There is something "fishy" going on.....

This picture was taken outside at the Annenberg Space for Photography Museum. This was the first time I experimented with a fish eye lens.

If you haven't had a chance to visit this museum I recommend that you take some time to visit there. The current exhibit is Extreme Exposure. I (along with several photography friends) had the pleasure of sitting in on Paul Nicklen's lecture night at the Annenberg. He is a National Geographic photographer who brings awareness through his images on Global Warming. He is currently one of the featured photographers in the exhibit.

As you can see from this photo the scenery is great if you like night time shooting.

young boy, flee.

documentary photography is inherently more interesting than landscape because it often includes individuals within the image.

this is a photograph of my bratty, devilish nephew. he's a total sweetheart, and devastatingly adorable. and he also looks like a monkey. i choose to document these years of his life because the future doesn't look so great for children his age. the world is ugly and chaotic and he unfortunately will have to learn how to live in it.

i consider this a documentary photograph not necessarily because it includes a person, but because of the meaning behind the photograph. i'm trying to capture this little boy's growth into a young man in a world that is no longer embracing the future or its inhabitants.

but more importantly, this is a moment he can always know existed in his life. a moment that he can someday look back on and appreciate the innocence and happiness that was his life.

people don't really appreciate simple images like these anymore. however, when there is no evidence of your past, you learn to.

Personal growth and Lasting memories

I know that this specific photograph has probably been taken time and time again by both photographers and tourist at Disneyland but the reason why I decided to post this image up was due to the story behind it. I had tried shooting this same photo time and time again but I was pushed over and over again by passers by which really frustrated me, finally my dad told me to get up on his shoulders to shoot, him being 6 foot tall and muscular people would not dare push him. My new shooting height also gave me the advantage of shooting the picture wit out any of the many tourist that had made my day a living hell. This was my first roll of slide film. I think its important to document moments like this for myself, that day I really felt like a kid at Disneyland once more thanks to my dad and as a photographer I opened my shooting possibilities to a new medium.

60's Night at the Annenberg

The Best Documentation of a Landscape often include Expressions from all ages .

Documentation is something difficult for me to define because It seems that anything can be a documentary photograph. I believe the first picture to be pure documentary because of my intent; the photo was originally taken as a record for the insurance company. The second photo I also consider documentary because its a great recording that particular day. The problem I have with documentation is it is hard for me to distinguish what is snap shot or actual documentation.

What do we Document?

For some reason, it has been really hard for me to define Documentary photography. I have been searching my mind for ideas on what to post. I haven't been able to take a picture the last 2 weeks that I feel really reflects documentary. So, I was going through my picture folders, and I noticed something. We use photos to document important things in our lives. I think everyone has taken a picture to remember a certain occasion. As I went through my pictures, I noted births/birthdays, graduations, weddings, engagements, etc... all things I wanted to document and remember.
This is a picture of my niece taken last month, just hours after she was born. I think that is documentary.

Spring is definitely here!

Spring is my favourite season-closely followed by summer-which I tried to capture in these two images on a daytrip up to Ojai. It can be tricky to render a colour truthfully, and the sharp, apple green in the first image was really vibrant in reality. Would it be considered cheating to enhance the colour in Photoshop to make it look more like the hue in my memory of this field?

In the second one I opened up the fstop to focus on the sun hitting the grass, and got down low, hopefully catching that feeling of "laying in the grass, letting the world pass by" on a lazy summer's day.:-)