Monterey Inn's at Night

Here are a couple inns along the shore line in Monterey that my wife always comments about when we pass them. We stayed at the Lovers Point Inn not as pretty but you can't beat the view. I shot the inn's a lot later than I would usually shoot. It was an experiment I boosted the ISO up to 1600 and shot a series bracket shots for HDR. I was worried about the noise because HDR images usually have noise even at lower ISO's. I was pleasantly surprised. You don't know if you don't try. One thing I love about night time photography is the surprises like the light on the trees in the first image.

Whale Watching

I recently went whale watching in Monterey Bay on the Sea Wolf II. During the trip we saw grey whales and five killer whales finishing off a sea lion for a meal. We saw the grey whales from about a quarter mile a way. The killer whales were a lot more social (killer whales belong to the dolphin family) they were tail slapping, breaching, spyhopping and basically putting on a great show. It was as if the killer whales were celebrating their meal. The tour operators kept us out for an additional hour because they said it was a once in a lifetime show.


The killer whale on the left is breaching and the one on the right is spyhopping.

This is Stumpy a killer whale that was injured and other killer whales took care of. To Learn more follow this link.

A California brown pelican

A lucky sea lion that gets to live another day because the killer whales just ate.