Photo Blogging Challenge (November 2013): People

It's that time of the month again when P.J.'s monthly blogging challenge comes around.  This month's challenge was people.  The hardest problem I had with this theme was narrowing it down to just 5 photos.  Here's my take on the theme for this month.

1.  Grocery Shopping
As most of you know, I enjoy street photography.  That doesn't mean it comes easy to me.  It just means that I enjoy it and when I come across a good opportunity, I'll take it.  Street photography is easier when the area is busy.  The likelihood of a bad encounter lowers, I think when there's more people around, but that doesn't mean it's not with some risks.  I've never had anyone give me the evil eye, but then again, most of the time, I usually shoot from behind or the side.  Here's one I took that I included in another blog entry a couple of days ago.  I was walking from our auto mechanic's after dropping a car off to be serviced when I saw this guy riding his bicycle.  It was clear that he was coming from the grocery store based upon the several items in his basket.  Just something about him made me want to take his photo. It was a quick decision and this was one of only two shots I got of him.

2.  Shoes
At my school, I run a photo club.  We have weekly meetings where I will discuss a particular photographic technique, show them examples of what I'm trying to get across to them and then take them out on a photo walk on campus where they can practice the technique.  As of this moment I have upwards of 35 students in the club, so they are a handful at times, but it's also enjoyable to watch them experiment.  I don't have any set requirements on the type of gear they can use, so many of them are using tablets or their phones as their main camera.  In my opinion, that's fine.  The purpose of the club is to get them comfortable using their equipment, not limit it to just those who have full-fledged DSLR cameras.  While out on a photo walk a couple of weeks ago, I noticed several kids standing in a group.  Obviously, the variety of styles of their shoes is what struck me and I set this shot up.  Back in the day, we had white Converses and Black Converses, either high top or low top with white shoelaces, and that was it.  I like the new colors.

3.  Family
Since this post comes one day after Thanksgiving, this entry wouldn't be complete without a photo of some members of my family.  Veteran's Day weekend, I drove up to the Bay Area to visit with my daughter.  My older son came along as well.  I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that my daughter is a Northern California resident from now on.  She has a job teaching fourth grade in Milpitas, California and I don't see her jumping ship to find a job closer to home down here.  My son graduated this past June from college and has been looking for work over most of the summer.  He has found employment just this week with a firm located in Whittier, CA, close to home, but still a bit of a commute.  If this pans out into a long term type of employment, I can see where sometime in the future he'll move out into his own place, probably closer to his employment.  My youngest son is soon to be attending college and getting his life choices in order.  The nest is slowly emptying out.  I took this photo of the two older ones while we were walking toward an amazing sandwich shop in Santa Clara.  The visit up there that weekend was all too short, but she will be coming down here for Christmas, so I'll see her again shortly.

4.  Cool
As noted above, I enjoy street photography.  I kind of wish I'd actually stopped and talked with this guy as I really liked his style and I think he would have made a nice addition to my 100 Stranger project.  It seems like hats of this type are coming back into style again after an almost 50 hiatus away from men wearing stylish hats in public.  President John F. Kennedy is supposedly to blame for the decline in men wearing hats as it was reported that he didn't like wearing hats.  It appears as if that's just an urban legend.  However, as I read that article, I think he looks very odd wearing that top hat.  Although those photos show he wore a hat, most photos of the President show him without a hat.  The hat was just in decline for some time and it's easy to blame a young man with immense power for its demise.  President Eisenhower, Kennedy's predecessor very rarely wore hats during his administration.   Either way, it's kind of nice to see hats making a comeback.  Where it used to be difficult to find a hat outside of specialty millinery stores, now it's common to find them in everyday stores such as Target.  I found this guy soaking up some rays in front of a restaurant earlier this week.  I later saw him after he'd taken off his jacket.  He didn't look as cool then.  The combination of hat and jacket made the shot.

5.  Farmer's Market
I drove into Pasadena on Tuesday to do some geocaching and to also go on a photo walk with a friend of mine.  We walked around Pasadena's City Hall and several other places.  Around the corner from her house was this small farmer's market lined up on the sidewalk.  It wasn't a very large farmer's market, but it did have a lot of photo ops and we spent close to a half an hour then taking shots.  I'd taken a shot similar to this one looking over some onions and potatoes, but it was all an endless line of browns leading off into the distance, so after walking down the entire length of the market, we walked back and I spotted this shot that had a little more color in it.

And that pretty much wraps up another month of the photo blogging challenge.  Once again, here's a link to P.J.'s page where, if you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see a list of all the other bloggers who are participating in this month's challenge.  Check them out as there's a lot of really nice shots in there.