P.J. is doing his monthly photo blogging challenge and I haven't done one of those in awhile. Thought I'd take a crack at it again this year. I also got lucky in that I took a bunch of shots yesterday while I was at the art museum in Los Angeles. This month's theme was inside. My take might be a little bit different, but we'll see what I can do with it with my five shots for this month, inside.
1. Selfie
I took this shot on the first day of the year. My intention was I was going to do another 365 project. In 2011, I did a 365 project, then continued through and did two straight years, taking at least one photo every day for 730 straight days. After awhile, I got burned out on it, so I decided not to continue. Fast forward a couple of years, I thought I might be able to attempt this again this year. Well, that lasted all of eleven days before I ended up not posting a photo. I could have continued to post photos, but they would have been shots from last year and I wanted the shots to be current shots. I have a lot of good intentions, but this one was not one of them. I've found my niche for photographs and I can't get out to take landscape photos as often as I would like, so the camera is on the back burner for a little bit until I get some time to get out and about. I'm ok with that.
But I posted this shot, mainly because I like the way it looks. My mother-in-law often said that she never saw a bad photo of me. I know people are more critical of photos of themselves and it's mainly because people mostly see reflections of themselves and so don't like actual photos because it doesn't look like them. I get that, but recently, I've noticed that I don't like photos taken of me. My "mug shot" photo that will appear in our school yearbook this year, I think is hideous. But for some reason, I really like this shot. I think I did a good job of capturing the essence of what I think I am.
2. Bi-Plane
Inside you say? Well, I was outside when I took the shot and the airplane is outside as well, but this is a vintage plane and I really think it would be cool to get inside the cockpit and take that baby for a spin. I would bet that it would be loud and dirty and windy, but it would be fun to get up in a small plane again and fly over landmarks I've only seen from the ground.
3. Still life
On the 31st, my son and I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He had a project to complete for his art history class and I just wanted to go, because I love going to LACMA. It poured down rain all day, which was good because it kept the crowds down and really allowed us to contemplate the artwork in the museum. This first piece is a still life by Jan Davidsz. de Heem. I ran across this piece while walking by myself while my son was looking at a different painting, the one that he would eventually write about for his art history class.
If I hadn't known already that this was a painting, I'd almost swear that this was a photograph. The attention to the little details and the absence of large brushstrokes makes this painting really come to life for me. I looked very closely and there were so many details that amazed me that the painter would include, including the little worm crawling up the stem of the orange limb. The way the lemon had been cut with some of the underlying peel still there and the drops of juice falling off the edge of the oyster shells are just some of the other things that caught my attention. Overall, this was my favorite piece of art that I saw yesterday. I'm sure when I visit again, I'll find something else to ooh and ahh over, but right now, this is it for me.
4. Ivory
I'll not get into a discussion over the rights or wrongs of ivory carvings. These are centuries old pieces of work, so the times were different back then. But this piece of artwork is really amazing when you think about it. This is a piece of carved ivory by the Japanese artist Masatoshi. After the carving, the ivory was stained to give it additional color. But I really don't think that's the amazing part. The amazing part of this one is this piece is no larger around than a John F. Kennedy half dollar. Think about that for a moment. Look at the intricacies of the sculpture and then think about how painstaking this must have been to carve. What would it have been like to have been inside the artist's head as he carved this small piece of ivory.
5. Woman contemplating Pollack
Last, but certainly not least is this shot below, also inside LACMA, of a woman contemplating a Jackson Pollack piece of art. Now, I could go on and on about how some people "get" this type of art, but others don't and at the same time theres get other types of art and so on. Needless to say, I'm glad we don't all get the same stuff. Most of the modern art work in this particular room, I really didn't get. Actually, what was going through my mind at the time was, "I could do something like that."
And for the most part, I think I would be right because I think once big time artists become well know, their name precedes them and it's great, because it's a Pollack or a Warhol. Art is very subjective and is interpreted differently by different people. For example, for whatever reason, I really like Pablo Picasso's work. I have a very good friend of mine, who much prefers the work of de Heem that I posted above over anything that Picasso ever produced. And that's ok, because if everyone liked the same thing, the world, in my humble opinion would be a very boring place. We'd all like the same thing, so everything that would be produced would be exactly the same.
I believe that artwork is supposed to stretch the mind and the imagination and to get people to see things in a different way. There was a sculpture in this room that was nothing more than welded old car parts. Yeah, I could have put something together like that and it might have been the same type of piece as was produced, but that's not the point. Just because you could do something like that doesn't mean you had emotions attached to your brushstrokes.
Who knows what was going on inside Pollack's mind when he applied the different shades of gray on this canvas? Nobody really knows for sure except him and he's been dead for almost 60 years, killed in a single car crash while driving under the influence of alcohol at the age of 44 years old.
Whatever it was, he rocketed to fame during the late 1940s when LIFE magazine did a four page spread on him and his drip method of painting. Curiously, after that exposure, he stopped using that particular method of painting.
Well, there you have it. This is what went on inside my mind as I looked through the shots that I included for this month's theme, Inside. Please check out the other bloggers who are participating in P.J.'s photo blogging challenge. As I get ready to publish this and link up, it looks like I'm going to be the 13th participant, not counting P.J., which means there should be a lot of tremendous photography to look at here. I hope you enjoyed my selections.
Here is is, the end of the month already and P.J.'s monthly challenge is upon us. This month, the theme is spring. I will be the first to admit that I didn't use my camera very much this month, nor did I even use the cell phone camera, but I did take enough shots that I think I can come up with five shots that pretty much epitomize springtime. That being said, here are my entries into this month's challenge.
1. Fiesta
Every Mother's Day weekend, our church has its annual fiesta. This fiesta is likely the second or third largest event in the city of Claremont every year, so a lot of people attend and there were good crowds even though there was a large threat of rain in the air most of Friday night when this shot was taken. For the past couple of years, I've usually set up my camera on a tripod somewhere around here and get some light streak shots. This year, I walked down to the fiesta, only to turn my camera on and find out I had a dead battery. I knew it was low, but wasn't aware it was that low and so I was totally unprepared for this circumstance.
However, this year, because I'm now part of the 21st century and I have my own smartphone now, I used the camera in the phone for some shots. Not quite the same thing, but since I have several shots for the past couple of years with light streaks, this is a little different from my normal shots at this time. It worked out well, mainly because the sight angles this year for the various rides weren't the greatest in the world and the best angles were right in the middle of high pedestrian traffic, which is not good for a long exposure with a camera on a tripod, so it probably worked out better that I did have a dead battery. Still, that's just a rookie mistake, one that will not be repeated again.
2. New hobbies?
For whatever reason, it seems like springtime is the time when new hobbies can be explored, that is unless you have a hobby that involves winter gear. Most hobbies tend to be warm weather hobbies however and so I've got anew interest, one that might not come to fruition for a couple of years, but there's a large spark of interest here.
One of many photo projects that I've participated in over the last couple of years is the 100 Strangers project. I haven't taken a stranger photo in over a year, but when I saw Stephen here piloting a drone over the fiesta, I figured I wanted to know more about the drone, how it worked, etc. Push came to shove and I walked over and starting talking with him about the drone. Eventually, Stephen said the magic words, "Would you like to fly it?"
Oh man, that was very cool. I got to hover, I got it to go straight up over the fiesta and just about the time I was ready to really start watching what the drone was seeing, the app lost contact with it. Oops. Fortunately, it didn't just plummet to the ground and Stephen was able to guide it in to a safe landing, but at least I can say that I've now piloted a drone. Oh, yeah. I plan on doing that again, sometime I hope in the near future. Perhaps my children can pool their money together and get their old man a drone for Christmas. That would be pretty cool. At least here in California, I wouldn't necessarily have to wait until springtime to try it out.
3. Walt Disney Family Museum
Springtime usually means the beginning of the traveling season, at least for me. Early in the season, during my spring break, I went camping in Death Valley, the first time I'd been there in about 20 years. But I digress, since these photos for this challenge have to be taken in the month of May.
Usually in May, I go visit my older two children over Memorial Day weekend. This year I traveled up to the Bay Area to visit with my daughter and her fiancé. My older son drove over from Merced for the weekend and we had a very enjoyable time. Most of Saturday was spent dealing with little wedding details, mostly finding the right suit for the two dads. I remember several years ago, when one of my good geocaching friend's daughter got married and he bought a suit for the occasion. If I remember correctly, he hadn't worn a suit in a very long time and probably won't ever after. My daughter commented that she couldn't really remember ever seeing me in a suit either. Well, I now own a suit, but once again, I'm digressing a little bit since that story doesn't deal with the photo.
Sunday, we drove up to San Francisco into the Presidio. Our goal was to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum. If you are a Disney aficionado, or have next to no knowledge of Walt Disney, you will enjoy yourself at this place. The entire museum is obviously dedicated to Walt Disney, set up by his daughters and it contains all sorts of memorabilia of the man. The museum is very interactive and pays attention to all sorts of small details.
At one point we were walking down a hall that had a grand vista view of the Golden Gate Bridge and my daughter commented that she felt that all of a sudden she was in a ride at Disneyland. Not coincidentally, we turned the corner of the hallway and were in a room that featured everything Disneyland, including a scale model replica of the park. Having worked at the park for five years in the 80s, this was just fabulous and I could have stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, but there were other things to see.
The photo that I've decided to show here doesn't have anything to do with Disneyland, but with the early pioneering that Disney did with sound cartoons. This shot shows 348 frame enlargements form the film Steamboat Willie, the first talking cartoon, and the first that featured Mickey Mouse. The 348 shots represents less than 15 seconds of animation time of the film. And these were all hand drawn at the time as well, no computers to help them out. Talk about labor intensive work. It's no wonder that a feature length film, such as Peter Pan, was only released once every three years or so.
4. Street photography
As most of you know, I enjoy taking street shots of total strangers. Outside of the Disney Museum, the green between some of the buildings was hosting a massive street fair. Food booths surrounded all sides of the green and all of us took advantage of the massive amounts of good food. If any of us went hungry, that was our own fault.
Springtime in San Francisco is dicey at best. There's always a good chance that Carl can show up at anytime. Who's Carl? Believe it or not, Carl is the fog that shows up in San Francisco. He even has his own Twitter account. The day we were at the Presidio, Carl was still off shore, but was threatening to come in at any time. Still, people came to the street fair prepared for the weather and most everyone was enjoying each other's company, which is why I find this shot so amusing. All sorts of things are happening all around and this guy was totally absorbed in his phone, probably checking his email or something similar. Maybe he was checking out the latest tweet from Carl.
5. Kanka
While we were eating lunch on the green, my daughter told me to turn around and look at this massive Great Dane that was walking around with his owner on the other side of the green. This dog was the size of a small pony. After we'd finished eating and they had found a place to park themselves, I walked over and asked if I could take some photos of the dog. After getting permission, I took several shots before the dog got bored and didn't want to have anything more to do with me. This shot turned out the best of the bunch. He has a better expression in another shot, but I cut off his ear with some poor composition, so I'm going with this one.
His owner said the dog's name was Kanka, which apparently means best friend in Turkish. Nothing better than going for a walk with your best friend on a beautiful spring weekend up in the Presidio.
Well, there you have it. Five shots of spring. Please stop by P.J.'s post to see his offerings on the theme. There's also links at the bottom of that page where you can view other blogger's springtime offerings as well.
