Tag: San Diego

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 4, 20269:44 pm

What’s in a Grocer’s Name?

I made an organic milk run this evening and decided to take a stock shot. One of the many improvements that Samsung makes with the Galaxy S26 Ultra: Wider-aperture telephoto lenses that let in more light, which improves night shooting. The Featured Image, unedited and composed as captured, is good example. Vitals: f/2.9, ISO 640, 1/120 sec, 115mm (film equivalent); 8:51 p.m. PDT.

The choice of Sprouts is deliberate, and not just because I shopped there. The grocery store prohibits taking photos onsite; any attempt indoors will summon an employee lickety-split. In fact, if you need assistance and can’t find anyone around, pull out your phone and pretend to photograph something. It’s like rubbing the genie jar and poof.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 2, 20269:37 pm

The Cats of University Heights: Oren

We reach a little ways into the backlog to Aug. 11, 2025 for an unusual putty-tat. Look at those ears, which inspired the nickname, Oren, translated from the Dutch. Oren is the eighty-third cat found behind door or window, since the series‘ start 10 years ago.

I used Nikon Zf and NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR lens to capture the Featured Image, which is close-cropped. f/8, ISO 560, 1/400 sec, 400mm; 3:01 p.m. PDT.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 1, 20269:16 pm

Once More, We Say Good-bye to San Diego Zoo

Our zoo membership expired yesterday; we chose not to renew. My wife and I hadn’t gone in months, with paid-parking changes one of the major factors keeping us away. Technically, members don’t pay to park, but confusion and congestion diminished the attendance experience.

I wonder how many members the zoo has lost because of the end to free parking for all. Matters are worse at Balboa Park, where many museums report attendance declines of 20 percent or more. Technically, both places are walkable destinations from our apartment: 3 km (1.9 miles) to the zoo, 3.3 km (2 miles) to the park. But the aforementioned confusion and congestion remain deterrents. Sigh.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 30, 20269:18 pm

When AI Makes You Somebody Else

Earlier today, as a memory, Microsoft OneDrive presented photos taken on this date in 2022—when the village of University Heights celebrated 25 years of its iconic sign. I had captured the majority of pics using Leica Q2 Monochrom, which was beyond my meager amateur skills. I sold the camera to a doctor in December 2024.

Looking over the selection, I chose one random street shot for artificial intelligence embellishment. I clicked the “Restyle with AI” button and typed “colorize”, which took surprising amount of time to do. The app, running on Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, presented three options. I saved them all for your review, because the AI did more than add color; it made some surprising changes to the content that you must see.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 29, 202610:33 pm

Stone Cold Truth

I remember a time, before the stones, when this space between sidewalk and street was filled with green grass. Trees and grass are my definition of green. For some other folks, green is about climate change and being green by, for example, reducing water consumption; yeah, a lawn consumes plenty.

But gravel and concrete also absorb heat and hold it at ground level, which sure seems contradictory to the objective of reducing global warming. By contrast, planting things that grow, like grass and trees, cool at ground level and pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and release oxygen.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 28, 202610:16 pm

A Century Later

Sometime last year, this historical sign appeared in Old Trolley Barn Park, here in University Heights. When I scan the area with my eyes, my mind can’t imagine what the place looked like a century ago, when Trolley cars traversed Florida to the structure at Adams that would hold 100 of them.

In the 2020’s, the area is a calm green space beneath towering, majestic trees. A swing set and kids play area also add to the park’s charm and usefulness.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 27, 20268:05 pm

The Cactus and Its Creator

I am fond of University Heights neighbors who are San Diego natives and/or raised families here. This gentleman, who for privacy purposes isn’t named, often sits with his wife on the swing. He rocked back and forth as Annie and I visited him today.

The 89-year-old bought the house 56 years ago. Many of the generational homeowners inherited properties from parents or grandparents. In this case, he is the original owner, parent, and grandparent. He has living children who own homes elsewhere in the city.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 26, 20269:54 pm

‘No Kings’ is Hate Speech

Last night’s shooting inside the Washington Hilton was unequivocally an assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. Today, one of my neighbors casually brushed off the incident as being nothing really. I disagree.

Anyone who follows me should know that I used to live in the District of Columbia and suburban Maryland. As a quasi-retired journalist (covering the high-tech industry). I can assert with certainty that for many reasons, including exclusivity of attendees, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is one of the most secure events–or should have been. That the assassin ran across the hotel lobby, firing weapon(s), is an unprecedented breach that reminds of Ronald Reagan, when he was nearly murdered outside the establishment in March 1981.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 24, 20269:51 pm

The Dude and the Lady

I surprisingly get good value from NX Studio, which is a much superior workflow companion than Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for editing photos taken using Nikon Zf. Big difference: I am rediscovering photos that are much better potential keepers than previously evaluated.

The Featured Image is the littlest example. This was initially a large crowd shot that I cropped closely. I hemmed and hawed, as the saying goes, about whether to close-crop to emphasize the gentleman turned left.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 23, 20269:50 pm

Parked in Monochrome

One of Nikon Zf‘s benefits is the ability to shoot monochrome with the turn of one little dial. NEF (e.g. RAW) files are captured in color, and the JPEGs are strictly black and white.

While a convenient contrivance, the feature is an imitation of what Leica Q2 Monochrom, or its successor, can do. By removing the encumbrance of the RGB-color overlay, Leica delivers a camera that shoots photos with superior IQ (image quality), relatively little noise in low-light, and rich tones and dynamic range—all editable in the actual RAW file.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 22, 20269:33 pm

Circles of Confusion

I am the long-time critic of the roundabouts (e.g. traffic circles) that San Diego is placing at intersections across the city. The euphemism for them is “traffic calming”, by official parlance. I call them danger zones—directly when you go through them and indirectly how they negatively change driving behavior.

The Featured Image and companion are evidence of the first. Two SUVs collided in what looks like one driver failing to yield to another already in the circle. This kind of confusion happens frequently.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 21, 20269:32 pm

Charming Cali

Among my goals for 2026 is to post every day—a task so far successfully achieved. But today has been unusually frenetic, and I am short on time. So, I share something unintended, recognizing there are too many cats.

Crazy thing, I am being honest, cats aren’t my obsession—or even close to it. I started shooting portraits of felines in October 2016 as an exercise to improve my photographic skills and as a process part of restoring my eyesight, following cataracts surgery and ongoing treatment for Macular Edema (that 10 years later is no longer necessary). Because so many people are cat crazy, I continued pursuing them.