A big moment in my life.

I apologize for the late post, it has been a hectic week. But as for the image above I realize it isn't a very interesting picture, or aesthetically pleasing picture, but the time and subject of the image are what hold meaning to me. This picture was taken with my phone right after I bought my first DSlR. I was so exited and so grateful for my grandfather because he had co-signed for a loan to buy this very camera, and he trusted in me to really put his credit to good use. The point of this image was to document a particular time in my life that was a true turning point. It has got me to think about how often we take pictures and why we do. Whether it is for pleasure, for beauty, or just purely to document.. we ALL take pictures.

May Day

May 1^st often is referred to as May Day for the past several years; organizations take this day to bring awareness to major issues happening in our country. Especially, with immigration reform in the United States. These pictures were taken in 2007. Picture #1 Police officers with their riot gear on ready for action. 2^nd A woman in the front yelling “Si se puede”. 3^rd People walking down waving U.S, flags in support of immigration reform.

A Horse's Tale

I shot this image with a 24 mm lens on a Nikon FM2 manual camera and on B&W film. It has more going for it than just an idyllic scene. It shows the enslavement of one horse and the freedom another is enjoying by running across an open field.

Changing the Landscape with Social Statements

Here is a sweet image of commitment to a new social landscape for this person. The world needs change in her mind, and she is no longer capable to enter in with the youthful abandon of an era passed. However, with all she has, and in an effort to be relevant still, she comes to small battle field and makes a stand for the future.

H History

I WISH I had a better camera when I took this picture but I didnt.
I took this years ago with a cheap point and shoot.
For fun my son and I took one of those celebrity tour trips.
I would love to go take some better shots of this sign one day and find out all the history on it.

Documentary

i would agree, though i never thought about it before but every photo is documentary in some way or another

Manzanar - A different perspective

Since we were discussing Ansel Adams and Manzanar, I thought I'd post an image that I shot on a recent trip to that area. Visiting Manzanar is a profound experience. It is hard to believe that so many families were forced to live in those conditions.

However while walking down the road I was able to stop and notice the beauty of the area. It is amazing that those are the same mountains that have been documented by Ansel Adams and others in another time. It shows how insignificant we humans are in the bigger scheme of things.

Welcome to my Pad

This image is from the pond at the Villa in Pacific Palisades. I love the colors of the lilly pads and the simple flower, sitting there alone, in its all and glory, its beauty stealing the spot light. I was excited to see when I viewed the image that I was able to capture the vibration on the water.

I must have driven by this site a thousand times before I finally stopped to shoot. I'm trying to "get crazy" as Wendy would say! I also converted this to black and white but I think I like it better in color. I did play with this a little in Photoshop but it's not cropped.

Sedona

It is almost impossible to not get a good photo in Sedona!  But it was such fun photographing at different times of the day and from different angles.  I think I learned alot about photography on this trip.

Shooting from the Hip

Ready, don't aim, fire. This is a shot I took in Angelino Heights on a historian scavenger hunt. I had the camera in my hand; I bent over and just fired. I had no idea what was going to come out, and I think it's a pretty good image. I only took one shot. The image was taken at an f/8 aperture, and a 100 shutter speed, using my Canon 50D. Some of the images I shot later were some of my first night time shots and I will include those in anlater post. I love photographing architecture. It is my favorite types of landscape to shoot, urban landscape. Im really looking forward to my Documentary Landscape assignments as I will be able to shoot architecture more. I love the repetition, angles, and colors of architecture.

Urban Landscape

One of the things that interests me as a photographer is the conflict between man vs. nature. Here is an example of that very theme. This image was taken at the old abandoned zoo in Griffith Park. I love the way nature is reclaiming what man once sculpted into the natural landscape. As I walked among the different enclosures it was hard for me to picture that animals once lived here in such close and cramped quarters.

Something, Somewhere, Some Place in Time

A couple of years ago, the Marek Fire reached the mountains down the street from my house. Not too long after, the Sayre Fire came from the other direction and eventually met where the Marek Fire had left off. My family was evacuated at 4 in the morning on a school day. Fortunately, we were some of the lucky ones. Others, however, were not so lucky.

I originally set out to see what had happened to my neighborhood, but with a brand new camera, I couldn't resist documenting what I saw. I feel these pictures are documentary style in that they are evidence of something, somewhere, some place in time but with a little artistic flare thrown in.

The shots of the firefighters is from the Marek Fire.
The shot of the house is not mine. I wanted to show just how close the fire had come to the brand new, cookie-cutter, too-close-together-to-have-a-yard houses they built.
The shots of the flames were taken from my roof of the Sayre Fire. Unfortunately, most of the shots came out blurry. I was, however, able to snap a few that looked as though lava was flowing down the mountainside.
The rest were (if I remember correctly) taken a few weeks after the Marek Fire. I was evacuated because the fire had reached the wash. The wash is suppossed to be for runoff for the dam, but over the years it had turned litterally into a forest. I don't have any pictures of it before the fire but imagine one day turning a corner and a forest had dissapeared. Though very tragic, I tried to find the good hiding somewhere within. We went exploring and found that life goes on. Among the trash, old car, and yes, a horse skeleton (untouched by flames, weird and creepy), life had begun to grow again. Baby plants had began to grow right where their parents had died. It was very inspiring and rather poetic.
Oh, the snail. Thats actually a sad story. We came across maybe 20 of them in a small area. They couldn't out run the flames :'(

...I maaayyyy have had a little trouble uploading neatly...

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.:-)