waves.
I really like this sequence of some random guy getting hung up on the drop, losing all his speed, and getting obliterated.
Click on the thumbnail below to see the...
Whales in Love
Posted by John
on Feb 10th, 2010 |
3 responses
Sarah and I went on a whale watching tour out of San Diego on the Hornblower and we saw a ton of whales. The day was a bit hazy and my lens didn’t quite have enough reach to get really tight pictures.
The picture that I am most happy with is the three whales off of Point Loma all blowing air out of their spouts at the same time. What’s really cool is how the spray of all three look like...
NYC Skyline Shots
Posted by John
on Feb 2nd, 2010 |
one response
Last September my buddies Matt, Kyle, and I went to New Jersey and New York for two weeks. Our plan was to go to Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore and wait for hurricane surf. While on the shore it rained for 5 of the 6 days we were there. The one day it didn’t rain though was amazing! We surfed for 6 hours that day, 4 in the morning and 2 in the evening, without too many guys in the water and clean 4-6 beachbreak barrels.
At the end of that trip Kyle and Matt flew back to So Cal and I stayed in New York. I was very, very lucky to have Kyle’s cousin Kristin offer up...
She’s Watching You
Posted by John
on Jan 30th, 2010 |
one response
I took this picture in my hotel room at the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. We were there for our Leadership Forum from January 26th-27th. My work pictures are here.
I really liked the layout of the place – it was super hip. My room was really red but this shot turned out...
When The Rain Goes Away . . .
Posted by John
on Jan 26th, 2010 |
4 responses
After a week of rain in Southern California the sun finally came out and I made some stops to Mt. Soledad and La Jolla Cove to take some photos of the animals and...
“Crazy Joshua Tree Guy”
Posted by John
on Jan 22nd, 2010 |
2 responses
This is the last picture I have on my Twitter background right now @johnrwestley
I took this picture while out with the San Diego Photography Group Meetup trip to Joshua Tree. We were blown away when we were driving from one spot to another in the park and saw these guys tight rope walking – couldn’t believe it. It had to be 200 feet up. I shot this with my 70-300mm lens and actually pulled it all the way back because the scene looked a lot more dramatic with the ground in the foreground. Because that lens is not that sharp and the colors were rather flat I converted to...
The Best Vegas Sign Photo Ever?
Posted by John
on Jan 22nd, 2010 |
no responses
Here’s the 3rd of the 4 pictures on my Twitter background @johnrwestley
I dare you to find a better picture of the Vegas sign. Not trying to be cocky but I googled the hell out of it and I believe this one blows them all away. First off I probably need to give credit to my cousin Pat. He lives there in Vegas and showed me a great time while I was out there for a convention and at the end of the night he took me here so I could get a picture of the sign. Notice how there are no people in the shot – we probably waited 35 minutes. Pat a bit begrudgingly.
This picture is an...
Halloween Haunt 2009
Posted by John
on Jan 22nd, 2010 |
Comments Off
Here’s the 2nd of the 4 currently on my Twitter background @johnrwestley
This was taken at my friend’s Craig, Danielle, Nick A, Nick M, and Nori’s Halloween Haunt 2009 Party. I really hadn’t taken pictures of partys or events before other than with my pocket Powershot. However, it really was a great time. When you have your SLR with and on the top flash everyone gets really excited. My on the top flash though is probably older than me. My dad bought it when he got his Canon A1 and it is completely manual. It was trial and error all night but the results...
“Slippery Sunset”
Posted by John
on Jan 22nd, 2010 |
no responses
So I try to send people here via my Twittter page @johnrwestley. But what I just noticed is that because I am so slow to setup my galleries you can’t even see large versions of the pictures I have on my twitter page. So here they are as four blog posts on a rainy SoCal day.
This picture was taken outside my place in Mission Beach – well when you walk to the beach from my house. I call it “Slippery Sunset”. The colors were pretty that night but there wasn’t much to offer as far as composition so I fiddled with a technique I had seen online where you pan...
Sea World Gallery
Posted by John
on Jan 18th, 2010 |
3 responses
Click on the photo to check out the...
Cliche Sunset/Pier/Surfer Picture #238
Posted by John
on Jan 8th, 2010 |
no responses
Went out to shoot the sunset a couple of days ago with the intention of not taking any cliche pics and ended up with a backlit sufer under the pier with a reflection of the pilings in the wet sand. . . great, mission accomplished. Not.
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Like this one of the seagull though. Really appreciated him (or her) posing for me for so...
Camera Phone Photography
Posted by John
on Jan 4th, 2010 |
2 responses
Sometimes you don’t have your camera with you, sometimes all you have is a camera phone. These days camera phones can produce some really good pictures with the right conditions – heck, my blackberry camera phone has more megapixels than my first digital pocket camera.
This weekend we were snowboarding at June Mountain, and I had decided I would bring up my Canon camera the next day so all I had with me was my phone when I saw this beautiful cloud formation while getting ready to strap in for the last run of the day down Canyon Trail to the parking lot.
Because I knew what I...
La Jolla Surf & Sunset Shots
Posted by John
on Dec 30th, 2009 |
6 responses
I’m really happy with these three images. They are from my first time shooting with my new Canon 50D. This first image of the surfer getting barreled on the left I had planned out in my head with the setting sun and the clouds turning gold but took about 45 minutes to get. The surf was super inconsistent and not really opening up too much for a surfer to get into. This wave is actually the inside section which worked out great because behind the wave I was able to hide all the surfers in the lineup since I was shooting on the beach and from a lower perspective. Then with...
One of my first photographs
Posted by John
on Dec 30th, 2009 |
one response
Wecome to my blog!
This is a film photograph that I took a long time ago that I still really really like. It’s a self portrait that was done by taking multiple exposures while moving the surfboard around. My dad actually pushed the shutter on all of these and helped make the pictures somewhat symmetrical by counting the lines on the garage door in the background to determine how high the board should be. I love this...
