One of my favorite images, this waterfall is located in a remote area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The water is clean and pure, with very little silt and flows through old growth forest.

Earth Day 2011

Creating meaningful portrait images is one of the most difficult challenges that a photographer can face. No amount of fancy photography gear will help you push the shutter release at just the right instant to capture an image with feeling or character. The subject of this portrait session had plenty of character and together we managed to create some memorable images.

Remembering Spirit Through Music and Storytelling

Lolly Wagon enlivens imagination and inspires creativity with the light of self, plants, animals, fairies, elves, gnomes, spirit, goblins, dwarfs, Maya, elementals, angels, pan, and gaia. The musical accompaniment during the stories provides scene changes for the unfolding curative. Enlightening true love –we songs– enunciate kindness, and well-being.

Animated GIF’s

After several wardrobe, props and lighting changes we felt we had “covered all the bases” and completed the shoot. Once I started reviewing the images I realized there was an excellent opportunity to create several animated GIF images. After color correcting and re-sizing several sequences of images I was able to use Photoshop to make these animations. This one is my favorite and always brings a smile to my face.

All images from this series:

Portrait of a Performance Artist

The task of choosing the best edible wild mushroom is no easy feat. First, you must sample hundreds of wild mushrooms over the course of several years to even begin to form an opinion. Then as soon as you have a favorite you stumble across a new variety that you have yet to try. Guess what? It’s delicious! Where do you place it on your list?

All images from this series:

The Best Edible Wild Mushroom

Honey Bees are an excellent example of survival of the most co-operative. Not only do they serve the hive selflessly, but they contribute to the well being of plants, animals and humans through the simple act of pollination while collecting food.

Workers are the only bees that most people ever see. These bees are females that are not sexually developed. Workers forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers and trees), build and protect the hive, clean, circulate air by beating their wings, and perform many other societal functions.

The queen’s job is laying the eggs that will spawn the hive’s next generation of bees. There is usually only a single queen in a hive. If the queen dies, workers will create a new queen by feeding one of the worker females a special diet of a food called “royal jelly.” This elixir enables the worker to develop into a fertile queen. Queens also regulate the hive’s activities by producing chemicals that guide the behavior of the other bees.

Honey bees increase their populations by the act of swarming. The queen will lay eggs in a special cell that the workers begin to feed royal jelly. Just before the new queen hatches the old queen will leave the hive with about half of the worker bees. A swarm moves en masse to a nest site that has been scouted by worker bees beforehand. Once they arrive, they immediately construct a new wax comb and begin to raise new worker brood.

It’s all about the honey

Honey is the complex substance made when the nectar and sweet deposits from plants and trees are gathered, modified and stored in the honeycomb by honey bees as a food source for the colony. All living species of honey bees have had their honey gathered by indigenous peoples for consumption for thousands of years. The Archaeology of Beekeeping states that humans began hunting for honey at least 10,000 years ago.

For at least 2700 years, honey has been used by humans to treat a variety of ailments through topical application, but only recently have the antiseptic and antibacterial properties of honey been chemically explained. When honey is used topically (as, for example, a wound dressing), hydrogen peroxide is produced by dilution of the honey with body fluids. As a result, hydrogen peroxide is released slowly and acts as an antiseptic.

Did I forget to mention honey is delicious food?

I’ve always had a sweet spot for good honey. I like it in my tea, I like it on peanut butter and banana sandwiches or even just straight up in big heaping tablespoons. I’m especially happy to know it’s good for my health as well. I’d like to give a special thanks to Bee Humble Apiaries for letting me tag along at harvest time with my camera gear. I can assure you, their products are excellent. Straight from the source.

Learn more about honey at Wikipedia.

All images from this series:

Honey Bees

The city of Santa Cruz was the location of an American Indian settlement since ancient times. It was also one of the earliest settlements of the Spanish during the exploration of California in the later part of the 18th century. During the late 19th century, after California became part of the United States, Santa Cruz became widely popular for its idyllic beaches and coastal redwood forests, establishing itself as a resort community.

Cooper Street and Pacific Avenue

During the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several buildings along what was known as the Pacific Garden Mall were destroyed, including the former courthouse renamed and reopened in the 1960s as the Cooper House. The Cooper House was widely regarded as the heart of the downtown area and featured outdoor music each day by Don McCaslin’s band “Warmth”.

The Cooper House had a restaurant and bar that went through several owners throughout the 1980s but consistently attracted the townspeople, their guests, and local characters to the outdoor patio where cocktails, food, music, and people watching were always on the menu. Since the earthquake, the old “Pacific Garden Mall” theme was eliminated.

Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History is a non-profit educational institution in Santa Cruz. It is located at the downtown McPherson Center. Its aim is to promote a greater understanding of contemporary art and the history of Santa Cruz County.

The Museum of Art & History promotes a greater understanding of contemporary art and the history of Santa Cruz County, through its exhibitions, collections, and programs, for the benefit of residents and visitors to Santa Cruz County.

The Octagon Building

The Octagon Building is an historic redbrick octagonal government office building in Santa Cruz, California. It was built in 1882 to serve as the Santa Cruz County Hall of Records. It later became the Museum Store for the adjacent Museum of Art and History.

The building is located at 118 Cooper Street, at the corner of Front Street, along the Pacific Garden Mall. Much of the mall was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but the building survived. It is now an upscale coffee shop called Lulu’s at the Octagon. On March 24, 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Pearl Alley and The Good Times Building

Santa Cruz’s alleys have a variety of purposes. Many of the alleys serve as “back doors” to businesses and some even as “front doors.” All are used as key pedestrian connections between major portions of downtown. Pearl Alley is a favorite and has some great dining establishments and is home to Good Times.

All images from this series:

Downtown Santa Cruz

This lunar eclipse took place on the night/morning of August 28, 2007. I spent the night running to the camera every half hour to snap another frame. After sleeping in the next day I stitched the series of images together in Photoshop.

Lunar Eclipse

The ocean surrounding Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay is cold and deep. The deepest point in the area is 10,663 feet (3,250 meters) and the average surface temperature of the water is 55°F (13°C). This stretch of coast receives large winter storm swells from the Gulf of Alaska as well as late summer and fall south swells from hurricanes off the coast of Mexico.

Surfers Paradise

For anyone who has visited or lived in this area it is very apparent that it is a surfers paradise. The rugged North Coast beaches and the large waves are what originally drew me to this area.

The pristine beaches are an inspiration for many and I find the area from the last few steps of dry sand to the open water especially intriguing. It’s the edge of a vast wilderness that we can hardly know.

Thank You Ocean

All is not well in the world of nature and our oceans have their fair share problems they are facing. Thank You Ocean is a state and federally funded public awareness program with proactive measures you can take to make a difference.

Save Our Shores is a non-profit marine conservation organization in Santa Cruz, California. They have a 30 year track record of advocacy and their three core initiatives are Clean Boating, Plastic Pollution and Ocean Awareness. If you can, help out and Adopt A Beach or volunteer. You grandchildren will be happier for it.

All images from this series:

Ocean Waves