Aleksandr and Victoria Gallery

We’ve finally fixed the comments menu in the gallery. Now, if you’re a registered user, you can add and view comments under albums and individual photos. Sorry, for inconvenience.

We’re also moving DNS to new host. Site may be unavailable for few hours or so. Stand by.

Good memories from Hawaii… These pictures were taken an year ago, but still new in our memories.

Wild Flower blooming reports and other related resources I recommend to check out:

www.desertusa.com

Wildflower Hotline by Theodore Payne Foundation

Central California Wildflowers (Nature Alley by Nature Ali)

Carrizo Plain Wild Flowers Report

California Vernal Pools

Of course, Carol Leigh’s blogs

Flowers continue blooming in California. Get your gear and take pictures of them.

P.S. Our gallery has obvious issues with comments. Old comments are not showing under pictures anymore by default. We’re trying to figure out why it happened after the upgrade. Sorry for inconvenience.

Poppies along Merced River Canyon were spectacular this year. Last year fires might contribute to this phenomenon. Michael Frye said it was the best poppies show in 25 years! Last couple weeks 140 Hwy was packed with people watching and photographing flower carpet covering canyon slopes.

Hite Cove trail was spectacular as well. It’s probably still at its peak. If you’re planning to visit Yosemite or Merced River canyon, you don’t have much time. Hurry up. If poppies were abundant last weekend, shooting stars and lupins were just picking up. Red buds were not at the pick either. Snow fall covered Yosemite valley floor on Saturday night. Hope it will not spoil spring and early summer flowers in the valley.

Some more pictures from Hite Cove Trail were uploaded in the New Stuff folder here:

As always I recommend Carol Leigh’s blog for last flowers blooming reports.

We did a huge update to the site. We had to update Wordpress and, as result, all other parts of the site had to be updated as well. Hope everything went well. Let us know if you see any glitches.

We are currently doing blog reorganization as well. Some old posts were removed or temporary unpublished.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Big update in Diana’s portfolio. Diana did a great job acting and posing in the front of the camera. Take a look:

   In case if you are going to look for best spots with fall colors in California, I recommend to check out Carol Leigh’s blog. Arguably the best tracker of fall colors in California (and beyound).

Since I started tradition of posting news from Sony/Minolta world, omission of such a big news would not be excusable. Here it is, long awaited Full Frame Sony. Check out dpreview’s preview (sorry for the pun).

As always, David Kilpatrick gave a good a look at the new gear. His insightful articles could be found at www.photoclubalpha.com.

I personally like the headline picture from dpreview showing both A700 and A900. Look at those 50/1.4 Minolta branded lenses! Minolta is still alive!

It’s interesting to compare A700 and A900 side by side (click on the image to zoom it in). Essentially, A900 looks like an upgraded and scaled up A700. As many reviewers noticed, A700 users will feel home while handling A900 body. Funny enough, huge pentaprism housing on top of the camera drew the most attention and became a subject of jokes from Canikans. Well, if you buy camera to be fashionable, then you better spend your money on Louis Vuton and Prada. Real photographer does not care how his camera looks. Right?

Dreamstime stock photos site featured one of our photos in its blog.

Thanks Dreamstime!

Here’s the link to the article:

http://blog.dreamstime.com/2008/07/01/hot-hot-hot_art26706