You have a good chance of encountering bins of goods for sale when you’re traveling. They often make interesting subjects for a pocket camera photo. The photos are colorful, make interesting texture patterns, and provide something to ponder when you return home and have the time. There is more to see in the photos than you had time to contemplate on the spot.

I have quite a few pictures of parking lots. They are are an overlooked resource for photographers. Perhaps someday I’ll convince a publisher to put them out as a coffee table book, America’s Most Scenic Parking Lots. I shall be the Ansel Adams of parking lots. Yes, for sure. For now, however, I’m still building inventory, and the other day I took one in a parking lot in Coyote Hills Regional Park near San Francisco Bay. It had the potential for high drama, at least as parking lots go.

Point Lobos is one of the world’s great scenic places. While the rocky shore and surf are reliable, sunshine there is not. We were lucky recently and had brilliant sun along with spring wild flowers. With all those things helping, it’s not too difficult to take good pictures. We drove to the Bird Rock area, at the end of the short park road. To make photography a more interesting problem, add some kids running near the edge of the ocean bluff.

Sometimes the world does not give you much to work with. It’s a good principle in travel sequences to include photos that show what it was like to be at the location. However, while large waves out in the ocean may be integral to the site, photos of distant waves lack drama … and just about every other aspect of photo appeal. One trick is to show tourists reacting to the attraction, rather than just the attraction itself.

I used to think of people as distractions to the landscape. Then I progressed to the point of valuing them as scale objects. There is nothing like a person near a redwood tree to show how big the tree is. Now I’m moving to the stage of believing that humans can actually add interest to scene. Maybe I’m not quite there yet, but I’m open to the idea. A case in point was a tourist who climbed out on a rock near Spanish Bay, Monterey, California and waved to her companions.

Spring flowers are slowly appearing on the California coast. On the beach near Monterey recently I found purple sand verbana. (There is also a yellow variety.) The purple variety it quite striking close up, but the flowers are so small it can be missed. Each flower in the cluster is about a quarter inch (6 mm) across. As the season progresses the flower becomes common in the sand along the coast.

Larger version “here”:http://quickshotartist.com/blog/images/250.jpg

The pinnacles at Pinnacles National Monument are the worn remnants of an ancient volcanic crater. This time of year there is greenery from winter rains to compliment the warm tones of the rock. In a few months, summer heat will dry the landscape and make walking the trails an altogether different experience. For now, cool temperatures and bright colors are made for the photographer.

A viaduct is a long bridge consisting of a series of short spans supported on piers or towers. In the U.S. viaducts became popular in the era of railroad building to take the rails across wide valleys. Not long ago I had a two-viaduct day in northern Pennsylvania. The best photos are aerial shots with blue sky, fall foliage, and an historic locomotive traversing the span. I didn’t manage that, but viaducts are nonetheless interesting subjects worth capturing.

I found three aspects of viaducts I could treat on a cloudy winter’s day: the panorama of the setting, the craftsmanship of construction, and life under the bridge.

Starrucca Viaduct. Larger version here.

Photoshop™ has a number of built-in filters that attempt to convert photo images into artistic renditions. Previously I discussed posterization, sometimes followed by the palette knife filter, to punch up weak scenes. Recently I obtained some Photoshop filters from Topaz Labs, including the Topaz Simplify 2 filter set that includes a Painting option. My test cases were some photos of flowers that seemed to me to have potential, but needed punching up. I have come away a fan of the Topaz paint options.

Autumn is a time for visiting farm stands. There are pumpkins to be selected for Halloween, apples, and all manner of squash. So maybe not everyone thinks “panorama” at the farm stand, but, of course, I do. I like panoramic photos. Panoramas are well suited to scenes where there is a lot going on, as there was recently at Mike’s Truck Garden in Fulton, California.