Cherry Blossoms and Mustard Flowers

It's spring. All of Sonoma looks like this now:

Sonoma Morning

I finally got the will to get up at dawn to take some photos. All within a couple of miles from my home. First there's this old barn with the mustard fields in bloom:

Local fruit and veg stand:

And the usual junkyard truck. I've shot this at sunset before, never at sunrise, so from the other side:

Petaluma River

I haven't taken many photos for a couple of weeks - none I've been especially happy with anyway. I was looking at some pictures I took two years ago underneath the Petaluma Bridge, between Novato and Sonoma. Here's the first one:

Someone asked me if I had used Topaz. I hadn't heard of Topaz then, I was just learning Lightroom, but I did recently get Topaz Adjust, and so I thought I'd try it out on that old picture. The new Topazed version is this:

Over processed? The Topaz version certainly has something extra, although it also has more chroma noise (see the white superstructure of the boat). I'm not sure which one I prefer. Opinions?

Here's one more from the same day - just basic LR:

Sansome Street, San Francisco

One Sansome Street is a building owned and managed by my employer, Barker Pacific Group, in partnership with Prudential Real Estate Investors. It's hard to get realistic pictures of these tall financial district buildings without them all looking like they're falling over, so I gave up with the attempts at realism and turned the wide angle lens directly up. Here are a couple:

The first was processed in Topaz Adjust to pull details from the building in shadow. The second was made from five bracketed exposures shot handheld in burst mode, combined in Photomatix.

Christmas Snowmen

Taken at Cornerstone Sonoma

Shot with the RX100. Processed in Topaz Adjust. I've been trialling Topaz (30 day free - ends Dec 23rd) and I haven't been that impressed - it gets some interesting effects but it's a bit gimmicky. Are the photos really any better, or has Topaz just made a boring photo look better? It definitely made this photo, though. Shot in dull light, it now pops. I think I used the Topaz surreal filter - don't exactly remember to be honest. It helps that it's a rather surreal subject to start with. I think I'll use this as my Christmas card.

Raindrops

The Sony RX100 can focus pretty close - not quite macro (although I think they claim it is) but close enough in this instance. I saw this leaf out of the window this morning after the rain had stopped, and liked they way the light caught the raindrops.

A Couple From My Street

Just to show some fall colors against the blue sky. And to show that it does rain in California. Not much, but it does.