I've been out of commission for a couple of weeks mainly because the last two to three weeks of school are just incredibly busy that I don't have much time for anything else. This is only my 3rd post this month, by far and away, my lowest monthly total for this year. Now that vacation time is hear, I have more free time to explore other things and that also includes blogging more frequently than I have been this month.
As noted in the title, the photo blogging challenge for this week was night. I have several different shots, but some that are very similar as I did a lot of night time photography this month.
1. Jellyfish
A couple of weeks ago, I made a quick trip down to San Diego to go to Sea World. They had a deal for teachers that if you went to the park on a voucher they provided for you, you'd get in free, plus get a year pass good for the rest of the year. I couldn't pass that up.
Most of the jellyfish exhibits I've seen at aquariums are always in simulated night environments, probably because jellyfish are more deepwater creatures so they don't need or get a whole lot of light in the first place. If you ever get to one of these exhibits, you can get mesmerized by these floating disks of jelly very easily. It's a very peaceful and calming thing to view if you crowd out of your mind the stinging tentacles that most jellyfish tend to have.
2. Evolution
In the town where I live, we have a new shopping area completed just a couple of years ago, including a very nice movie theater. In the center of the square, opposite the theater's entrance is this nice fountain, complete with stair step waterfalls cascading down to different tiers in the fountain. At night there are lights under the water that illuminate it.
Included in the fountain are what look like salamanders, eels and fish, slowly evolving and coming out of the early "primordial sea" of Earth. Several of these creatures are also reading books. I chose to process this one in B&W. I liked the flowing water, but I wanted the attention to also focus on the salamander reading its book. With the light in orange and red, I think that would have drawn the viewer's eye away from the salamander and to the lights and the water.
3. Heavenly bodies
I had about 20 seconds to set this shot up. Our church fiesta was in full swing and I had been walking around taking shots of the various amusement rides at the fiesta, when I spotted the crescent moon just about to drop behind the trees.
I had the camera on the tripod already, so it was just a matter of setting it up, composing the shot and triggering the shutter. The ride was slowing down, so I had one chance to get the light trails before the moon disappeared behind the trees. As a bonus, I also got Jupiter shining brightly above the moon.
4. The movie theater
This is the marquee for our movie theater. To get to the theater, you have to walk under the marquee, between several restaurants and past the fountain I described above. I've taken shots similar to this before, but that was back when I didn't have as good a working knowledge of my camera like I feel I have now.
This shot was a matter of timing. I had to watch down the street and wait for cars to come by. Just leaving the shutter on washed the shot out very quickly as the lit marquee is surprisingly bright. Just a couple of seconds of open shutter was enough to get a good image on this shot. I would have preferred to have continuous streaks of both headlights and taillights, but traffic was light last night when I was taking those shots, so I had to take what was given to me.
5. The Statue
There's not a statue in this shot, but if you look in the lower right hand corner, you'll see a man in an orange shirt who is remarkably in focus. This photo is an 8 second exposure, which is why I call this shot the statue.
I've actually used this particular shot in another challenge set up by P.J. earlier this month, but I wanted to include it in this five shot set, because of this guy. During photography's infancy, it was common to have most people's photos taken when they were sitting down so it would be easier to control movement. Most exposures lasted 30 seconds or longer, so many of the chairs they sat in actually had neck braces to help the subject hold their heads still. A photo of a Civil War battle is incredibly rare although I know at least one does exist. Most of the Civil War photos were taken after the battles were done, mainly because dead bodies tend not to move.
I think the reason why this guy is actually so still is he wasn't aware I was taking his photo. He probably would have been self conscious had he known and swayed slightly, making him a blur much like the other guy standing in front of the ride. Looking over some of my other shots taken with this one, I'm still amazed at how many people really do stay fairly still over long exposures.
Once you're done, head on over to PJs place to see other bloggers interpretation of the night.
Lastly, I would like to apologize to the other bloggers who posted photos last month. I never was able to get around and look at your shots and I will make that up over the next couple of days. I look forward to seeing your interpretations of the night.
Our church has its annual fiesta every year over Mother's Day weekend. The past couple of years, we've been attending all three days since my wife works one of the booths. I end up walking around quite a bit taking photos of all of the different things that happen at the fiesta.
One of the things that I've practiced over the last couple of years since starting my 365 project is long exposures. I've had varying degrees of success catching the different amusement rides with all of there colored lights. Some that look very interesting don't turn out as well once they've been shot with a long exposure.
I think part of the reason is most of the rides now have long fluorescent light tubes as opposed to individual lights. If they don't have a constant movement, like this ferris wheel did, the light becomes a very large blob and doesn't look very appealing. It becomes very experimental while you're trying out different angles for shots.
Yesterday, during the day, I scouted out spots where I wanted to take shots, then forgot to place my tripod at one of the spots I'd scouted out. Not much to worry in the long run because the ride I wanted to take a shot of didn't work very well in other shots, so I'm pretty sure it would have turned out quite similar from that spot as well.
Because I've also started the 100 Strangers project, I was looking for possible stranger shots as well as general "Street Photography" type shots to take. I think I did well with both aspects as I was able to take a photo of one of the concessioners talking with someone. The tattoos on his arm, spelling out the word Knoxville worked really well in this shot. He was very successful in plying money out of patrons' hands most of the evening. The lure of winning a stuffed animal was big in a lot of people's minds and he played right into the lure very easily.
Overall, I was very pleased with many of the shots I took this weekend. I have several other light trail shots on my Flicker account. I also met Curtis, one of the concessioners at the fiesta. He became my 37th stranger yesterday. If you'd like to check out some of the other night time shots I took this weekend, check out my Night Photography album at Flicker. I'm hoping for one more nighttime excursion before the end of the month to possible get some star trails as I'm in a blog challenge to take photos with the theme Night for the month of May. I have a pretty good start on that challenge after this weekend.
When I hit the flashback button tonight, I was really pleased with the image that showed up this evening. We've been having warmer weather than normal this past week. Our daytime high hit 98˚ F today and with those kinds of temperatures, the butterflies have come out in force.
Most of them seem to either be very wary of things larger than themselves, as I have not been able to get many, if any shots of the larger species around here. I have been able to get quite a few shots of skippers, like the one posted here. They just seem to want to pose.
I spotted this skipper and bee back in July of last summer, right near the end of my summer vacation. I think if I were to post this shot today, I'd do a slightly tighter crop to get the vertical stick out of the frame on the left hand side. Why that didn't get cropped out the first time around is very perplexing to me.
A friend of mine who writes several blogs has put out a photo challenge for bloggers, so I thought I might give this one a whirl. As usual, I forgot about it until the very last moment, but since it's still April, I'm good to go on this one. The challenge was to take five photos throughout the month centered around a certain theme. The theme for this month was Transportation. Here are my five photos.
1. Space travel
OK. This one may be cheating since this isn't the actual space shuttle, but it fits the theme and I'm going to use it. This is the Ellison Onizuka Challenger Memorial in Little Tokyo near downtown Los Angeles.
As President Ronald Reagan spoke in one of his eulogies following the Challenge disaster back in 1986, "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forgert them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."
I didn't have enough years of teaching experience at the time to apply for the Teacher in Space program. If offered a chance today, I'd go in a millisecond.
2. Walking
These people were just cool. I took several shots of them and in reality, what I should have done was call out to them to get a better shot, or possibly a strangers photo of one or several of them. Each of them had their own style, from the two tone yellow and red pants, to the two toned hair style of the guy leading the group. It's hard to see, but each side of his head, left and right, was a different color.
I've come to appreciate walking much more as I've gotten older. I've never been a runner, but I enjoy hiking and I get out and walk the neighborhood as much as I can to get some exercise. It's becoming more of a habit for me the older I get, which I view as a good thing (the habit of walking, not the getting older part).
3. Traffic
Not much transporting going on here, at least on the westbound side of the freeway. Traffic was pretty much stopped with only cars getting by on the right shoulder of the freeway when I took this shot.
I had been on my way home when I spotted the smoke from what I assumed was a brush fire. I calculated where the fire was based upon my position and decided to get off one off ramp beyond my usual off ramp. That was a big mistake because as soon as I got around a curve in the freeway, traffic stopped dead and I realized the fire wasn't up in the hills, but right in the middle of the freeway.
I was able to get off at the next exit, but it took upwards of 30 minutes to get there and I didn't think I would have gotten a really good shot, but I parked my car, walked over the bridge overlooking the freeway and just about the time I got there, this flare up happened. It must have been really burning earlier while I saw in traffic. Had I gotten off at my normal exit, I think I would have gotten more flames, but I'm pretty satisfied with this shot.
Los Angeles freeways are our life blood. They get us where we want to go, but when some kind of "cholesterol" clogs those arteries, things tend to break down, as witnessed here.
4. Scooter
I spotted this scooter parked in front of a garage door in our neighborhood this week. It represents a cheaper form of motorized transportation, something that can get you around those kinds of jams depicted in the photo above. I wouldn't take something like this on the freeway though. It's way too small.
I rode a Honda Supersport back in the summer of 1983. I took it many places, gave many friends lifts to different things. It's amazing how many girls just want to ride a motorcycle. I always carried a second helmet just "in case." I took that motorcycle to and from my summer job at Disneyland on city streets most days during that summer. I made the mistake of taking the freeway late one night home instead of city streets. Riding next to a tall truck, I suddenly realized how vulnerable I was next to it and realized that if the truck came over, even though I was wearing all of the proper safety equipment, I would be hamburger. I took a break from riding. A couple of weeks later, my dad got into an accident, destroyed his knee in the process and neither one of us ever rode a motorcycle again.
5. Bicycle
When I lived closer to work, I used to ride my bicycle. It was only a mile and a half ride. I still have that bicycle, but I haven't ridden it in years and I know it needs an overhaul. I think one of the things I do during my summer break will be to get the bike safety checked, buy a new helmet and get back into riding.
It's funny, that although I enjoy riding my bike, I prefer walking and hiking for the simple reason that it's hard to take photos when you're riding. Walking, if you see something, you can stop, compose your shot and fire away. Riding would be a little more cumbersome to take photos, because the camera would be strapped away, so I'd have to stop, get the gear out, compose the shot and hope the shot I wanted was still there. So in a way, I think I'm trying to talk myself out of riding a bike.
Now that you've read all of this, here's a link to others who have participated in the challenge for this month.
I ended up hitting my flashback button at 365 and came up with this self portrait I took of me and our dog Jack at the beginning of summer vacation last year. I'm not sure why, but I haven't done many self portraits recently and I think I need to do some more of them.
One thing I like about self portraits is you can get pretty creative when you take them. You don't have to include your face every time. I have several where I just show my hands or my chest. I have many where all you can see is my eye.
I actually have a self portrait in mind that will actually need to use some of my PhotoShop skills to complete, but I need to do it during daylight hours where there is light. Inside light will not be enough, but I think I can pull it off. It should be fun.
About four weeks ago, I wrote about the start of my garden for this year. If you click on the link, you can see the difference in growth of my tomato plant over the past four weeks.
The original photo shows a plant about 6 inches in length growing out of the bottom of the Topsy Turvy. The plant, 4 weeks later is now about 4 times that length (approximately 2 feet total) and sprouting three blossoms, plus several other blooms that are ready to open up. If you look closely, you can see the three blossoms on the main trunk of the plant.
If all goes well, sometime in June, I believe I will be pulling large tomatoes off of this plant and placing rather large slices on my burgers. Mmmmm. I can taste them already.
I'm really amazed at how well this plant is growing thus far. I really had no idea how this would work and it just seemed like a crazy idea, but if those tomatoes actually develop, I'm sold on this. In fact, I think I'll probably buy another one to double my output of tomatoes. I'll try to keep you updated as the weeks go by.
Yesterday I received an email from my daughter asking if I could find some old photos of her playing her violin when she was about five or six. I have to assume that she's planning on using these photos for her student teaching with the first graders in her class. Today I looked through some old photos and found several that I thought would do very well for her, so I scanned them and sent them off.
In the process of looking through the photos I ran across this one and I had to share it with you. This was taken during her third camping trip. The first two, a trip up near Lake Arrowhead and another one at Joshua Tree National Monument were over night camping trips. I wanted her to enjoy the experience in the hopes that we could take longer ones.
This trip lasted 5 days I believe. We camped at Lodgepole campground, walked amongst the Giant Sequoias, drove down to Cedar Glen in Kings Canyon National Park and hiked up to the top of Moro Rock. I love the look on her face in this shot as she appears to be quite pleased with herself. She should be since she accomplished this at the age of five years old. Now she's grown up and her students are just about the age she was when she made that first dizzying hike. Maybe sometime in the future, she'll be able to camp with me again. That would be fun.
1. Jellyfish
