Cornerstone is fun collection of wine tasting venues, home and garden shops, and café located in Sonoma just off of Highway 121.  The gardens at Cornerstone are created and installed by world renowned designers and have been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other leading publications.  It’s also a great place to snap a few photos as well.

Not intending to do a lot of shooting on this trip, I just grabbed my Canon 5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.2L lens for some snapshots.  I should have also thrown the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens into the bag as well, because that would have been a great complement to the 50mm for capturing the beauty of these gardens.  

Sometimes limiting your lens choice to only one focal length can actually force you to think more creatively about the images you want to capture. Only bring the 50mm was nice because I could concentrate on isolating subjects. And that 1.2 aperture was great for blurring out the background.   

The images contained in the slideshow are basically straight out of the camera with some minor tweaking in Lightroom. At some point I may go back and use Exposure, by Alien Skins to give the images a more film-like look.  I love the look of film but hate the hassle of developing and scanning the negatives.  However, I still shoot film on occasion when I really want that nostalgic look and have the time to scan and process the negatives.