Sunsets from the deck.

I, or I should say "we" (Melanie, Alyssa and I) love the view from our deck. Especially the sunsets. We often look out the sliding glass door (the pics are from my deck) and see some beautiful sunsets. Throw in some cool cloud formations and you have really gorgeous pictures. Melanie
took this shot of  stand of trees down in the Santa Cruz mountains. It really makes you feel insignificant looking straight up a tree when you cannot see the top.

I have loved photography ever since I was in the 6th grade when a friend of mine got me into taking pictures. My first job as a weekend janitor allowed me the monetary means to purchase my first camera, a Canon AE1 Program. I took a lot of really good pictures with that camera and I still have it to this day, some 33 years later. I used to take my camera everywhere I went. My senior year of High School I was the School Photographer. Loved that job. Have been trying ever since to figure out how to get companies like Canon or Nikon send me their stuff to try and then.......well, keep.
Don't get me wrong I would love to pay for the cameras I want, it is just this the whole fixed income thing, it sucks! I routinely search websites looking at the latest cameras and associated gadgets and picture myself winning some worldwide photo award. I would have to sell the world on photos of my family which is why I probably won't be winning many awards or monetary prizes, or free cameras. But, there is always that one in a million shot that gets things started so I keep on shooting. My latest desire is Canon's new EOS7D. Next week it be something else, whoever comes out with the latest "super-whizbang-doublethrowdown-gizmachi
will catch my wanton desires. Over the last few years Melanie and I have taken to shooting pictures of the nature we see on the road. The solitary, somewhat dead looking pine tree was on the side of........a mountain 13,ooo feet up in Sierra Neva...okay, it was on the side of Highway 80 just outside of Truckee, California. But it was taken as we sat in traffic thru the window of the truck. I have taken to occasionally switching to black and white mode, thanks to Mary, and shot some timeless photos like the one of Alyssa fishing in Donner Lake. What made it eerie was

 there were forest fires burning up north about 250 miles away but the smoke was drifting south and east and filled the Tahoe basin every afternoon. The following day in Truckee it was snowing....ash. So Canon if you read this please send me a better camera, please.