Canon – Page 2 – The Bouncy Kitty

The tides are in our veins.

Photo by Daniel Leist

Calming and cathartic, the ocean beckons with a quiet roar masked as a whisper – cascading from shore to shore in enigmatic harmony. Growing up in the Bay Area, only a hop, skip and a jump from local beaches like San Gregorio, Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz and Capitola, and spending a good amount of my childhood on the Oregon coast – I have a plethora of fond memories building sand castles and feeding s

ea gulls while unearthing sea glass and haphazardly discovering beautiful raw stones. And even though I spent my collegiate years right on the beach in Santa Barbara, I could’ve spent a lot more time actually at the beach. So whenever I get the chance to finally hit one up, the five year old trapped in this 6’0 body gets butterflies in her stomach and stars of excitement in her eyes.

Photo by Daniel Leist

Life, as they say, is what happens while you’re making other plans and the other weekend was no different. After a haphazard morning leaving Los Angeles, timing had proven tumultuous and schedules had shifted. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day and there’s nothing quite like hitting the road with some good jams and great friends. Soaking in the wonderful weather over Valentine’s Day weekend, a great few days filled with lots of love and great company, my wanderlust waved me over to Laguna Beach’s Thousand Steps Beach. Located just off of the Pacific Coast Highway, tucked away between two bluffs – Thousand Steps Beach is a gem among beaches with loads of soft sand, caves to explore and loads of blissfully breaking waves for hydrophilic humans. Though it’s not technically a thousand steps to get down to the beach, there are definitely enough to warrant a lazy afternoon soaking up some rays.

Photo by Daniel Leist

We couldn’t leave before Sunset on the beach and as we thought, it was absolutely stunning. Sprinting out to the water to snap a picture, my body tangled in itself and the necklace I was wearing broke and my pendant, a beautiful little piece of Amethyst that I got at the Gem Fair in Tucson, tumbled through my sweatshirt and plunged into the current. I watched three or four waves swoop, swish and rearrange the stone and instinctively thrust my hand into the water. Miraculously, I saved it – and it hasn’t left my neck since. This was almost two weeks ago and I’m still finding grains of sand on it!Last, but certainly not least – as the sun went down, the creativity heated up and we tried our hands on some light painting. Danny took hold of the wand, our friend All Day Jimmy was behind the camera – and the result: magic!

What’s your favorite beach to soak up the sunshine? Let me know in the comments below!

One word I’m not is camerashy.

From a young age, my step mother would show me tricks of the trade on her delectably powerful camera. In middle school and high school, I managed to always have a disposable camera on me to eat up my surroundings. And, by the time I reached college and the post collegiate world, I managed to upgrade myself to some Canon PowerShot cameras. And let’s face it, in this modern age even the cameras on our cell phones can far exceed what one can do with a simple point-and-shoot. Regardless of what I have in my hand, I feel like I capture a lot of stunning moments.

Everyone could use a fun, new hobby and photography is at the top of my list. What I’ve learned about photography over time is that to capture the moment, and this goes for both the photographer and the subject, you yourself need to become part of the moment. Whether its letting the scene take your breath away before capturing it, or making eye contact – through your eyes not the camera lens – and getting lost in the atmosphere – if you aren’t immersed in the moment, you might take an image, but you won’t get a picture.

The next best thing to taking a good picture is sharing a good picture – and that’s what my Oh Snap! segments are all about: I’ll get to share my favorite pictures, edits, tricks and tips as I go. I currently bounce between using two different Canon PowerShot cameras, the SD1400IS and Elph 310HS, and my Droid Rezound which came with a stunning 8MP rear camera with 1080p video capture. I have a few applications on the phone that I adore – and yes, not just Instagram (though it’s perfect for quick editing on the fly) – and with each snap I share, I’ll also let you know how I finagled it.

I spent yesterday down in Newport at a stellar boat party thrown by Harmonic Productions; after it ended, I wound up with a few friends at their hotel room – celebrating the gorgeous weather and a birthday. As the sun went down, my interest in capturing it piqued – a good sunset can be hard to capture on camera. I took the picture above using a Droid application called ‘HDR Camera‘ and using the Candy filter to make the pinks in the sunset pop. Below is a picture I took within seconds of the first, instead for this I captured the picture in the Instagram application; I actually spent about five minutes trying to brighten the picture – by shooting from different camera angles and heights, I managed to make the entire picture brighter without losing the detail in the clouds. Within the app, I used the automatic brightener and the Sierra filter.