I was supposed to spend a week in Southern California and explore Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea area. But the Bobcat Fire had created a poor air condition and deterred me from heading down there. Now, I am thinking about finding a time toward the end of October as the air quality be a bit more safe to stay outdoor. It was five years ago when I last visited Salton Sea. That whole area has some unique treasures for photography. I didn't get to explore Slab City as I was spending too much time at Salvation Mountain. I just took this shot before leaving. I really enjoyed the desolation, roadside oddities and folk art.

Camera: Google Nexus 6

Took my 2nd dose of COVID vaccine yesterday. Today I felt like a "wack" as depicted in this photo I took a few months ago.

We bought a few roots of rose from Grocery Outlet for the cheap and planted them outside our kitchen a couple months ago. One of them finally blossomed. Yay!

My wife was looking at the protruding lower part of the roof of the building where our apartment is located, where some swallows had built their nests.

You could clearly hear the little baby swallows asking for their parents to bring some food.

At that moment, just when my wife was photographing the nest with her smartphone, their mother or father appeared with food for her babies, just a few seconds before landing.

She was lucky enough to capture that beautiful moment.

I have processed the photo, and I have done some cropping, since the equivalent focal length of this smartphone was 23mm.

Photo taken in the town of Riaza, Segovia, Castilla y León Region, Spain.

TRAYENDO COMIDA AL NIDO, 2024

Mi esposa estaba mirando la parte inferior que sobresalía del tejado del edificio donde se encuentra nuestro apartamento, donde algunas golondrinas habían construido sus nidos.

Se podía escuchar claramente a las pequeñas golondrinas pidiendo a sus padres que les trajeran algo de comida.

En ese momento, justo cuando mi esposa estaba fotografiando el nido con su smartphone, apareció la madre o el padre con comida para sus bebés, apenas unos segundos antes de aterrizar.

Ella tuvo la suerte de capturar ese hermoso momento.

Procesé la foto y la recorté un poco, ya que la distancia focal equivalente de este teléfono inteligente era de 23 mm.

Foto tomada en la localidad de Riaza, Segovia, Región de Castilla y León, España.

This ice-skating rink at Heavenly Village closed early tonight. At 8:30pm, the place was almost like a ghost town. I told this shot shortly after the last patron had departed.

While we were at a traffic stop, a Rolls Royce pulled up almost next to us. I did a double take before I realized a newly wedded couple were in the back seat. Seeing the bride smiling, I then rolled down the window to compose for this shot.

Yesterday I saw this modified VW Beetle at a strip mall plaza. I thought it was cute and I couldn't resist to take some photos of it both from the front and from the back. I think this would be a perfect commute vehicle for Amsterdam. I saw quite a few one-person vehicles driven on the bike lanes over there.

For the first time in my life, I could become one of the heroes in saving humanity by staying home. Unbelievable!

Camera phones are so good these days that they could easily do astrophotography. I just rested my phone on my tripod and took this shot of NEOWISE right above my promegranate tree. I couldn't even see the comet with my naked eyes. If you have one of the latest Android phones, just go out and aim it to the northwest below the left side of the Big Dipper. Snap a few photos with your phone in Night Sight mode. Be sure to rest your phone on something rock solid so that it would take one minute worth of still frames for processing by the Google camera app. Chances are you would catch NEOWISE. Otherwise, you would have to wait for another 6800 years before it comes back close to the Earth again.

Once again, view from the tower of De Young Museum.

Spotted this unusual high clearance Chevy while commuting to the office the other day. I couldn't help but take this snapshot from the dashboard.

We entered one of the most unique wooden churches yesterday in Oslo. This particular one was reconstructed and is part of a museum today. The church was built according to the Viking traditions and was known as a stave church commonly found in Northern Europe especially Norway.

It took us 8 years to come back here again to pay our respect. The landscape has been changed with a new crater formed during the eruption last year. The wrath of Pele cannot be under estimated.

I took a side trip yesterday just to see this apartment condo as recommended by one of the travel Youtubers. We were stunned by its incredible architecture. It even has a boat launching dock at its center courtyard as can be seen on one of the photos in my collage. I had to create a collage just to cover the different points of view.

My wife saw this Painted Lady stuck on a Chevy's emblem and immediately alerted me. Of course, I had to take a photo of it. Poor butterfly.

It 's one of those cages often found in Morgan Territory to trap wild boars. There is a ranch nearby. So I guess somebody is planning for a big feast.

It's our first time cruising out of Amsterdam to the North Sea. I took this snapshot shortly after we departed from the port.

While we were strolling around in the Mission District, we came across this Victorian house with bright blue colors and intricate crown mouldings. It was very eye-catching. Without hesitation, I took this ultra wide angle shot with my phone. I typically don't carry any ultrawide angle lens for my camera these days whenever I walk about the city. The ultrawide on my phone is good enough.

I parked my car on California St last Sunday before I walked over to Chinatown for some street photography. Saw this cable car just cruising down the street from Nob Hill. I took this shot because judging from the facial expression of these passengers, that didn't seem to be a thrill ride.

John Elliot was once a land owner of this part of Brushy Peak. He loved his land so much that he had decided to get buried in one of the wind caves of this rock known as Post Office Rock when he passed away. You can see from this picture that a concrete wall has completely seales off his tomb inside the cave. Interesting enough, a raven has built a nest right next to it sharing the space.

I accidentally discovered this road to Del Valle Regional Park last weekend when I was looking for snow among the hills in Livermore. Turns out the park has a lot of hiking trails around the reservoir.

View on Instagram ift.tt/2rwcxlF

said the mannequins at the gift shop inside Levi's Stadium.

Here is another over-the-top X'mas decor of a family home in Pleasanton. It was even on the news and there was a long line of people queuing up to get into the backyard for more festive lights. I bet the electric bill is over a grand. Unbelievable.

I didn't know you could decorate a room with stuff found in the bay. This tells us one man 's trash is another man 's treasure.

This morning my wife made me some English tea for breakfast. She brought out this tea set that we have recently bought from a local discount store. Of course, I needed to bring out my Rolleiflex to match the tea set for a throw back Sunday. It felt like the early 70s again.

Some background on this Rolleiflex 3.5F, I recently bought it from Victory Camera in Colorado. I had no idea how great condition it was. Both lenses are super clean and the selenium meter is actually spot on. The operation of this camera is very silky and precise. Most importantly, the shutter sound is very quiet. I could even go below 1/15 sec handheld. To me, this iconic TLR just feels right in my hands. This is far better than its later generation 2.8GX despite half a stop difference.

I took my wife to the emergency room this morning as she couldn't move her shoulder and there was blood coming out from the corner of her left eye. The emergency doctor ordered a CT scan of her head and an X-Ray of the left side of her body. When the radiologist came, she brought in this portable X-Ray machine made by Fujilfilm. I, of course, is familiar with Fujifilm. I took a few photos of this "camera gear" in operation. The radiologist had a LCD panel to control the X-Ray scanner housed in a robotic arm in front. When one frame was captured, the image immediately popped up on the LCD panel as you can see here on the right. Man, that 's one helluva "camera gear". Move over GFX boys and girls. This is the ultimate Fujifilm gear.

Happy New Year, everyone! We were almost the first on Earth to celebrate the New Year out in the Pacific near Napier, New Zealand.

This dam at Lake Berryessa provides the much needed water and hydroelectric power to the northern part of our Bay Area. Right next to the dam is the so called "Glory Hole" water spillway that I have posted a few days ago. I couldn't do a panorama of this scene as I was right behind a fence.

There is a reason why this is called Devil's Bath. It's so deceptively like some kind of matcha dessert!

Google's Night Sight is so handy these days that I didn't use my DSLR much in Sydney!

Lens: Moment Fisheye

We walked past this tandem bike on our way to Anne Frank House today. I thought it could have been Batman's primary transportation in Amsterdam as the streets are narrow. His sidekick, Robin, would have been riding on the back in tandem. Anyway,

Mustard flowers are still in full bloom these days. We 'll have another storm coming this Wednesday, so this blossom scenery would most likely stay.

Spotted this sundog phenomenon in the sky the other day while I was at a traffic stop in North San Jose. I quickly took out my phone and snapped this photo through the wind shield.

It 's such a long drive to get there. But it 's well worth it as It 's quite mesmerizing to watch the water drop into the hole.

What to do when you are stuck in the traffic in downtown San Francisco? Just stick your head out the window, and you will find subjects.

I walked over to Levi's Stadium yesterday trying to find out if the street was still blocked. Indeed it was. I also found a lot of pamphlets on the ground.The whole place was deserted almost looking like a scene in the movie, Zombie Apocalypse.

When I went past these ATM machines last night, I was intrigued by the green neon lights. Somehow they introduced reflections to my phone camera. Weird.

Here is another demonstration of Google Night Sight capability at a pitch dark cavern in Tasmania. Our tour guide was holding a lighted candle. My focus point was on the face of that girl in front of me. I switched my phone to night sight mode and then snapped away. Google did the rest of the tricks.

While on my way to the marina park in Alviso, I spotted a patch of wildflowers at their early blossom on a lawn of someone's house. I immediately braked my car, got out, and used my phone to take a couple of low angle shots of them. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my Sony which has a tilted LCD screen for the shot. I guess a phone would do.

I have never seen SFPD all decked out in their combat gear until Superbowl 50. They are quite friendly though despite being fully armed from top to bottom.

As soon as I exited out of Umeda Sky Buiiling, I looked up and saw the architectural revelation. I tried to stand at the center of the circular opening, bent my body backyard, and composed for this shot.

When I am in a foreign country, I always love to shoot at the police. With their riot gear all decked out, these policia dudes at the central plaza in Lima look even more interesting. Hopefully, I won't get arrested anytime soon. But of course, I asked before I took the shot.

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I couldn't resist taking a selfie with the space shuttle astronaut the other day. Afterall, I don't get to see him everyday.

This is my first test shot of the low light capability of Pixel 2 XL with its HDR+ function. It looks very good, thanks to its fast aperture lens and computational noise reduction algorithm.

Explore #334, October 29th, 2017

Earlier today, I challenged my wife to take a photo of me with my Yashica TLR. She was not used to the reverse image of the waist level viewfinder as the TLR lacked a prism. So it really took her a long time to compose the shot. While she was doing that, I sneaked out my phone and took a photo of her so that I could have my own Vivian Maier moment. TLR is fun.