Toni and I decided to spend the 4th of July in San Diego this year. It was an easy choice because it was so much cooler and I wanted to take photographs of fireworks over the San Diego Bay.

After dinner, I took pictures of Ingrid with her mom. I wanted to capture them together. Ingrid surprised her mom with a kiss during our little photo shoot which made for a lovely image as you can see above.

I was excited to meet Ingrid's daughter Mikaela and her mother Ginnie for the first time. I recongnized them both since I have seen many pictures of them on Ingrid's Flickr photostream. We had a wonderful lunch at Swadee Thai in Coronado. It's a favorite of Ingrid. I loved the decor, food and the colorful outfits worn by the women at the restaurant. I'll have to ask if I can take pictures of their colorful dresses next time. Ingrid's son Bryce was fascinated by the hidden Mickeys on my Hawaiian shirt.

Toni and I parked and walked to the Coronado Ferry Landing to watch fireworks shot from four barges on San Diego Bay. The fireworks were spectacular and I got some very nice shots. It was a great 4th of July.

I got together with fellow Flickr enthusiasts on Saturday evening to visit and photograph Griffith Observatory. I was excited to go since I had not been to the observatory in at least fifteen years.

When we got there, I was so happy to find an absolutely primo parking spot right away! Oh, and the weather and view were lovely that day. There was a cool breeze and it wasn't insufferably hot like it had been a few weeks ago.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and though I didn't shoot as many photographs as usual, I did get a few keepers. I was very pleased with the results of bouncing my SB-800 off a reflector and even the wall of Griffith Observatory for portraits.

Later, we went to dinner at Fred 62 where some of my friends adapted my portrait flash bouncing technique using an unfolded paper napkin as a bounce surface. It worked amazingly well, even with a built in flash on a Nikon D40 using the shooters hand as a GOBO to stop direct flash hitting the subject. It was a ton of fun.

There's a dog park which sits adjacent to my work and shares the parking lot. When I pulled into the parking lot on Friday morning, I did a doubel take. I saw what appeared to be a chocolate brown Standard Poodle wearing goggles sitting in the passenger seat of a bright red Volkswagen Cabriolet.

I knew right away I had to get a photograph of that dog! I walked over to the owner, a nice man named Frank, and asked if I could take a photograph of his dog in the car. He told me he would be leaving the dog park in a half hour, so I told him I'd come out to meet him at that time.

Frank informed me that his dog Max wears the goggles when riding in the convertible to protect his eyes from flying objects. I took a few shots with Frank holding a fill flash to camera left. I thanked him and the duo were on their way. I'm so glad I took the time to photograph Max. I'm sure you'll agree it was well worth the effort.

I had a wonderful photo session at a favorite client's house in Newport Beach recently. Beth commissioned me to take photographs of her new baby Kamryn and her daughter Kayla who was graduating from High School.

This photograph of Kamryn at a mere 15 days old is the one Beth chose to include with her baby announcements. I was amazed at the clarity of Kamryn's eyes and her attentiveness. She is a beautiful baby. Congratulations, Beth and David!

I love the new TypePad Antispam and I hate blog spam. Blog spam is so pervasive and one of the things I like least about blogging. But now the good folks at TypePad have provided faithful Movable Type users with a weapon to fight against unwanted comments. So, goodbye to spam and welcome to desired comments! :)

TypePad AntiSpam is already built into TypePad, but they have versions for Movable Type like I'm using and WordPress too. I've been using it for a day now and it's working just great. And the best part is it is free.

My friend Anna adores tulips. On Mother's Day her son or daughter customarily send her a bouquet of tulips for Mother's Day. This year Christine sent these stunning pink and white tipped tulips. I love to capture the beauty of Anna's flowers so she can enjoy them long after they're wilted and gone.

On Sunday, Erin and I went to the University of California at Riverside to take some senior portraits for a wonderful young lady, Heather. A coworker or mine, Sharon, arranged for the photo shoot. Heather is the girlfriend of Sharon's son, Matt. It was the first time I had met Heather. She was so fun to work with. She seemed a bit reserved at first, but later relaxed once she began to feel more comfortable with me. It was a very hot day; a near record setting high of 102 degeees for that day in May. It's funny, but you can't even tell it was so warm by looking at the picture of Heather above. Photographs often hide the true environment.

After the photo session, we all went to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside for lunch. We were all very thirsty and hungry. This restaurant is a converted orange packing plant. It's decorated with Victorian style furniture and lighting. I love the collection of vintage looking chandeliers.

My Blue Whale photo will be featured in a special edition 10th Anniversary 19-month calendar for the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

I took this photograph on a Flickr meet at the Aquarium. I'm so honored they want to use it for their calendar and can't wait to see the final product. I like this photograph, but I remember being very frustrated that day because only a handful of images turned out well. It was difficult photographing the aquarium because of the crowds and the dim lighting. I'll definitely be going back armed with my D3 and its low light magic.

Oh, and this one has readings for month, day day of week, ambient temperature AND time. I think it's telling of my age, but I what I love the most are the HUMONGOUS 3.75 inch numbers for the time readout. It's the large print version of wall clocks. ;)

Since the new Mark VII Monorail Red is beginning service to guests at Disneyland on Friday, I am determined to get a photo of the newest design. It has an even sleeker style, sunlight activated color changing glass and seats which face the windows, offering better views of the Happiest Place on Earth.

Taffy poses like she is a hunting dog or maybe a truffle dog.

I drove Toni and fellow teacher, Sally, to LAX this morning. She's one of five adults supervising 25 middle school GATE students on a Spring Break field trip to Rome, Italy and Athens, Greece. She'll be gone for nine days and I'm going to miss her very much.

This is Toni's first overseas trip as an adult. She was born in Berlin, Germany to an Air Force dad but hasn't been back to Europe until now. I have lived in Italy and South Korea, but haven't been overseas as an adult yet. However, I did get my passport last year, so I'm all set to travel abroad. ;)

My Al Dente Spaghetti with Pesto photograph is currently featured on the San Pellegrino website. It is one of several photographs in their Pesto Manifesto article. It's such an honor to have one of my photographs on their site because I'm a real fan of their sparkling water and other products. San Pellegrino is the perfect compliment to a delicious Italian meal.san

I received my Capture My Desert book in the mail. It's a very cool compilation of photos created by the Desert Sun. It was created by choosing from 4,420 photographs submitted by 262 photographers. 177,930 votes were cast to select the winners.

My Cascading Leaves photograph won the Editor's Choice award for the Landscapes & Nature category. I feel very honored because this award was chosen by selecting the photos which received the most votes and then the editors of the Desert Sun picked the one they liked best out of the group. And as if that wasn't enough, I received a cool $100 Target gift card! :)

Last Saturday, I attended a very fun Flickr Meet at Venice Beach. I was excited about going to Venice Beach because I have never taken pictures there and was eager to see what I could find. There was a great turnout. Most of the people I didn't know, so it was great to meet new Flickrites who enjoy photography like I do. I carpooled with Liana, a neat gal from Garden Grove and it was nice to have company for part of my drive. I ended up with a very nice set of photographs from the event.

I had seen some paper mache Mexican Skulls on Flickr and I was determined to find some to photograph. Once we located them, almost everyone in the group took a picture of these fascinating skulls. Each one is hand made and painted and no two are alike.

Venice Beach is famous for its grafitti, but it also boasts hand painted murals of all types. The pink lady above is an example of the artwork to be found on the walls of buildings along Venice Beach. They are a wonderful subject to photograph due to their bright, bold colors and shapes.

There are vendors selling all sorts of goods along the boardwalk. The man above was selling bracelets. I asked if I could take his photograph and he kindly let me. I love the character of his face. I love to take portraits because people are so different and interesting in their own way.

We also walked along the Venice Canals which once featured Italian gondolas. These canals have bridges and were fashioned to look like the canals in Venice, Italy. I didn't know about the Venice Canals before this event. It was very neat to see the beautiful homes which line the canals. I'll have to go back to take photographs again when the sun is lower in the sky.

It was a very fun day. I enjoyed meeting new people and discovering new things to photograph. I am definitely looking forward to another Los Angeles Flickr Meet in the future.