Where is Ben?

I'm On-line Again!

I have my Verizon card going again. It turns out that there's a quirk in the way Verizon deals with people who have been cut off. You can walk into a Verizon store the next day and simply sign up again as if you've never owned a card before. The thing I don't like about it is that you have to sign a new contract, which is a two year commitment.

I ended up buying the Express Card version of the EVDO card so that I'll have the right card once I upgrade to a MacBook Pro (but I activated the old card for now since I don't have one of those new-fangled express card slots just yet). That way I could take advantage of the hardware discount you get when signing a new contract instead of having to pay full-boat price when it was time to upgrade.

Exploring the Bay Area

After spending last night parked behind the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, I drove something like 11 miles to my next stop—Pacifica. I'm parked as close to the water as you can get and will spend the next three nights here. I took a short trip to the Golden Gate Bridge and went to a movie with my friend Stephen Johnson. Now that I actually have net access, I might spend a bit more time updating this blog with what's been going on over the last few days.

Exploring Point Lobos

I've made it to Carmel and spent a good part of the day exploring Point Lobos. The twisted Cypress trees are awesome with red/orange and green coatings that make it look surreal. I'd love to come back and visit this area earlier in the year when I'd be able to see these awesome trees within a bank of fog. It's a somewhat difficult subject to photograph this time of year since they don't open the gate until after 9 a.m. and close by 7 p.m., so you can't be in there during much of the golden hour.

I also visited the Photography West and Weston galleries in Carmel.

Exploring the Carmel Mission

I checked out the Carmel Mission today. The best light for this area is right around sunrise since the front of the mission is in the shade in the evening. The only problem is that they don't open the gate until sometime after 9am and by then all the warm light is gone. That means that you'll end up shooting over the walls from the parking lot.

Exploring Big Sur Area

The Big Sur Campground is located about a block from a little strip of stores and restaurants. This is a unique little area in that the restaurant has rustic wood furniture placed right in the river where you can have a drink with your feet in the water. A few doors down is the Big Sur Pub which has well over 100 beers on the menu. This is also where the locals hang out. I met a bunch of fun people there and they ended up playing guitar and singing by the end of the night.

Exploring Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Today turned out to be a great day for photography. I started the day with a great sunrise, spent lunch time at Hearst Castle and ended the day photographing a waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. I'll be spending the next few days exploring the Big Sur area and will be staying at the Big Sur Campground. They didn't have any spots for a rig as large as my RV, but I talked them into letting me park my 40' RV in a 37' space because I wouldn't be blocking any campground traffic even though I was hanging out into the road a bit.

Exploring Hearst Castle

After shooting sunrise, I started to head North up the California coast. My first stop was Hearst Castle. I was impressed by the architecture, but unimpressed with the amount of time allowed for photography. In fact, I got yelled at right after taking this shot because I waited for the tour group to pass so they wouldn't be in the shot and then got locked out of the building as I tried to enter seconds after the last person in the group closed the door!

Morro Bay Sunrise

The sunrise was amazing this morning (you might have to click the photo to see a larger version). I didn't spend too much time stitching this image together... it was from 12 shots... I still have to spend some additional time evening out the sky, but I thought you might enjoy seeing it.

Students Hijack Survey

My Lepp Institute students (all 16 of them) just teamed up on me and all took the survey at www.DigitalMastery.com. Taking a vacation used to be the top vote... now they all voted to have me blog more. So... I'm writing this post during my Lepp seminar while all the students are waiting for me to start teaching again and they can sit there and watch while they have no idea how long I'll be blogging or how long of a run on sentence I can type.

Please go to www.digitalmastery.com and take the survey on the right of the screen so that I can stop blogging and get on with this seminar. Thanks!

Teaching at the Lepp Institute

I'm spending this week teaching a 5-day hands-on class at the Lepp Institute. It's titled "Digital Mastery: Photographer's Essentials".

My next hands-on class will be near San Francisco and is a two day event that covers Smart Objects. The class runs from Sept. 30-Oct-1.

I'll also be presenting my Photoshop for Photographers seminar in Sacramento on October 18th.