hi there! i'm michelle, southern california based photographer and curator of the coco gallery.

welcome to my blog where i share my life, my latest adventures, photo projects, random nuggets and the occasional stray thoughts.

for clients: to view my portfolio just click on this link - theCOCOgallery.com. to book sessions please send me a message through theCOCOgallery.com or contact me via michelle@thecocogallery.com | 949.734.0604



Wednesday, October 22, 2008

where the sky meets the ocean








the horizon is varying shades of blue. a line separates air from water. the sky is so bright i have to squint to look out. the temperature here is a constant (perfect-for-michelle) mid 80's. even the water is at room temperature. it's 7 am, the surfers have been out on the water since 5. i haven't even had coffee yet. thankfully i'm not one of the can't-function-without-coffee people. it's just too hot for anything brewed right now.





2 reasons for the series of shots shown above. i re-committed to a project on flickr. it's called 365. i have to do a self portrait of some type everyday for 365 days. the last time i tried this i got to day 170... then life took over. at first i thought it wouldn't be too bad of a project but lemme tell you. i've woken up in the middle of the night horrified that i forgot to take a shot. ran to the camera, clicked the shutter without even bothering to wipe the drool off my face or the sleep from my eyes and called the obligation done. other times i would get bored with the same picture over and over that i would push myself to get more creative. and actually... perfectionist that i am, it takes more than one shot to get the one i want. or i might get over enthusiastic about a concept. whatever. it's been a really great excercise to help improve my craft. i got close to halfway thru the last time now i'm trying again. i've already gone in a month deep. so expect to see more pictures of me than you are probably comfortable with. chalk it down to peristence, an innate need to share and a slight hint of vanity.


oh... and the other reason for the pictures above is to share with you the quality of my new toy. i have the olympus sw 1030 point and shoot camera. it's a waterproof, shockproof compact camera. really fun in the water and so far so good on the quality of the pictures. i only have 2 complaints about it right now. the shutter is on the top left corner (kind of) of the camera... i like to take pictures from unusual angles and it makes it hard for me to estimate the shot because the shutter is in an unusual place. my old point and shoot was a canon elph (which i loved but died after 4 years of abuse) and it's shutter was smack middle.. where it belonged. the other thing i don't like is that in their attempt as user friendiness, it seems that they made the application more cumbersome than useful. other than that... i'm liking it quite a bit.


i've obviously tried out the waterproof claim, i'll share more underwater pictures on another post, but the pictures so far have been clear. i haven't taken it thru to deep waters yet. i'll let curtis handle that QA process. but olympus claims that it's good up to 10 meters. the shockproof feature is supposed to be for up to 5 feet... i don't think i'll be testing that feature at all. i don't relish the idea of tossing my camera to find out the claim was false. i'm too far from home and the olympus repair center for that. i'll count waves crashing as a good enough test for this little toy's resilience.


that's it for now! till next time!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for stopping by my blog! I read that your hometown is in the Phillipines- my mom lived there for a while during her college years. I've always wanted to go!

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  2. Thanks for the blog love! Both my parents grew up in the Philippines, my mom in Baguio and my dad in Quezon City. :)

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  3. you guys both need to visit the phils yourself. it's incredible and actually quite affordable. think 2.5 beers to a dollar.

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  4. Hi Michelle! Thanks again for the comment! I love the water photos and you made me laugh about you waking up just to take a photo because it became an obligation..hahah

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