Every year around Easter my daughter and a group of my closest friends go camping at the Indians campground in the Los Padres National Forest. It is one of the best parts of my year. I often do some photography while I’m there. This time, the fun stuff was putting a strong IR filter on my lens and getting some long exposure shots of the Arroyo Seco river.

This photo is a 25 second exposure (I know, my previous post is a long exposure shot too, must be the flavor of the month.

It was just after a storm, so I got some shots of clouds as well.

All photos @ Alex Schoenfeldt 2012
All rights reserved
San Francisco Photographer

At the park on a nice sunny day with my daughter and some friends. Zaria is laying down on her mom’s la, and the sun is hitting her pretty blue eye just so.

This was one of those grab the camera you have with you moments, which was my phone. The iPhone does pretty well in macro mode actually, and it can digitally zoom for an even better effect.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2011. All rights reserved.
San Francisco Photographer

In my theme this week about some of the other types of photography I do. I also do product photography.

In this case, “Art Photography” might be a better description, but not in the usual sense of the photo is a piece of art (it may be, but not the point) but in the sense that I am taking pictures of pieces of art. The photos below are Chinese antiquities.

The first one, above, is a ceramic sculpture. Forgive my ignorance about what I’m showing. I just know that the client said it was worth $4,000.

The second shot, above, is jade, which is notoriously hard to photograph.

The last two, above and below, might be the oldest human made object I’ve ever handled. He said from about 2,000 BCE. The second shot (below) is a detail shot of the pictographs under the handle.

all photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2012. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography

I was doing a family portrait session. Mom, dad, two great dogs and one cute and happy little girl. She was one of those bubbly charming kids that make people without kids think “we should have kids.”

She got a little bored or posing with her mom and dad in a look at the camera way, but she didn’t mind “mugging” for the camera. Her mom put her on the table and let her just go while I snapped a few dozen photos. There are plenty of great shots from this session, but this one is just so fun. It’s just so sassy! The lines work really well, and the red offers such an interesting contrast to the greens and browns. Oh, I also like the textures in the photo.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2011
All rights reserved
San Francisco Photographer

I did a pregnancy photo session for a couple recently. We started on the hills above the ocean somewhere south of Pacifica CA. We got some great shots of the two of them but the award winner is posted below. The long back hair, round pregnant belly, dark Indian skin, the dark cliff walls, the cold white-capped ocean, this shot just works in my opinion.

It’s on the blog twice. I was just going to post the color version you see first. This shot is a bit intimate, and I know for a fact the husband has some conservative family members, I thought I’d check before I put it out there on the interweb for all to see. I emailed a proof of the shot with my request, and when I got the email saying “yes” back it also said “aren’t you going to use the black and white version?”

Which one do you like better?

For this photo, in the early evening I pulled over on the very quiet Highway 69 between Mariposa and Oakhurst. I mounted the camera on a tripod, and waited for some cars to appear at the edge of the image.

I then exposed the image for 30 seconds, (f8, ISO 200) so the lights from the cars would streak across the image.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2005. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt is an official Yosemite National Park wedding photographer.

While shooting a bridal portrait session today, I saw this spiderweb in the morning fog.

Photo © Alex Schoenfeldt 2010. All rights reserved.
San Francisco Bay Area Photographer

I recently bought a digital canon, a D60, that has been converted to shoot infrared. Now, you can’t quote me on this, but here is to the best of my knowledge how this thing works. All digital cameras have a filter in them that blocks infrared and allows visible light to pass. In my new IR camera, someone has taken out that filter and placed instead a filter that does the opposite, blocks visible light and allows IR to pass.

If I’ve got that wrong, let me know in comments.

I first took the camera out to the Berkeley hills, and I loved it right away. I could tell immediately that I had to learn to see in a new way to get the most out of this camera, which as a photographer was an exciting prospect.

Then, I took the camera to the Big Sur River with some friends, and here are the results:

All Photos © Alex Schoenfeldt 2010. All rights reserved.
Alex Schoenfeldt Photography.

Art Photography: Photo Safari Alameda Naval Base

Yesterday, I spent a little time on the old naval base is Alameda, CA.

I love old abandoned buildings and the like, so this place is a dream come true for me.

All photos © 2010 Alex Schoenfeldt
San Francisco Photographer

Here is the next image from my trip to the Los Padres National Forest. I think this image speaks for itself.

Photo Field of yellow wildflowers, bare rocks, mountains and sky