Long Beach

  1. The Haunted Queen Mary

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    The Queen Mary was called the Grey Ghost in WWII. Not because it was haunted but because of its color and the way it smoothly sailed across the water. 

    Doesn't it just look haunted? Apparently some 150 ghosts haunt the Queen Mary and a lot of people, I've read up to 49, have died aboard the ship. Personally I don't believe in ghosts but I have experience a lot of very weird phenomena in my life. Like dishes spontaneously exploding in my house, light bulbs exploding randomly, and speakers talking even when not plugged, to name a few.

    But, I still refuse to believe in ghosts until I'm with a group of several people and we all face to face with one in a well ventilated area. I don't like to believe in things until I witness them with affirmation. The earth is a conductor of acoustical residence, so a lot of strange and unexplained things can come from it. As well as our minds tripping out from various gas leaks that are natural and unnatural. 

    Haunted Queen Mary Long Beach California

    This is a three shot HDR image processed in Lighroom 4 and Photomatix. 

  2. Queen Mary with the Canon 40mm Pancake

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    The Queen Mary during the 4th of July fireworks show. About 30 minutes after the show was over they set of another brief round of fireworks that I was able to capture further down with my Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake lens. 

    Queen Mary

    Shot on the Canon 5D mkii with the new Canon 40mm f2.8 STM pancake lens. Cropped about 50%

  3. Long Beach Bridge - California

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    Long Beach is a very photogenic coastal city in Southern California. This is a HDR shot from under the Long Beach Bridge near the Queen Mary. The bridge is actually very pretty when looking at it from anywhere but underneith. It is lit up by colored lights which you can see reflecting on the water in this photo. To the left of the bridge is the Queen Mary, behind this would be the Long Beach Aquarium and off in the distance behind the horizon are oil refinaries. Like the ones you see at the end of Terminator. 

    Long Beach BridgeThe Long Beach Bay is a very fun part of the city to just walk around with and enjoy the views. This shot is from under the Long Beach Bridge.From the daily photo blog of http://alikgriffin.com

    Three shot HDR. Processed in Photomatix and Lightroom 4.

    Shot with the Canon 5Dmkii and the Canon 40mm f2.8 STM pancake lens.

  4. Long Beach Harbor

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    A place to check out if you come to Los Angeles would be the Long Beach harbor. They've done a great job in keeping it clean and entertaining. This is a shot from the part of the harbor. In this area are a lot of restaurants, the Queen Mary and the Long Beach Aquarium. I shot this photo on the 4th of July before the firework show at the Queen Mary. One thing I love about photos like this one, is that behind me are probably about 400-500 people all sitting waiting for the fireworks. You'd never know from looking at this though. 

    I shot this on the amazing Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM IS II and used a 3 shot bracketed HDR post processing. What is HDR? check it out here.

  5. 4th of July Fireworks - Queen Mary

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    This 4th of July I went to Long Beach CA to shoot the firework show at the Queen Mary. 

    Shooting fireworks can be tricky but really isn't that hard. It's important to shoot with a fairly stopped down aperture and a slow shutter speed.  Most of these photos were shot at around an f/16 with a shutter between 10-30 seconds.  For these photos I also shot with a bracketing of 3 photos at two stops. Camera was set to aperture priority. This gave me three shot all with slightly different shutter speeds for more variety. 

    (click here for more)