All Is Full Of Love

All is full of love by Bjork has been in my head for a couple of days now. I don’t really know why, since I haven’t listened to it in a while. I think it was a reminder to be aware of all the love around me. Not just from people, but also in nature. 

On yesterday’s hike to some waterfalls, I spotted this fleeting heart. I say fleeting because the leaf below the snow only looked like a heart because of how the snow was melting. It stopped me in my tracks, because it felt like it was meant for me to find. I’m sure I’m not the only weirdo that has those experiences haha.

At any rate, I found love in CT this past week. Love from wonderful friends and love from nature. Both have rejuvenated my spirit ❤. I hope today you will remember that love is all around you. 

Here are the Bjork lyrics and song if you’re interested. 

You’ll be given love

You’ll be taken care of

You’ll be given love

You have to trust it
Maybe not from the sources

You have poured yours

Maybe not from the directions

You are staring at
Twist your head around

It’s all around you

All is full of love

All around you
All is full of love

You just ain’t receiving

All is full of love

Your phone is off the hook

All is full of love

Your doors are all shut

All is full of love!

The video

Icy Abstract

I’ve been to Quabbin Reservoir one time in the fall, a few years ago. We thought it would be fun to go scout/shoot it with some ice. Unfortunately, it’s warming up around New England, and most of the ice was gone, but there were lots of interesting formations on the shore. 

Being a Cali boy, I’d never seen anything like it before. I could have stayed out there shooting abstracts for another hour, but we had limited time and had more stuff to scout. So much to see and so little time! 

When I get back to Maine, in a couple days, I’ll go through all my Nikon shots of the ice, so for now you get to enjoy this iPhone version. Shot with the default camera app and edited with Snapseed. 

Shooting Frozen Falls

This past weekend, I kind of surprised Shannon on her birthday, when a friend of hers suggested I come down for a few days. We’ve had too much fun and it’s almost time for me to go back to work in Maine. I couldn’t come all the way down here without us going on a photo adventure or two, though!
Be sure to go show her blog some love (Shannon’s blog) and remind her that she has one still 😛. I think we both got some awesome shots of this spot, so keep an eye out for those. This iPhone shot is more of a behind the scenes type of deal. I’ll post some cool iPhone abstracts of some ice soon. 

Happy Feb 14th

A flower falls, even though we love it. 

-Dogen

I hate to be that guy, but I’ve never been a fan of this holiday. Probably because I spent too many of them alone. Shrug. 

I’ll probably be spending the day eating junk food and doing something artsy to express myself. 

I hope you have someone special to share it with. Don’t forget to spread the love and let your single friends know you love and appreciate them too. 

This hyacinth was shot with ProShot and edited with Snapseed and iColorama. Then I used artista Impresso for the painterly look. 

Seeing Beauty

Photography has given me a lot over the years. One of the biggest gifts has been the ability to see beauty. It really is everywhere, if you choose to see it. 

It’s been a trying month for me, which makes it easy to view the world through a negative lens. Recognizing that that’s what I’ve been doing made it possible for me to choose to change my lens and see the beauty again. 

While visiting my cousin, across the water from Boston, I went for a walk on the beach. It’s not your typical beach. Think rocky, muddy, bits of trash laying around, and plenty of glass (most of it was smooth from the waves.) What im saying is it would be easy to focus on the negative qualities of this beach. Instead, I paid attention to the light. 

I thought I would shoot the skyline at sunset, but the light lit up some trees that line the beach,  in an amazing way, and they demanded to be photographed. The color was so intense on the trees that I decided black and white was the way to go for an Ansel Adams type edit. 

Shot with the default camera app and edited with Snapseed and Mextures. 

Dapper Pony

I went for a walk around the farm, while it was snowing, the other day. I thought I was going to shoot the fresh snow on the trees, but some areas were too icy to risk walking through. Instead, my girlfriend and I took photos of some of the 40 horses on the farm. This was one of my favorite outfits.

Shot with ProShot using an Iphone 7. Edited with Snapseed, Mextures, and VSCO.

On The Inside

Its whats on the inside that counts. The outside of this house, and the lot, both looked cool. You’d never would have guessed there was turmoil on the inside.

I checked out several vacant homes this weekend. This old doctor’s house was the most interesting. It was big and the layout was cool. For whatever reason, its just sitting in decay now. Its not even for sale. Its a shame too because the lot is awesome.

Shot with the default camera app. Edited with Snapseed and Mextures.

Eagle Lake

I’m out at Eagle Lake, just south of the Canadian border, for the 4th. Our friends have a house right on the water, so this is the view we have to put up with for a few days 😛

I shot this with the default camera app and did one small adjustment in icolorama. I mostly achieved the look I wanted in camera by having the sun just out of frame. 

Come On In, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong

There is a 2nd house down the road that looks vacant. When I opened the screen door to look inside, there was a sign with some peeling wallpaper covering part of it. I wanted to see what it said, so I lifted the wallpaper up.

“Come on in, everything else has gone wrong”

And that summed up the vibe of this place. I walked right back out. What I did see in that room was chaos. There were old car batteries strewn about, and piles of garbage. I’d love to explore this place some more, but the musty smell and the unwelcoming vibe make me hesitant.

I find these abandoned properties in Maine to be super interesting. They’re like museums for the people that used to live there. You can try to piece together a picture of who they were, or are, by finding interesting things in each room.

If I find enough of these properties to shoot, I can definitely see myself putting together a story for Stellar. Btw, are any of you using Stellar? I haven’t really been on there since they featured a few of my stories around the new year.

Shot this with my iPhone. Edited in Snapseed, Mextures, and Stackables.

Spontaneous Photo Adventure

Now that I live within driving distance of her, Shannon and I can have more photo adventures, which is what we’re doing right now. It’s been just over a month since we shot in Oregon, and here we find ourselves on the coast of Maine. 

We tried to go shoot a shipwreck at this beach, but the sand had buried most of it. There really wasn’t any point in shooting it this time. At least the sand patterns were really cool. 

Now we’re on our way to more lighthouses and a state park. 

When A House Isn’t A Home

Last night, around sunset, we had stormy skies that had a few breaks in it. I was feeling optimistic, so I went for a walk down between the ponds. For a moment, it looked like the sky was opening up right where I needed it to. Unfortunately, it closed back up after 5 minutes, and about 15 before sunset.

Instead of walking back with nothing to share, I stopped at the house on the corner to take my first shot at it. It’s abandoned and falling apart, obviously. There is so much cool detail and texture on the outside. I plan on exploring it more thoroughly one day. For this shot I just wanted a wide shot of the property. Next time I’ll be up close with my super wide angle iPro lens. I may even see if I can have a look around the inside.

Shot with ProHDRX. Edited with Snapseed, Mextures, and iColorama.

The Falls in Maine

My experience with waterfalls in Maine has been pretty underwhelming so far. I saw one of those onlyinyourstate articles on the best waterfalls in Maine, or something like that. Btw, I’m not a fan of their articles. They use sensational headlines to get you to click and share. Usually, the articles are just a collection of stuff for whatever list they’ve compiled, with no real order or justification for the list. I swear whoever wrote the ones for Oregon waterfalls or trips had never been to Oregon before.

But I digress lol.

What I was getting at was, the list of “best waterfalls” was pretty sad. None of them compared to stuff I’ve shot in the PNW. Luckily, my girlfriend is very outdoorsy and knows of falls that weren’t on the list. Guess what, this waterfall was better than any on that list.

This is just an iphone shot because I forgot to bring my tripod along. I had my hands full of stuff that I had to carry to the car, since we had to go to a family birthday party before our adventure. It’s alright though, because I wouldn’t have been satisfied with my photos in these conditions.

At any rate, this particular waterfall was pretty cool. The one challenge that I’ll have when shooting is the amount of visitors that sunbathe or swim out there. I got lucky that a large group had just left, and I got some shots off before a large group came in.

We saw one other good sized waterfall that was also pretty photogenic. I mean, it wasn’t Oregon, but I found compositions that I know the locals will love. It was also a beautiful walk through a green forest that was filled with bugs. Btw, I’ve never had so many bug bites in my life since moving here. I literally wake myself up at night scratching at my bug bites.

And on that note, I’m going to go apply some hydrocortisone cream and go buy some strong bug spray for today’s adventure.

(shot with the default camera app. Edited with Snapseed, Mextures, and TouchRetouch for one bit of flare.)

Made It To Maine

I’ve been in a Maine for a week now. I have to say that this place is the opposite of where I grew up in Silicon Valley. I was pretty worried the first couple of days, because of culture shock. I knew this town of 4000 people was going to be small, but it felt even smaller once I actually saw it. It’s definitely going to take some time to slow down and adjust.

I feel like I’m going to be forced to disconnect from the 21st century and get back to nature. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. The few times that I’ve been able to get out, I’ve found Maine to be incredibly peaceful. There are so few people that its very easy to find yourself in a remote area surrounded by nature.

My biggest challenges are not having a car, cell phone service is spotty, and wifi signal is awful in this house. If I go anywhere outside of civilization, my cell phone is useless, so I need to get a physical map and a compass, since I don’t know my way around. And a new challenge that just popped up is my iMac suddenly lost power while typing this up. Yay for old farmhouses.

Thats enough complaining. Trust me, I could go on about several other things, but I’m just going to have to accept that my old way of life isn’t possible here right now.

On the bright side, I already made a new photographer friend here. She is still learning, but is already creating cool surreal composites. She was nice enough to show me around the other day while she searched for the perfect pond with lily pads. There doesn’t seem to be too much talent out here outside of the two of us, and maybe one or two other people. I suppose thats a good thing for me. She already wants to open up an artist space together to display our work and run workshops. I’m still feeling the market out before I commit to that though.

(This was shot with the default camera app on the iPhone and edited with Snapseed.)

 

King of Hearts

A couple of years ago I took a bunch of photos of animals at the natural history museum in NYC. I thought I would do something cool with them eventually. And it only took like 2 years for me to play with a few of them.

This was edited in Snapseed, Mextures, and iColorama.

Featured on Bing!

I was a little confused when I woke up this morning because a couple of people had messaged me to congratulate me on my photo being on the front of Bing today. I had no idea they featured photos, or why mine might be on there. Then I remembered someone licensed this photo from me recently.

Since there might be some more eyes on my work today, I’m going to plug some stuff.

Right now you can learn photography from myself and Shannon Kalahan through Light and Landscape Magazines new paid members area. We are available to answer all your questions, we have lesson plans, and we critique photos with advice on how to improve them. At $21 a month, its a hell of a limited time deal. Just follow this link if you’re interested in signing up – http://www.lightandlandscape.co/learn-with-shannon-and-david?cd=2

Shannon and I also have a funny and educational ebook available through Light & Landscape Magazine on iOS devices (as a special issue), or you can buy it directly from us here.

Finally, if you might be interested in critiques of your iPhone photography, I may be starting up a small group for a reasonable price. Let me know if you might be interested. I’d be available to guide you in your editing process by telling you what apps you might want to use, how to use them, what composition would be strongest, and also available to answer any questions you have related to iPhone photography and editing. You can email me directly at d.pasillas@yahoo.com if you’re interested or have questions.