Although many of the larger animals at the Zoo were out and about, many of them seemed to be all tuckered out after Thanksgiving:
Immature flamingo
Koala
Camel
Llama
Striped hyena
Sun bear
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Our Thanksgiving tradition here is to spend the day at the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, or SeaWorld.
Yesterday we did the Zoo and found this Bornean Sun Bear whiling away his time, wondering what all the hubbub was about:
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When I was in Imperial Beach a couple of days ago, I walked out to the end of the Imperial Beach pier. It was an extraordinarily clear day, and looking back at shore, I saw something I’ve never seen before:
That thing is huge! How could I have missed it all these years?
After I saw it from the pier, I first though, “What is it?” Then I rushed back to my car to go find it. Alas, I did find it, but there is no way we mere mortal citizens can get to it. That’s because it’s the Silver Strand Training Complex for the United States Navy. I had to take the following picture through a very high chain link fence.
According to Wikipedia, the Silver Strand Training Complex is the premier training facility for U.S. Special Operations Forces. The large, circular fencing is actually a Wullenweber direction finder antenna used until 1999 to provide direction finding, primary communication links for U.S. Navy submarines. It is known locally as the “elephant cage.”
Created in 1920 as the Navy Radio Compass Station, it has been renamed several times during the ensuing years: Navy Direction Finder Station (1940), Naval Radio Receiving Station Imperial Beach (1953), and Wullenweber Circular Disposed Antenna Array (1965). It was the last of its type to be built and was decommissioned in 1999.
The area owned by the U.S. Navy comprises 450 acres and provides an excellent training environment with its waterborne approaches from both the Pacific Ocean and San Diego Bay. Ship systems testing occurs offshore, and the city-like layout of the base (see map below) provides a realistic site for critical urban warfare training.
Since 2010, Navy training at the Silver Strand Training Complex has increased, involving mine-sweeping training, amphibious operations, special warfare operations, and Littoral combat ship training for antisubmarine warfare.
There has been a lot of environmentalist opposition to the increased use of the Silver Strand Training Complex because of nearby populations of endangered wildlife species, such as the California Least Tern, the San Diego fairy shrimp, and the Western snowy plover.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer,
Realtor Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
I don’t get sick very often, but when I do, it lasts sooooooooooooooooooooo long, as if it’s trying to make up for all the other times that I should have gotten sick but didn’t.
While I’ve been sick, I haven’t been able to add much to my photograph collection but I have had time to catalog a lot of pictures and post-process them in Photoshop CC.
I came across a picture late last night that was begging for me to have some fun applying various filters to it, especially since the picture’s focus was, as photographers say, soft.
I never throw such pictures away because the technology in today’s photo editing programs is just too powerful. With a little effort one can make something beautiful out of something so-so.
Here’s the original picture as it came out of the camera:
I think it has great composition, taking full advantage of the rule of thirds, but, along with the soft focus and lack of detail, it’s kind of flat and lacking contrast, especially for a landscape picture. Dull, boring, and uninteresting…. blah….
I did my initial post-processing in Adobe Camera Raw, as I always do, and got this:
Much better contrast and colors, especially in the sky and tree. However, after doing that, I decided that I wanted more from that purple mountain majesty in the left third of the picture, and possibly even from the other mountains.
I took the second picture to the Topaz Adjust plugin for Photoshop and started applying filters to it to see if I could get something more significant in that purple mountain majesty. Here are the ones I liked:
Topaz Adjust classic collection detail medium filter
Topaz Adjust classic collection photo pop filter
Topaz Adjust HDR collection dynamic brightness filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection bold filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection clarity filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection crisp filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection detail strong II filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection dramatic filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection gritty I filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection neutralizer filter
Topaz Adjust vibrant collection portrait drama filter
I liked the detail in the mountains using the Vibrant Collection Gritty I filter best (third picture from the bottom). However, when I selected the mountains and then applied the Gritty I filter to them, they looked out of place with the rest of the picture. I needed detail but more purple mountains majesty. Next I chose the Vibrant Collection Bold filter, and I liked what it gave me. Here’s my final rendition:
The last picture, then, is a three-selection composite:
I first selected the marsh and the tree and applied the Topaz Adjust Classic Collection Detail Medium filter to them. That increased the contrast and detail. Next, I decreased the yellows just a smidgeon. My lens, a Tamron 28-300mm lens, has an overall yellow cast to it which the Adobe lens correction profiles knows about. However, I didn’t want to apply the lens correction to the whole picture, so I applied it manually just to the vegetation.
My second selection was the sky because I really wanted to increase the contrast between the blue and white to show how dramatic the clouds were. Great clouds are something we don’t see often in San Diego. I applied the Topaz Adjust Vibrant Collection Dramatic filter to the sky.
Lastly, I selected just the mountains and applied the Topaz Adjust Vibrant Collection Bold filter to them.
There you have it. Masks and layers are extremely powerful, letting you do some magnificent things to photos that otherwise would be simply snapshots. Most every good photo editing program has masks and layers. Learn how to use them and you can Wow! all your friends with the magnificence of your photography.
Smile if you know what song purple mountains majesty is from….
Location of the lonely sentinel:
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James Frimmer, Realtor
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I love walking through a shop that sells seashells and other ocean- and beach-related items.
It’s amazing the variety of life that is in the oceans.
So when I found Bibbey’s Shells, Rocks & Gift Shop in Imperial Beach, right across from the Imperial Beach Pier, I couldn’t resist spending some time there, especially since the outside of the shop is wrapped in ocean-themed murals, and I’ve really become a fan of murals during the past few years since I’ve had my camera.
Since Bibbey’s is in the most southwesterly city in the continental United States, Bibbey’s might be the most southwesterly shells, rocks & gift shop in the continental United States!
Just because the name is Bibbey’s Shell Shop doesn’t mean shells are all you can buy. Check out some of the other great items you can buy in the following pictures. My favorites are the seashell hot pads and the gold amethyst.
And look at the cute nodding birds for your beach-front home or even for your landlocked garden:
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer,
Realtor Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Lonely day on the sea wall.
I thought that would be a good picture to apply some special effects to, so I did.
Fractalius filter by Redfield
The following renditions all came about using the Topaz plug-in for Photoshop.
Sunset
Dusk
Moonlight
The following, though, is my favorite. Compare the original to the following. Notice that the original has a significant blue tint throughout the picture. There simply was too much blue around me in the blue sky and the blue water. I tried changing the white balance but was not satisfied.
What I decided to do was place a mask on everything except those 13 posts making up the part of the seawall that the pelican is sitting on. Then I took the unmasked posts to the Topaz plug-in and applied some filters to it until I got the grungy brown posts, which I think make a much better overall picture.
Smile if you love pelicans….
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
I was out in the darkness recently taking videos of trains at night.
While waiting for a BNSF freight train to come rolling through the historic Santa Fe Depot, I saw an opportunity to take a flash video of a bicyclist.
I was across the tracks, pretty well hidden from his view, but I wonder if had seen me and did a little performance just for me.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer,
Realtor Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
You know you’re in a beach community when monsters are out surfing:
That is part of a huge mural that wraps around three sides of a building in Imperial Beach, California. I’m working on reconstructing the complete mural using Photoshop’s Photomerge function. With all the different perspectives, though, so far the result I’m getting is not very good. I may have to change course.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Music for your reading pleasure:
“Signs,” Tesla, 1990
(one of the few remakes that I like;
see my previous post for the original)
People warned me when I started teaching chess at after-school enrichment programs that I probably would get sick. I thought they meant sick of chess, or sick of children. I didn’t knew they meant physically sick………………
So while I’ve been fighting getting really, really sick, I’ve been following the world chess championship between Viswanathan Anand (current champion from India, age 43) and Magnus Carlsen (challenger from Norway, age 22). I’m a big fan of Magnus Carlsen’s style of play. I got up early this morning to watch the match on live streaming Internet video. How cool was that!
The match is 12 games, and the first person to 6½ points wins the championship. Carlsen won today’s game in stunning fashion (but typical for Carlsen) and is up 6 points to 3. I think it’s a sign…..
Speaking of signs (did you like that segue?), I’ve also been cataloging older pictures in my collection. Following up on yesterday’s post (Signs, signs, everywhere a sign), following are some more interesting signs I have found over the years of traipsing around Southern California.
And lastly:
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer,
Realtor Century 21 Award, BRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Russel Ray Photos 