Edwin Villanueva

I Heart Gorillas.

Next to the Lion Camp and Cheetah exhibits, I love watching the Gorillas at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. I’ve always been fascinated by them since I was a little kid and being able to see them in such a close proximity has been a dream come true. I can literally sit for hours just watching them interact with each other.

Here are few facts about Gorillas:

- Gorillas are the largest of the living primates.

-The DNA of gorillas is 98%–99% identical to that of a human, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the chimpanzee species.

-Gorillas live in tropical or subtropical forests.

For more information, check out the Wikipedia on Gorillas.

For the month of June, I’ve decided I will try to post one picture a day. I got this idea from my friend Jeff, who was doing it on his blog at jeffreysimms.com. I thought it would be a good exercise to help me continue my development as a photographer as well a share a little part of my daily life through images. So here we go…

Day 1 – I Love My Chucks

I bought my first pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars this past weekend and I love them!. It was sort’ve by accident that I purchased these since I was going insane trying to find some Crocs Flip Flops. I never did find what I was looking for. So when I came across a sale at one of the shoe stores, I decided to buy these instead. I wore them for the first time today and I have to say they are extremely comfortable. Why I never had a pair before is beyond me. I’m thinking of getting multiple colors!

This was taken at La Jolla Cove yesterday afternoon. I was hoping for some clear skies to capture a typical SoCal sunset but it wasn’t meant to be. I captured this instead.

While enjoying the late afternoon sun at Carlsbad State Beach today, I came across an unusual sight, a man walking his pet bird. Actually, it was a husband and wife walking their dog and pet bird. How often do you see that? Thinking that I wouldn’t get another opportunity too see something like this, I quickly snapped a picture with my iPhone and posted it on Brightkite.

As they walked away, I was a little upset at myself for not having my dslr with me to take a better picture. I brought the camera but left it in the car thinking I wasn’t going to see anything worth photographing that I haven’t taken at the beach already. Lucky for me, the couple turned around and headed back in my direction. When I saw this, I rushed back to my car to get the dslr. The owners were nice enough to allow me to take a few snapshots of their beautiful and well trained bird.

I finally got the Canon 50D. I was actually saving for the Canon 40D. But after playing around with the 50D at the local Best Buy, I decided to spend a little extra and purchase the newer model. I couldn’t resist the 15 megapixel sensor, the higher resolution 920,000 dot LCD and the newer DIGIC 4 image processor.

I can’t wait to test this bad boy out!

Since being bitten by the shutter bug last year, I knew that I would out grow the Canon XTi that I owned for a little over a year. To be honest, I wish I had spent a little more and purchased the 40D when I first invested in a DSLR. I would’ve saved some money now considering the difference between a 40D vs. 50D is not as extreme as a XTi vs 40D. Anyways, now that I have a camera body that will allow me to be more flexible and creative, its time to start saving for better glass(lens).

Hopefully I can purchase my first L series lens sometime in September. It would be a great birthday present to myself!