Category Archives: Photography

A Santa Barbara itinerary from ChatGPT

I asked ChatGPT for a three-day itinerary to give visitors to Santa Barbara. Here ya go: Day 1: Start the day with breakfast at the Shoreline Beach Cafe, which has a beautiful view of the ocean. After breakfast, head to … Continue reading

Posted in AI, Photography, Places, Travel | 2 Comments

A workflow challenge

I shoot a lot of pictures. Most are from altitude (such as the above). But lots are of people and places; for example, here are a few I shot at DWebCamp last summer with my new Sony A7 IV camera … Continue reading

Posted in Apple, Art, data, Photography, problems | 3 Comments

Remembering Bill Swindaman

That was Bill Swindaman on the last day I saw him: June 2nd of this year, at a gathering of friends from the best community I’ve ever known: a real one, of friends living in a place. The place was … Continue reading

Posted in Obituary, Photography | 2 Comments

Places

Let’s say you want to improve the Wikipedia page for Clayton Indiana with an aerial photograph. Feel free to use the one above. That’s why I shot it, posted it, and licensed it permissively. It’s also why I put a … Continue reading

Posted in Art, education, Photography, Places | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

From Hollywood Park Racetrack to SoFi Stadium

Hollywood Park Racetrack is gone. In its place is SoFi Stadium, the 77,000-seat home of Los Angeles’ two pro football teams and much else, including the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater. There’s also more to come in the surrounding vastness of Hollywood Park, … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art, Aviation, Awesome, Business, california, data, infrastructure, Photography, Places, Technology, Travel | 4 Comments

On windowseat photography

A visitor to aerial photos on my Flickr site asked me where one should sit on a passenger plane to shoot pictures like mine. This post expands on what I wrote back to him. Here’s the main thing: you want … Continue reading

Posted in Aviation, Photography | Leave a comment

Lens vs. Camera

I did a lot of shooting recently with a rented Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II lens, mounted on my 2013-vintage Sony a7r camera. One result was the hummingbird above, which you’ll find among the collections here and here. Also, here’s … Continue reading

Posted in Photography | 8 Comments

Clearing things up

Back in 2009 I shot the picture above from a plane flight on approach to SFO. On Flickr (at that link) the photo has had 16,524 views and has been faved 420 times as of now. Here’s the caption: These … Continue reading

Posted in Friends, infrastructure, Photography, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

A happy 75th anniversary

My parents (that’s them, Eleanor and Allen Searls) were married on 17 August 1946, seventy-five years and two days ago. I would have posted something then, but I was busy—though not too busy to drop something in Facebook, where much … Continue reading

Posted in Family, Past, Personal, Photography | 4 Comments

A storage crisis

The best new phones come with the ability to shoot 108 megapixel photos, record 4K video with stereo sound, and pack the results into a terabyte of onboard storage. But what do you do when that storage fills up? If … Continue reading

Posted in Photography | Tagged | 5 Comments