AND WE'RE OFF!

My new website is done. You can visit is at...
http://justinscarpetti.com

redondo pier

taken at the redondo beach pier, in california. this is the first b&w (black & white for those of you who don't know what b&w is) that i have posted on my blog so far. there will probably be more to come in the future. who knows? who cares? back to this picture... after eating some pizza and some corn hot dogs on sticks (a.k.a. corndogs) me, ryan, jillian, and peter set off on our dangerous adventure around the pier. peter only made it half way and then had to turn back, but me, ryan, and jillian all made it around and back alive. there were also pelicans on the pier that didn't move at all. they were like statues (click me). also, not that it has to do with anything about this post but recently i have started shooting film. so hopefully soon i will get a couple up here if they are worthy enough. also, i wanted to let everyone know that my dear friend peter lost something very special to him. his 50mm f/1.8 lens fell out of his camera bag and broke recently. i think it is a goner. if 90 people read this and all gave me one dollar we would have enough money to buy him a new lens.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/3.5 - 6.0s - iso100 - tripod

sixth street

me and the man that hasn't technically flown until he lands (r.e.t.) went out for an excursion a while back, i believe it was early august. this picture was taken over-looking a train station off of the 6th street bridge in los angeles. we were in downtown for a while and then decided to head up towards the bridge. ryan told me that they landed the plane from "swat" (the movie, with ll cool j) on this bridge. i remember the scene i just don't remember whether he said it was the bridge we were on or a different one. anyways, going back to the picture. i started getting into some hdr photography recently, as we all are now, and was going through some old pics when i came across this one to throw some high dynamic range at. i thought it came out pretty well for not having much experience with hdr, i wanted it to be kind of subtle.

***update***

so after some google research i did and some google research that ryan did we he has concluded that: me+google > you+google (me=ryan/you=me) as you can see in the comments. also he has concluded that this bridge is not the 6th street bridge but the 4th street bridge. so sorry for misinforming everyone. please don't sue.
canon 40d - 28mm - f/11 - 10.0s - iso100 - tripod

josh

joshua tree, ca. first off i have to say that joshua tree is probably one of the coolest places that i have been to. it is up on my top 5. here is our gang (see). i'm the third one, in case you didn't know. i look the shortest but i'm actually second tallest. for the most part the weather was nice (a little cold) but nice. the rocks were awesome. taking my truck off roading to deserted mines was pretty cool too. i did some painting (see). we had some weird food and i gained like 8 pounds in less than 48 hours. so i will probably go here again during the warmer parts of the year when i don't have to have 5 layers of clothes on.
canon 40d - 24mm - f/2.8 - 30.0s - iso125 - set on rock

the red

taken in red mountain, ca. this one goes out to fred (you know who you are). this one was taken in red mountain, ca. the winds were blowing so fast i barely got to take any pictures, not that it is an excuse but it's hard to take pictures when something is trying to knock you down. but during the day was fun. i got to ride like 4 different dirt bikes, did some back flips, got super cold, and most importantly got to spend all of it with my favorite (and only) girlfriend.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/3.5 - 50.0s - iso800 - tripod

rollin on

i was wondering if this picture was worthy enough to go on my blog but the story that is attached to it is worth it. it might be one of those "you had to be there" stories, but i'm gonna tell it anyways. so its about 10:30 at night and me, peter, cameron, jillian, and betsy were somewhere along these palos verdes hills on the winding roads. me, peter, and jillian were taking pictures of cars when all of a sudden this car just stops in the middle of the road on the turn (which is a blind spot to any cars coming around the turn). he stops there for 10 seconds, rolls back, pulls forward a little, then stops for 10 more seconds, gets out of the car, slowly walks across the road with a paper bag in his hand, goes behind some bushes on the side of the road we are on but doesn't notice us. then he comes out with no bag in hand. he gets back into his car, does a U-turn and heads back down the hill. in the mean time we are freaking out cause it was weird and me and peter start walking towards the bushes expecting to find a severed hand (or head). we wussed out and had cameron get the car and pick us up asap. as we were walking back from the bushes though the same guy drives back to inspect his crime i guess. and that's when we knew it was really fishy (or is it fishey). so after we left and about it we decided to go to my house and get some flashlights. we did. we came back. but it was way to weird and scary that we left again. instead we went to the police station and told a cop instead of calling 911. i gave the cop my phone number too so he could let me know if anything happened. 30 minutes later i got a call from the cop. he said that one of the officers had found "bones". and that's all he told me. i wonder what it was.
canon 40d - 12mm - f/3.5 - 30.0s - iso100 - tripod

dockers

dockers as in those two boats, not the pants. this was a fun night. after going to a couple of camera shops trying to get them to sell my friend a lens for cheap i managed to sweet talk my way into a good deal and we got it. then we were off to the docks. but i was really hungry and i lost a piece of my tripod that holds my camera on. so we ate at mcdonalds (which was really disgusting and gross), and then we went to the 99cent store to buy a clamp for my tripod. after that we went to a prison and followed out by a security guard and then went to the ports. this shot was taken right next to a mexican karaoke night club. it was loud, but me, my 99cent clamp, and tripod managed.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/10 - 10.0s - iso400 - tripod

stars

this is actually an older picture i took about a year and a half ago. after collecting those little paper star things for a week, being bored in my room, and with a new lamp on my desk i decided to take a "cool" picture. hundreds of ideas later this is what i came up with. for the most part i think it came out pretty good. if you want you could even rate it like 6 gold stars, that's pretty good seeing that most of the time ratings are out of 5 stars. and maybe with the economy doing so bad some lenses will go on sale and i can get myself a nice christmas gift.
canon 300d - 50mm - f/5.6 - 1/25s - iso400 - handheld

san simeon

san simeon state park beach sunset. it was the perfect time for camping. the sky was clear, the sun was nice and warm, the water was nice and blue, there were hundreds of seagulls on the beach that i got to run through and didn't even get pooped on, but most importantly, i was with my buddy ol' pal ryan (see). our campsite was cool too (see). but then the next morning after this pic fog came in and never left... while two miles down it was clear as a crystal (or whatever else is clear). but it's all good cause i had fun and no one shot their eye with a red ryder bb gun and that's all that matters.
canon 40d - 22mm - f/22 - 3.2s - iso100 - tripod

mammoth

mammoth mountains. i could for sure move to mammoth. or anywhere i can take pictures like this at night. i set up my tripod, camera, lens, remote, the usual. then clicked away. some of the pictures were 5-10 minutes long. so while waiting i would lay on the ground and look into the sky. you can see shooting stars, airplanes, the milky way (not the candy bar), but the coolest thing to me is that you can see satellites. they just glide across the sky, you can even follow them with a telescope if your lucky enough. so my lesson for today is buy an expensive camera, expensive lens, expensive cabin, a cheap blanket for the ground, and enjoy the world. if that's too much for you just go do something for 10 minutes without a cell phone.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/3.5 - 99.0s - iso3200 - tripod

beachin

after a horrible fireworks show i wasn't going to go home early. i lugged all my camera gear down to the beach for 15 minutes of blah. i always wanted to go down to the beach late at night and take pictures but i was always afraid i would fall and a crack my head or someone would mug me and take all my gear. but this was the perfect opportunity. i waited about 10 minutes for the people to clear out a little. then i went to town on these long beach exposures.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/3.5 - 30.0s - iso400 - tripod

bus ride

ending a long trip (day and a half if that's long) we were coming back from santa ana and i sat on the bus anxiously waiting to go home, probably at the time thinking about watching all the shows i missed on tv. my head was on the window rattling with the bus as it went over bumps while my eyes were glued on those white lines on the freeway. but then i actually looked up and there it was... this picture. so there's my lame story for this picture.
canon 40d - 10mm - f/13 - 1/400s - iso400 - handheld

cloudy day

i don't really even remember a story for this picture. so i'll just give you a cool quote to think about. “if the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office.” said george lucas. that might be true for some movies. but jack died in titanic and that is the top grossing movie ever, and not gross as in disgusting. so i say if the boy or girl dies it adds $1.8 billion.
canon 40d - 28mm - f/8 - 1/8000s - iso400 - handheld

siamese

a siamese cat taken in my friends backyard. i think that this is the only cat i have ever been near that would stay still when you put it somewhere. the first thing that i noticed about him/her (not really sure what gender it is) was its eyes. they really popped. so i put the cat on the table and shot away hoping to get one before he bolted. but no, he just sat there. so i framed my shot and started getting closeups on its eyes. and this is what i got.
canon 40d - 22mm - f/22 - 3.2s - iso100 - tripod

palos verdes

malaga cove sunset, in california in case you don't know where that is. this was within the first week of getting my first dslr. i went down to the cove with a couple of friends not thinking i would get any good shots. i was just a beginner. but after seeing a couple of these pictures i realized that i could actually do something with my photography. but then i thought to myself that most likely if i became a photographer it would be taking paparazzi pictures, and there was no way i was going to do that. so for now i'm just sticking to the fun stuff.
canon 300d - 18mm - f/22 - 1/125s - iso100 - handheld