Poison oak is dangerously seductive.  Good thing the photos of it are safe.

My youngest daughter was playing at the beach in Santa Barbara in her sun dress and I grabbed this photo.  Everything about her pose, expression, the long grasses, sand and hill behind her screamed for a vintage look.  I used Nik Silver Efex Pro to get the look I was going for.  Some have said I need to crop it, and I can see why from a composition perspective, but I’ll be leaving it just as it is since I like the environment.

In the Almaden Quicksilver County Park in South San Jose are some abandoned cinnabar mines and a few structures that were present in the mini camps that existed up in the hills.  This is an old barn that existed in English Camp (yes, there was a neighboring Spanish Camp for the Spanish speakers).  I’m not sure if the red color is original or added by the parks department a decade or two ago. It’s pretty beat up and has some charm.  I’m not sure if it has as much charm as I was hoping for after a long hike lugging my camera gear around.

Part of the reason why I didn’t post much last year was due to softball.  My daughter made a competitive team and I signed up as the volunteer team photographer.  It was a great excuse to get a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and get my practice in for sports photography.   What I didn’t know was quite how many images I would shoot and the trials of shooting softball.  The action in softball is very fast and you’re never quite sure where the ball is going to go.  At least you know where the plays are likely to happen.  The hard part, which became somewhat of an addiction, is to try to get good shots at interesting points in the play.  I shot some 25,000 frames over the 6-week tournament season.  There are tons of useless shots, some good story shots that are weak in composition, and some nice moments.  I’ll post some of the latter this year.

In the image above was taken in the last hour or so of sunlight.  The sun was behind me and things were starting to turn very orange.  This is one of the very few ball-on-bat moments I was able to capture.  If I remember correctly, this ball launched off the bat and was good for at least a double.

A hike in San Jose’s Quicksilver park has several trees with these nice little clusters of red berries.  This one worked rather nice with the soft bokeh.