Malibu Creek Hike

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the things I look forward to on the weekend is being able to spend time outdoors (hiking, walking, running, biking, etc.).  Spend more time with mother nature and less time in bed so I can appreciate the things that surrounds us.

Before I ask you all to view the pics I took yesterday, here's a quote from Miss South Carolina: LOL

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children"

Here are some of my favorites: 

 

Click the album below to view the rest of the pics:

Malibu Creek Hike

Downtown L.A. Night Shots Part Duex

"Become addicted to constant and never ending self improvement." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

A view of downtown L.A. from the Water and Power district near the Disney Concert Hall.

I seriously can't wait to go to New York and take pics! Only a few more days and my memory cards will be filled with pics from NY. I have always wanted to go to NY to see what the fuzz is about. When I think of NY, I think of "Sex in the City" and I seriously remember the time that movie came out and every woman I know talked about it! They even dressed up just to go see the movie! I didn't get it at that time but after seeing the movie... Yes, I saw the movie out of curiosity and I really think that Carrie should stop hanging around with her friends, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda! and stop asking them for advice! That's like asking a blind man to walk another blind man..

Anyway, here are the pics I took earlier:

Click the album below to view from my Picasa Album

LA Night Shots 2

Wine Tasting @ Solvang, CA

"Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it."

 

I figured I'd start with a quote since yesterday was Valentine's day. :) The last time I went to Solvang was 7 years ago, nothing really changed in that little village except for maybe the ridiculously priced cookies!!! $3 each for a cookie that is a little bit bigger than a fortune cookie!!!

I don't drink wine but I really enjoyed wine tasting on Saturday. It wasn't the wine that I really enjoyed, it was the company of friends that I really enjoyed (awwww...). It doesn't really matter where we go, as long as I am with my friends, I am happy. -- I have a toothache now... this is so sweet.. haha..

Sometimes when I'm bored, I send my friends text messages that goes like this:
Me: Knock Knock
Them: Who's there?
Me: It's me...your friend, John.. I just wanted to let you know that i'll always be here for you. LMAO.

Click the link below to view my album

Wine Tasting @ Solvang

The pictures below are the ones that I really like:

Studio Session Part 2

We had another studio session last night and when I say studio session, I meant they went recording and I was only there to support and record videos haha.  The good news is that we finally got all the pieces together for two important videos; The introduction of the artists and their first music video "Never Get Me Back".

Anyways, here's the video. I hope you all like it.




Keep checking the blog for more updates. I should have the video completed by this weekend.

Also, I will be going out of town this weekend and I never leave without my camera. Pictures will definitely be posted, so keep checking!

Griffith Observatory

It's been a while since I went to the Griffith Observatory so my friend Richard and I decided to come up here and take some pictures. I would say tonight was a bad night to take pictures since it was so cold (my hands were numb and I could not feel the buttons on my camera) but I didn't want to make any excuses not to go out and take pictures of the beautiful things that surrounds us. People from different parts of the world come to the Griffith Observatory every single day and I bet there are people out there who live locally that have never even been to the observatory.

If you would like to learn more about the history of the Griffith Observatory, please visit: http://www.griffithobservatory.org/obshist.html

I think my next shoot would be in Chinatown or somewhere in Downtown L.A. (maybe the art district.. hmm..)

Chicago Trip

Since I really don't have anything to talk about right now. I figured, I'd talk about my trip to Chicago a few months back.

I've always been a fan of Michael Jordan so Chicago is one of the cities that I really wanted to visit. Back in September, I finally had a chance to visit this beautiful city and at the same hang out with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in 15 years.

Chicago is a really nice city with lots of history. The first thing I noticed was that the streets were named after our past Presidents.

Three places I wanted to visit: Willis Tower (Sears Tower), Michael Jordan Statue, and the Millennium Park.

On top the Willis Tower:

United Center:

Millennium Park:
That's it for now!

To view the rest of my pictures, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=0f578b070d88c7e2&sid=0AaNGLZs3cuGTiQ

Studio Session

I was finally able to play around with my new camera and recorded a few videos yesterday. We started filming some footage for their new song "Never Get Me Back" with Marcelo, Wynn and BDB but I'm not posting anything until I have Wynn's part. We are meeting again on Thursday to finalize the video shoot for the song. But before we go in to making music videos, I figured they should talk about why they're doing what they're doing, how long they've been doing it, and what can they do to help others who want to be in the music industry.

"We put our creative talents together and make music... This is an opportunity to open up new doors to our crew... We're not tryin' to work 9 to 5 jobs for the rest of our lives" - Marcelo

"If you put a bunch of creative people all together, stuff like this happens.... We express ourselves with these beats, with these rhymes... If you want something, you gotta get out there and do something... it ain't gonna come to you" - Bryan "BDB"

My computer was having some problems yesterday so I couldn't really edit the videos the way I wanted them. I wanted to put more effects and have smoother transition but I didn't have time. Anway, here's a video of what came out of the session yesterday.




*Click fullscreen and choose 720p to view in HD*

We also did a commercial shoot for Dino's Pizza (without their knowledge).. LOL.
I will be editing them tonight and will post later when I get home from work.

Random Night

A few nights ago, my friend Richard stopped by my house to show me his new Canon DSLR. He is also getting into photography and wanted to get the most out of his camera rather than just shooting in "auto" mode and the other camera presets. He also wanted to try out other lenses, particularly the 50mm. (by the way, I am trying to convince him to buy the 50mm since it is very inexpensive and can do a lot of things)

Coincidentally, he had his 9mm gun in his bag so we decided to take pictures with it. I've always wanted to create a "poster" like image so I thought I'd try it. I picked up my D40 with the 50mm and started shooting away.

I am going to show you two pictures with before and after photoshop edits.

BEFORE:
AFTER:

And here's another shot.
BEFORE:
AFTER:

My First Post

I have been wanting to put up a blog for a while now but I didn't know what to really focus on. I am one of those people that can't focus on one subject when having a conversation and jump from one topic to the next. So staying on one topic would be really difficult for me. Well, lately I have really been getting into photography and so I have decided to make this blog about photography.

I have been using my father's Nikon D40 for a couple of years now and I have gotten to the point that I need a bigger camera that offers more features. For a couple of months I have been looking at the Nikon D90. Nikon D90 is a mid-range semi-pro camera that has a built in HD 720p video recorder. My friends and I have been planning on making music videos and a few other comedy skits to post on youtube. We have a few videos posted online but it lacks quality (here's a link to Bryan's youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/23avila). In short, this blog will contain still photographs as well as videos.

Fast forward to earlier this afternoon, I finally picked up a Nikon D90 and so far I am impressed with this camera. So far I have 3 lenses that I use and they are: Nikon 18-55 (this came with the Nikon D40), Nikon 55-200 VR and a Nikon 50mm. I have yet to purchase a Nikon speedlight flash and upgraded lenses. I am sure I will get those in the coming months.

Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday and we are doing our first video shoot for one of the songs in Marcelo's album. I have a few ideas in mind but we'll see how that turns out.

Here's a cover album that I created for Marcelo: (The picture was taken by Jeff and the effects were added by me)

Here's a couple of links to some of the pics I've taken in the past.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesplana

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=0f578b070d88c7e2&sid=0AaNGLZs3cuGTiQ