Justin Blanton Photography

Beach strata

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:01 -0800

Santa Cruz, California, October 2008.

Untitled

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:40 -0800

San Jose, California, June 2008. I took this shot a couple of weeks ago at the San Jose Juneteenth in the Park Festival, which I gather is the largest Juneteenth celebration in the country. It was a lot of fun, and I was able to get both fried catfish and fried okra, which made my day.

This was taken with the recently-purchased 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, and as is becoming the desired norm, it was processed entirely in Lightroom.

Ground floor

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:48 -0800

San Jose, California, November 2007. I took this from atop the parking garage of the building in which I currently work (eight stories up); they're constructing another building to match the one that's already there.

I should note that this shot was taken with a Canon PowerShot G9; a great camera to be sure, but I sold it a few months ago because I wanted something a bit smaller to complement my DSLR, and to that end I recently picked up a Ricoh GR Digital II, which I absolutely love.

In other camera news, I recently replaced my 70-200mm f/4.0L USM with the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. I received the new lens just a few days ago and have been able to shoot with it only once, and even then only for ~30 minutes, but I can tell already that it's going to be my go-to lens; the only negative I can come up with is that it weighs 3.2 pounds (without the tripod collar).

Finally, I realize I've been a bit derelict in updating the photoblog, but as ever, it's not for want of desire, just lack of time. I'm going to try to get back to posting photos more frequently/regularly. Thanks for sticking with me. ;)

Barely hanging on

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:46 -0800

San Jose, California, July 2007. This shot is from a freestyle motocross exhibition at the 2007 San Jose Grand Prix.

Apple Fifth Avenue

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:49 -0800

New York City, New York, June 2007. This is another shot from my trip to NYC earlier this year. What you see is the somewhat famous glass cube that sits atop the underground Apple store on Fifth Avenue.

Untitled

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:06 -0800

San Jose, California, July 2007. I took these shots from the park across the street from my office building in downtown San Jose (and yes, the top photo is out of focus on purpose ;).

Old enough

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:13 -0800

Santa Cruz, California, May 2007. I took this shot at the newly-"renovated" skate park near the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. There was a fairly large group of experienced BMX riders at the park, and a couple of them actually asked me if I was shooting for a magazine. Not too long after I got there, this little guy came into the park and immediately started talking with the older crew; 10 minutes later he made his way up one of the ramps (Crocs and all), and that's when I got this shot.

Surprisingly, and as with the previous shot, I processed this photo entirely in Lightroom.

And here they come...

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:48 -0800

San Jose, California, July 2007. This shot is from the 2007 San Jose Grand Prix. Unfortunately, my general admission tickets didn't allow us into the grandstands and so shooting the races was nearly impossible; before shooting past two fences five feet apart, I had to fight my way through the [at least] four-deep crowd concentrated near the good spots.

I really debated putting this shot up, but ultimately decided to run with it because I liked the colors so much. Relatedly, this is my first attempt at post-processing without Photoshop -- I did everything in Lightroom. Though I doubt I'll ever again stay entirely within Lightroom (if for no other reason than the fact that I'm worried about the future-proofness of the processing), its options and functionality are certainly adequate, especially if you don't need layers, masks, etc. for your project.

Traffic

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:22 -0800

New York City, New York, June 2007. This is another shot from my recent trip to NYC.

Sean John

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:13 -0800

New York City, New York, June 2007. I took this shot a couple of weeks ago while walking around Times Square. The billboard was about a block away and so I had to use all of my 70-200mm lens to get what I wanted.