Jon Claxton | Photography

After numerous hours staring at the computer today, I have successfully forged my way through the obstacles of designing my own blog. I found that blogger really wasn’t fitting my needs ever since the first day I started it. So, after getting a keyword kick start from a friend of mine, I stumbled through the internet today in search of creating a blog that was more original and malleable (in a computer code kind of way, of course). Stay tuned, I hope to have a new blog posted in the next day or two.

Photo missing, sorry.

Took this photo tonight, just after sunset with the tilt shift (yes, the tilt shift, again). I just was having so much fun with this thing, that I had to post another photo. I love the creepiness that the lens gives the building. Not your typical perspective of the Historical Museum, even though the photo was shot from a completely normal perspective location.

I was just playing around with Tilt Shift last night and thought that the San Luis Obispo train station would be the perfect subject. In fact, the aspect was perfect from the pedestrian bridge, the only thing missing: a train. Probably would’ve been cool to have a couple little people include in the photo as well. The hardest part about capturing these photos is getting that downward aspect and the right lighting to replicate that “shoebox” look.

So about a month or so ago, John Moule came into my office with a proposition. It was almost like a scene out of a spy movie; my mission: to provide John with 15 photographs of San Luis Obispo historic buildings to print and frame for his new brewery, scheduled to open in October. I’ll be the first to admit that photographing buildings didn’t initially “do it for me.” But as I looked into it, I discovered that shooting buildings really isn’t that easy and static as I imagined. Okay, sure, they don’t move around, but the light sure does, not to mention the people, and the cars, and so on……. Needless to say, I have quickly realized that the have been several parameters to consider, in addition capturing aspects of the buildings that I find interesting to the eye.

Enter: the tilt shift lens.

After careful deliberation between the various voices in my head, I finally decided to rent a tilt shift lens rather than correct the common issue of converging parallel lines of a building with Photoshop. Based on a little Google research I found that the tilt shift lens makes for some interesting photographs rather than just helping a photographer straighten out the sides of his buildings. The tilt shift lens design also can create “shoebox” images that make the surrounding appear to miniaturized. Later I found an alternative method of accomplishing this in Photoshop. But nevermind that, the tilt shift lens moves around and stuff!!!! It’s cool!

So above is just one photograph of the famous Ah Louis store in downtown SLO. I kinda liked this photo because I purposely shot the building so that the building gets wider at the top. It kinda reminded me of the 80’s movie, “Beetlejuice” minus the frightening characters.

4th of July was spent celebrating our country’s independence and Greg Cherry’s birthday (which was the following day). Neither one overshadowed the other for this weekend. The added bonus was that Greg’s friend friend Mike gave him the green light to celebrate the entire weekend at his empty beach house in Cayucos. So , we gladly soaked up the views, grilled some meat (and veggi burgers), and even was able to slide into a couple little wind swell waves. If only we could come up with the 3,000 for the month, I think we all would have gladly stayed. Happy B-Day, Greg. Thanks for having us.

Hmmm……Highway 1 closed, south swell, calm winds, time to pack the truck. Thanks to Tim, I couldn’t concentrate for the last two days of the work week. Come Saturday, the truck was loaded with spearguns, tecates, surfboards, and plenty of eggs and bacon. We rendezvoused around 5 pm on a cobble lined beach of Big Sur. After soaking in the view and the hazardous forest fire smoke for an hour or so, we secured our favorite camp spot. The next morning started off with some huge amounts of grease and protein and then consisted of a good surf with minimal crowds and a follow up hunting season along the coast, harvesting enough swimming ceviche to satisfy a crowd of 8 or more. Highlight of the day goes to Ryan Gray who poked his first fishy friend. Ended up being a cross between a rockfish and a toad! Nice one Ryan….

As a final farewell to Emily Moratto, summer hats, trader’s joe’s goodies, and bottles of wine were abound at Baileyana. Emily is off to Vermont to spread her good natured ways to the people of the east coast. Husband, Mike is soon to follow (only after surfing the couches of some friends for a while, and sneaking in a well planned trip to the John Muir Trail later this summer). Both of them will be missed by the great group of friends that have surrounded them for so many years on the Central Coast but it sounds like it won’t be long before they receive some west coast visitors (p.s. for those that don’t know, that is Tim in the photos, not Mike. Not sure how Mike dodged the camera that day.)