Chatreez Gallery

Moved

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:39 -0700

Hello!

This is a big day for me. I decided to move my photoblog to a new home. Please click this link to go to my new photoblog at http://www.chatreez.com/photos. Don't forget to update your bookmark!

I moved all my photos and comments so you will see all the previous photos there. The reason to move is because the new system (Wordpress) is much more flexible than the one I use here. Also, I can show larger photos in the new theme. Hope you enjoy it! And feel free to leave comments there as well.

Let me know if you have any feedback on this change. Thanks for visiting my photoblog!

Chatreez

Gamble

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:58 -0700

We went to the Elizabeth Gamble Garden last weekend. I wanted to experiment on framing that’s why the shot looks like this. It was also another trip that I only used the 50mm lens. Like I mentioned before, it forces you to be creative with angle and framing because you don’t have the luxury of zooming. Try it!

University Avenue

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:39 -0700

Last weekend we went walking around trying a few eating spots on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Some people say Palo Alto has two downtowns, one on University Ave and one on California Ave. We like them both but this one here is obviously more flashy (while the California Ave one is more relax).

That "Hotel ..sident" is actually "Hotel President Apartment". Can't imagine how much it is to live here. Though, I'm sure rich Stanford kids can afford that.

Zigzag

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:33 -0700

Finally I get to post a picture. I was lazy over the past week and it was raining like crazy almost everyday. The weather was nice yesterday and we went to San Francisco for a walk but I didn't bring my camera...

That's why I have to look through my older pictures from the Mission set. This one is from Mission Dolores Chapel. I like how the pattern of the roof plays with the lighting.

Valencia

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:30 -0700

This is from the street of Valencia & 17th in the Mission district in San Francisco. This image sort of shows how vibrant and interesting the area is.

It's been cold, cloudy, and rainy over the past couple weekends so we didn't get to go out as much as we want. I guess it's a short period of the year where I can complain about Bay area weather :)

Wilder Ranch

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:35 -0700

A previous picture I posted was the shot from the trail at Wilder Ranch State Park. I think I need to show this picture of the ranch houses as well since it was such a great experience visiting that place. The houses had gone through a major renovation because of the earth quake in 1989.

About the picture, I did not edit the color at all! It was so vivid because I had a circular polarizer on. I don't use it much because I don't always have it in my camera bag and it can cause heavy vignetting. However, if you want to cut through all the reflections on the leaves or water particles in the air to get a deep true color, use this filter.

2010

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:28 -0700

Happy New Year!! It's 2010 now. The whole decade went by pretty fast. I hope it was good for everyone. I feel no matter what happen, good or bad, you learn from it and it makes you who you are.

We went hiking at Wilder Ranch State Park today. Last year we went to Mt Tam, I thought we would go back there again but it was raining up there so we decided to revisit Wilder Ranch. We always thought this place is just a place for hiking and mountain biking along the cliff but they actually have a fully restored historic ranch houses and equipments from 1900s. I'll show some picture of the ranch soon but for today - 1/1/10, this is my shot for you. Thanks for visiting my photoblog!

Montara

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:48 -0700

Montara is a small town on the pacific coast between Half Moon Bay and Pacifica. I honestly just found out today that it's on the map even though I drove past it many times. I took this shot while hiking. I like the layered look of the picture.

Phoenix

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:47 -0700

Today we went to McNee Ranch State Park. We want to go out hiking to celebrate the last day of Christmas weekend. We've never been here before and it turned out to be a great short hike. The trail is next to highway 1 so it was the pacific ocean view the entire time. This picture doesn't really show the hike but I like it obviously because of the interesting shape cloud. It's quite hard to get the lighting right to bring out the details in the cloud.

Inside Basilica

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:33 -0700

This shot was from the inside of the Basilica next to the Mission Dolores Church. We visited this place when we went to Mission district last weekend. I think it was the only non-food experience we had there. Everything else was about eating :)

About this picture, it's not really a special or artsy shot but I haven't taken much architectural photography so I want to post some decent ones here. For me, since you can't tell much of a story from buildings, it's mainly about line, lighting, dimension, and balance. ISO noise makes big different between good and bad architectural shot and this one is on the not-so-good side. I should have brought a tripod.