My New Photo Website / August 3, 2013 by Harold Brown

I just got done redesigning my Photo Website.The previous design was more of an organized blog style site that had lots of pictures, but really did not have the pictures in the forefront of everything. A design with a throw back to an earlier time and slower bandwidths. The new design calls out my popular photos and displays the pictures in a much larger format. On a photo website it is all about the pictures and that is what I am focused on. Comments and ratings can be added but do not take up real estate unless clicked on (staying focused on the pictures). This new focus was made possible by the recent changes that SmugMug put into place. Over the last year I had been looking at other photo hosting sites and was liking what I saw, but none offered the ability for me to customize my site to the way I wanted it like SmugMug did. My photo website is the source of most of the pictures on this blog and the photo site offers up all the sizes I need to make for a better designed blog.

There are lots of free sites to show off your pictures, but I prefer my own site and design choices that are free of advertisements, and not subject to overnight changes that break functionality and APIs.

Checkout the site, you will find over 8,000 pictures to look at. Photos Bhaga Video

Tim Hunt's Jazz Duo with Jeff Bremer / August 2, 2013 by Harold Brown

This past Tuesday I went to see "Jazz Duo" at Gervasi Vineyard's Piazza. I have been following Tim Hunt for years and always enjoy listening to his bands. Tim enjoys music and his love for it comes through when you listen to him. Unfortunately this was the first chance this season that I got to see Tim perform. Tim's band "Jazz Trio" will be performing at Gervasi on August 9th from 7pm to 10pm. The trio again features Jeff Bremer on acoustic Upright Bass, and Scott Grewell on drums.Jeff is from Youngstown and is a very accomplished musician with abundant jazz music and classical orchestra experience.

I am looking forward to seeing Tim's Cajun Butter Band at Panini's Tiki Bar on Sunday August 11th from 7pm to 11pm. I have not heard the band with the new members so this will be a first. This band features Tim on the keys and vocals, Scott Grewell on drums and vocals, Pat Cahill on bass and vocals, and Mike Balas from Wooster on guitar and vocals.

Tim also does a lot of solo gigs and will be at the Desert Inn from 8pm to 11pm on August 16th and 31st from 6pm to 9pm, and the Main Street Grill on August 21st and August 28th.

Want to know more about Tim Hunt's Jazz Duo and his other bands? Follow this link to learn more. If you get a chance stop out and see Tim, and tell him Harold sent you!

Ballet Le Reve / July 26, 2013 by Harold Brown

My wife loves ballet and when the local vineyard hosted the Ballet Le Reve "Ballet in the Pavilion" we decided to make a day of it watching the ballet and then enjoying late lunch on the piazza. The Pavilion overlooking Gervasi Lake was a beautify setting to watch these accomplished dance performers. We took a front row seat to watch the dancers and took a few pictures to capture the performance of the day.

Above is one of my favorite pictures, it captures the feeling of the day brought by these young ballet dancers.

Ballet Le Rêve is pre-professional dance company devoted to providing aspiring dancers with dance training, performing arts education, and a pathway to a professional dance career on regional, national, and international levels.

Want to see more pictures of the ballet? Follow this link to my photo website. If you would like to see more of Gervasi Vineyard follow this link.

You can find Gervasi Vineyard on the map below

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out / July 1, 2013 by Harold Brown

Benjamin Franklin

Night Photography – Fireworks / July 1, 2013 by Harold Brown

I took the above hand held pictures with a Sony DSC-H70 set on the "Fireworks" Scene Mode. These seemed like the right time of year to put up a few pictures from past fireworks shows I attended.

You can see the camera movement in all of the pictures, but it doesn't distract from the pictures in my opinion. It does come up with some interesting shapes and patterns.

See my night shot of the Disneyland Palace in this post.

Click on the pictures above to see a larger version and more information about each photo.

Gulls In Flight / June 30, 2013 by Harold Brown

It isn't easy taking pictures of birds in flight. Anytime you point your camera toward the sky you get back lighting, that usually means what you are taking a picture of will turnout too dark. Of course there is also the problem of a blurry picture if you don't have the shutter speed set properly. When everything works out you do end up with some great pictures and sometimes a few unusual pictures as well. The above picture was taken with a Nikon D90 at 1/400s shutter speed. The ISO was 200 which is the sweet spot for the D90.

The little girl was chasing the gull around until he took flight to get away. Photographed at Niagara Falls, Canada. For every good picture I have of a gull in flight, I have 10 others that are worthless. You have to learn to track the birds and keep them in full frame, and that is easier said than done. It is easier if the bird is flying toward you but then you miss out on some other good shots.