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29 Jul 2013•Black & White, Places, Travel

Near El Matador beach in Malibu, CA

I went back and looked at some of the other experimental photos I took in Malibu a few weeks ago and found this one.

Before processing it to black and white, I wasn’t that thrilled with it, but after working it in Lightroom and Photoshop a little bit, I’m finding that I like it more and more.

The dark black band above the rock is a wave coming in that hasn’t broken over yet. Contrasting this to the long exposure of the waves in around the rock, the incoming water looks like a wall.

Perhaps the best lesson for me on this trip was to learn how to shoot with the circumstances you’re given. The sky was completely overcast on this day and there wasn’t a trace of the typical blue sky that you normally get along this stretch of the coast. I remember thinking as I shot this series was that this otherwise bland sky would look great in black and white, assuming I could get the foreground elements to contrast the lighter sky.

The more I go back and look at this one, the more I like it. I hope you enjoy it as well.

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27 Jul 2013•Black & White, Places, Travel

Waves at Venice Beach, CA

The third black and white water photo from my most recent visit to Venice Beach.

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24 Jul 2013•Black & White, Places, Travel

Venice Beach, CA

Another black and white photo of the water from my recent drive down to Venice, California.

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22 Jul 2013•Black & White, Places, Travel

The pier at Venice Beach allows you to walk safely out to the point where the waves break.

I drove down to Santa Monica to meet some friends and we decided to head over to Venice Beach and walk around a bit.

One of the nice things about this beach is the Pier that extends out into the break of the waves. There may be others, but this is the only one I’ve seen so far where the pier extends out this far. This allowed me to get this perspective that I would not have been able to get otherwise.

The conversion to black and white was done entirely in Photoshop Lightroom 5 with the aid of Kubota the Blacksmith preset available from Kubota Image Tools.

First Time Flying a Plane

22 Jul 2013•Travel

Here is the accompanying video to the photos I took on my flight this weekend.

In Flight

21 Jul 2013•Photography, Travel

Yep. I went flying today. Not on a traditional commercial flight. Nope. I went flying just for the fun of it. No specific destination. Just for fun.

My friend Brad owns a plane, a Piper Arrow to be precise, and he had it up at the Santa Barbara airport this week.

Access to a plane + No plans + No family in town = Mike tagging along for a joy ride at 4,500 feet.

Brad’s plane was parked just outside Hangar 3.

Just a little nervous

I’ll be honest. I was a little nervous going up in this small four-seater airplane. It didn’t help when Brad described it as “strapping yourself to two gas tanks, surrounded by some thin aluminum.”

Yeah, thanks for that Brad.

But the nervousness quickly dissipated as Brad started telling me about how long he’s been flying and watching him go through the pre-flight routine. He was all business as we got started and we taxied to the runway.

Brad going through the pre-flight sequence.

Good grief. Look at all those controls!

You did what?

As we made our way up and out of Santa Barbara, we headed inland a little as there was a pretty thick marine layer over the coast. Somewhere over Camarillo, Brad says to me, “Okay, you take the controls.” With a little more encouragement from Brad, I gently grabbed the yoke in front of me and just like that I was flying. Granted, Brad was doing the really hard part of communicating with Traffic Control, adjusting the controls and making sure the rest of the moving parts of the plane were being properly attended to. But I was able to roll or bank the plane as well as adjust our altitude. It was pretty cool.

When I called Chris and the kids later in the day and told them what I did, I got mixed reactions.

Chris: “Yeah, that was a great idea. Giving you control of the plane. What could possibly go wrong? Well, it sounds like it was pretty fun. Glad you’re safe now.” 🙂

Nathan: “What? You did what? That is so awesome!”

Devyn: “That’s great, but did you get the music video of me singing Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ that I sent you?”

We made a short stop at the El Monte airport to fuel up and grab a soda and ice tea. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Brad was watching the weather forecast the entire time to see if we could time our arrival back into Santa Barbara with the marine layer burning off some.

Over Los Angeles

As we left El Monte, we went out over Los Angeles and flew past Dodger Stadium, the Capitol Records building, Griffith Park Observatory, the Hollywood Sign and downtown L.A.

Here, we had to stay under 2,000 feet in altitude as there were several larger jets coming in to LAX. It’s kind of crazy seeing a larger jet fly by you at 2,000 feet. Crazy in a cool way.

An empty Dodger Stadium. Must have been a home game.

Griffith Park Observatory

Our view cleared up a little as the day went on.

Coming into Santa Barbara

We were hoping to be given a route into Santa Barbara Airport that would allow us to fly along the coast. You never know apparently. But we got lucky when SBA Traffic Control instructed us to follow highway 101 into SBA. Brad gave me the yoke again and I “flew” the plane for what seemed like forever, but was probably only 15 minutes. As we started to get closer to Santa Barbara, I asked Brad to take over and I grabbed a few more photos.

Just south of Santa Barbara proper. Closer to Montecito.

Another coastal shot.

The northern end of Santa Barbara, getting close to Goleta.

A big thank you to Brad for taking me up today (and getting me back down safely too!). It was a lot of fun!

Mike Wong

Posts by Mike Wong