While we were scouting for locations to photograph Playa Del Rey, CA on Thursday, Mia and I decided to head to her cabin in the mountains just outside of Las Vegas for the weekend. I had no idea that such a place existed just 20 minutes from the Las Vegas strip!

With no solid plans and plenty of cotton candy to go around, we set off on what turned out to be quite an adventure, including an extended visit with our buddy Chuck E. Cheese along the way. When we got to the cabin in Mt. Charleston around midnight, it was pouring rain. (the first rain that I’ve experienced since I moved to Southern California 4 months ago!) The weather completely took me by surprise up there…only getting up to about 55 degrees during the day!

We spent most of the day Saturday hiking up to Mary Jane Falls and snapping some photos. Again, I was amazed by the snow-covered mountains that are so close to Las Vegas! When we got back to the cabin after being out in the cold all day, we fired up the stove and snapped a few more photos.

Searching for the Key

Sock Mittens

The Lions Mane

Warm and Cozy

If you’d like to see more of Mia, I put together an album with more photos.

I’m planning a road trip from Los Angeles to Phoenix in early November.

I’ll be posting more details on my route, specific dates and availability for booking here. If you’d like to connect while I am in your area, feel free to drop me a line and bookmark this post in order to stay up to date.

Phoenix/Tempe, AZ - Nov 1-6

** This trip has already taken place. I’m planning another trip to Arizona soon. Stay tuned. **

One of my facebook contacts forwarded me a link to an interesting photoshop article that had me digging through my image archive for a suitable photo to experiment with. Photoshop is great…no matter how much I think that I know, there is always something new that can be done with the application.

This article discussed tilt-shift photography, which uses the Scheimpflug principal to obscure the focal plane of the image relative to the camera. It seems that a photoshop technique can be applied, with a little finesse, to gain an effect similar to that created with a Tilt-Shift Lens. The resulting image can actually trick the eye and look like a miniature model as opposed to a real scene. I used an image that I snapped of a town on the Tambopata River in Peru and applied the technique.

So…what do you think? Does Puerto Maldonado look real or more like a miniature scale model?

I’m already looking for some interesting vantage points to shoot Playa Del Rey, CA and experiment further with this technique. More to come soon…

I’ve been taking my new long board out on the boardwalk (well, cement walk is more accurate) in Venice quite a bit lately. I thought that I’d seen it all on the streets of New York City, but Venice, California is certainly a place all to it’s own. Beautiful sunsets, spray painted palm trees and people doing just about anything for a hand-out make Venice an interesting and very unique place to live.

A few friends from back east have asked “what’s it like in Venice?”, so yesterday I decided to take a camera along for a sunset cruise. I enjoyed snapping photos down there, so expect more to come…

…and a restaurant recommendation from last night:

Locanda del Lago (Santa Monica, CA) - I can’t believe that I passed this place on the Promenade in Santa Monica so many times and just noticed it. Excellent Northern Italian cuisine. I had the salt-encrusted sea bass, which they prepare at the table by carefully cracking and lifting off the chunks of salt that are piled on it as it cooks. It gave a whole new meaning to “melts in your mouth”. Thanks for the recommendation, Tony!