This post was going to be part of my “Summer 2010 Overview” post, but because of its length I decided that it needed a spot of its own. We went up to Julian for our last vacation of the summer and it was very relaxing and the house we rented has a very spectacular view, but we’ll get to that later. Like most people who rent vacation homes, what is the first thing that your normally do after unpacking….that’s right, read the guest book! All of the comments were extremely positive and one particular comment immediately struck our eye. That comment was one that was referring to a horror house that was located in the front yard. It took us a while to get which house they were exactly referring to, but it finally dawned on us that the house directly up the hill in the front yard has a similar shape to that of the Amityville Horror House. During the day it looks like an ordinary home, but at night gives the house that horror feel to it. So the second night of our stay I couldn’t help myself but to grab an image of the house and really give it that haunted feel.

This next picture I was told to take. Well I was told “go take a picture of that swing.” I took the picture of the swing and I became really fascinated about it. I took several different pictures of this swing at various angles and depth of fields to produce different results and feels. I personally chose this shot because I like the angles and the shadows. The swing was probably about 4ft high and you can tell that this swing was made and not one of those prebuilt/premade swings you can buy at the stores. I was tempted to give this swing a shot, but was too worried that I would break it and figured it would make a better eye catcher as a single piece.

The house that we rented has a view that over looks the Volcan Mountains and it provided great sunset and sunrise images. This image is a sunset image and yes it has been modified. The original colors of the sky look just like that of the sunrise images, so I had to make them more entertaining and the reds just make this image happen. This image has a warm, peaceful vibe to it and looks amazing with the red sky. I took various compositional shots of the sunset and out of the images I still prefer the red night sky.

5:30AM: I was woken up at 5:30 in the morning to take a picture of the sunrise and this is what I got. The sunrise has some amazing colors to it and the silhouette gives the whole image a relaxing feel to it. I don’t know what to say here, except that the sunrise was amazing.

Lastly we visited Smith Ranch and took their Train Ride and Mine Tour.

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