Dessert Contrasts

This is year three, attempting to get the perfect dessert/snow-covered mountain scene.  Any feedback appreciated.

THE SHERWINS

I shot this in Mammoth Lakes at about 7:00 pm. This is a view of the Sherwins. I used a Canon 40D with a 28-135mm lense at 56 mm, F4.5 for 120 seconds, ISO 1600. The sky was clear and the lighting was from the stars and a few town lights about one mile away. Even though I was using a tripod, the high winds left this image a little soft. Composing in the dark is surely a "hit and miss" affair. But, after a few attempts I got the composition I wanted. I played with the exposure in Photoshop a little and re-sized for the blog. If I could re-do this shot I'd reduce the ISO to about 400 and increase the exposure time. Did I mention it was 28 degrees or that my wife waited very patiently in the car for about 45 minutes?

This is on a path to the beach in Malibu. I was leaving and the sun was goin down, I looked at the pawn and it felt so paceful. I wanted to see if I was able to capture that pacefulness. I know some parts look a bit dark but I like it that way, it gives me that late feeling...

Filmore City Hall at night.

wish I had a great camera

Dear Old Town Pasadena

every visit there's something new to see and do.

wheres a great camera when you need one. blackberry will have to work for now. watching wendy's lectures on how different photographers defined landscape was inspiring. i suppose my definition status is: to be continued

Filmore Southern Pacific Depot

The Southern Pacific Depot was built in 1887 during the southern California land boom of that decade. Edith Moore Jarrett the first Curator of the Museum saved the depot from demolition in 1974 by purchasing it from Southern Pacific Railroad for a dollar.

The Depot was originally located much further west on the tracks than its current locaton. It was about 50 feet from Central Ave.

The depot had an additional 20 feet of waiting room. The photo with 2 windows on the west end included the waiting room. Where there are three windows that is the current configuration. When there was a waiting room there was also a bay window trackside which went away when the waiting room was removed.

Cliff side

Best shots are the local shots. viewing down the canyon of Vasquez rocks

Night and Day

So students, let's have a little fun. I like the spirit of competition! Let the blog wars begin. Keep this simple -- which photographic post (in response to mine) will solicit the highest star ratings in the next two weeks?

My brother-in-law sent me a link of photographs a few months back. The link shows several images taken at night but the end result of the image looks like daytime. In the last year I have played around with the idea myself. The results are so unreal and unbelievable - truly fantastic.

So again, keeping it really simple. Take photographs at night, but make sure they look like daytime. That's it - go for it. Worth the wait?

http://gizmodo.com/#!5742383/175-photos-of-day-taken-at-night

Technical hint? Use a tripod and f 4.0 to start with at least 5 second long exposure. Depending on the available light it may be longer. The new moon (dark moon) is tomorrow, so as we approach a full moon in the next two weeks the light at night will change significantly.

Another from the Hip

I love this style of shooting. You kind of know what you're going to get and you kind of don't. There were no auto focus setting used on this image. It was taken up on the hill at Wm S Hart Park.

Not one of the best focused pictures of all time, but this photo was taken about 2 or 3 years ago. I went through a stage that I enjoyed exploring and going on adventures to "haunted" or abandoned places; such as burnt down churches, asylums, abandoned places, haunted churches... just about anything and everything you can imagine. This image here was from an abandoned burnt down asylum. Probably one of the creepiest places I have ever been to. A lot of crazy good shots, and a lot of creepy a mind blowing experiences. It gives me a lot of mixed emotions due to the fact that this was a kids play set. I love this shot, even with the lack of focus, and the whole composition of the image is just amazing to me. I love this image, a lot! That is all! :]

Last semester I was lucky enough to participate in a student workshop with the Getty Museum. They brought in Documentary Photographer Sudharak Olwe. This experience has completely changed the way I shoot, before this my photos were mediocre at best, just asked Wendy. Afterward the strength of my images has improved immensely.

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.:-)

Seagull on the pier rail. Shows depth of field.

Blossoms

The almond trees along Highway 5 north of Highway 99 are in full blossom. I took this on my way home from the Bay area. There's still some snow on the mountain tops. I'm trying to force myself to shoot from different camera angles. I might have to start wearing knee pads!

Speculations

Since I was shooting blind I decided to use a wide angle lens knowing that I had a better chance of capturing my subjects in the frame. This was shot using Ilford Delta 400.

I spent about an hour trying to come up with different stories and scenarios to go with this photograph. What is it that is being documented? Is it a photograph about a man on his way to MOCA or about the everyday life of a starving artist trying to make a few bucks by playing on the streets. sometimes all we can do is speculate.