Different Point Of View

Most people don't spend much time looking up. They spend a lot of time looking down or looking straight ahead, but very little time looking up.

I was at a conference today and one of the presenters said "We are all little echos of the Big Bang". I like that idea.

Sunset

Driving home from Palmdale on Sunday evening. I really wanted to get up on top of one of the hills so I could take photos without buildings and phone/power lines, but I was losing the light and the roads ended at dead ends in the canyons. It was so beautiful!

A Perfect Day

I went to visit a friend who lived at lake Isabella once. In one day I went through just about every kind of weather possible - it was sunny when I started out, I drove into and out of rain storms, after I got there we went up into the mountains and it started snowing while we were there, coming back to the house it was raining again with thunder and lightening and really strong winds.

The next day I drove from Isabella out to the coast on Highway 155. What a beautiful day! I drove through dry, dusty desert, up into beautiful green hills, on and on, watching the vegetation change as I went through the valleys and up over this hills. Some of my best days have been when I can just get in the car and drive, with no appointments, time lines, or agendas. I can drive when and where I want and stop whenever the urge to take a picture strikes.

When Waves Receed

I remember when I took this photo. I watched for the LONGEST time to get just the right look of the shiny sand. Water absorbs back into the sand really fast when the waves recede so it took me several shots to get this just the way I wanted it to look. And it was REALLY cold that day! The lengths I go to for my art!

This is Moonstone Beach (and yes, you can find moonstones and California jade on that beach). I don't know if that's considered Central or Northern California. Anyway, the coast is still my favorite place to shoot. There are so many different colors and textures and with the movement of the sun the color and quality of the light is constantly in play, making the very same scene at 10 am look very different at 5 pm.

Being on the west coast I can only shoot the sun setting into the ocean. I could always go over to Catalina Island to get a sunrise over the ocean shot though. That's not very far. Maybe I'll go camping over there this summer.

Favorite Quotes

This is my desktop at work. It's a picture of comet Swan (I didn't take it, I got it off the APOD site and sorry, I don't know who did take the photo). Anyway over that background picture are quotes by fictional characters, famous people, not famous people and anonymous people that I have collected over the years. These are the quotes (in no particular order):

Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain – unknown
 

I think I’ll try defying gravity – Elfaba
 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about thing that matter - Martin Luther King , Jr.

 
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic – Arthur C Clark

 
Life is zesty and worth the struggle – Neven Julius (this was pulled from an emailed birth announcement that was the most creative thing I've ever see. It was written first person POV from the newborn baby announcing his own birth.)

Faith and reason are like the shoes on your feet - you can get farther on both than just one – J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon5)

 
Harry, even in the Wizarding world hearing voices is not a good thing – Hermione Granger

 
We lose our freedoms at the altar of fear – Kahil Gibran

 
Never explain yourself. You friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it - unknown

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops – Stephen Jay Gould (I found this while I was looking for quotes for a project at work. I don't know who SJG is, but I really liked the quote)

I’m not all here today – Cheshire Cat (this one and the Wicked Witch quote were the two that started the whole thing)

 
It’s a bitch trying to get people to like you – Scissor Sisters (a band someone was listening to while we were driving to lunch one day)

These things must be done delicately – Wicked Witch of the West

Give us strength to understand and eyes to see. Teach us to walk the soft earth as relatives to all that live – Lakota prayer

Second star from the right and straight on till morning – Peter Pan

Everything's Better wtih Chocolate

A fountain of melted chocolate, a pile of marshmallows, fresh strawberries and Bananas - this is my idea of heaven!

Ideas come from all kinds of places and I'd really like to know what the catalyst for this idea was. Did someone stand in front of a real fountain and think "that would be so good if it was chocolate"? Was this inventor a Willy Wonka fan, a chocoholic?

By the way, (this is the story I heard) the original title of that movie was going to be Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, just like the book, only Nestle decided to come out with a Wonka bar and wanted the tie-in for marketing so the name of the movie was changed to Willie Wonka. Unfortunately, the formula used to make the chocolate bars was not shelf stable and they melted on the grocers shelves. The movie and the candy bars were unsuccessful, although the original Willy Wonka movie has become a cult hit over the years and you can still find Wonka bars in some stores (reformulated, of course).

Once reserved only for posh parties, anybody can buy these chocolate fountains now. I think you can even do melted cheese in them if you want to do a fondue type food rather than dessert.  What's next - a gravy fountain?

Where there's rain...

...there's a rainbow! I can't help myself. If it's raining and the sun comes out, even the slightest bit, I'm out looking for rainbows.

If it has to be raining I would much rather be: 1) walking out in it (as long as I have really good rain boots) or 2) at home in front of the fire with a good book and a hot drink. The last place I want to be is working when it's raining. At least it rained hard enough to wash the dirt off my car instead of just making mud.

The rain was very distracting today and thus I did not get much work done. I spent a lot of time looking out the window watching the rain. It was so windy today at times the rain was horizontal! Have you ever noticed how the rain sounds just like frying bacon? True. And have you ever noticed how clean everything looks the next sunny day after a hard rain? The trees are all shiny (well, at least the one's that aren't lying broken in the street - I saw several of those on my way home tonight).

Soon enough all the hillsides will be lush and green again. And so goes the wheel of the year turning along.

Fruit Sculpture

This is what happens to people who don't listen when their parents tell them "don't play with your food". They're making lots of money creating food sculptures for events.

Moonstone Beach

I love living in California! Where else can I take tree pictures in a mountain forest in the morning then beautiful coastal shots in the afternoon.  My two loves - trees and the CA coastline. I have more pictures of those two subjects than any thing else (well, Disneyland may be close).

As beautiful as some things are that humans have built over the centuries, nothing can compete with the sheer beauty, power and awesomeness of mother nature! I am drawn to the ocean as much as I am drawn to trees, although I don't get down to the ocean as much as I would like to.

Past Lives of Orbitron

I was going through photos at work and came across this photo of paint chips. Chips were about all that was left of the paint job on this car - it reminds me of carved candles you see at carnivals and craft fairs.  I'm sure each layer of paint tells a story all it's own.

This is the famous (or infamous) Orbibron, originally built by Big Daddy Roth in 1964. It got lost, then it got found again years later (in a REALLY SORRY state). It was lovingly restored at Galpin Auto Sports and is again the showpiece it once was (see below for a link to it's history, including original photos, the exciting and sorded life it led and it's rebirth).


I didn't take this photo. Not sure who did exactly. By the time they called me over to take photos of the paint chips they were in a pile on the floor around the car. There were several of us taking LOADS of photos during this vehicle's transformation. This might be the most photographed car in history.

http://www.theorbitron.com  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TS-o2TLpMA

Cameras

While looking for something else the other day I discovered I have 14 cameras. How did that happen? I have no idea. I purchased 4 or 5 of them, the others I aquired by friends giving them to me I think. Some of them work, some don't. The "Brownie" in this photo is broken, but I know I have a working one somewhere (probably packed away in someone's garage). I do have one of the ill-fated Kodak instant cameras (I think I bought that one at a yard sale). They lost a lawsuit with Polaroid and had to stop making instant cameras.

I have a Lubitel camera that says "made in the U.S.S.R. (which doesn't even exist any more). I'm very sad that this one is broken. One of the "petals" on the iris is stuck and I don't know where I could get this fixed. I only used it a few times before it broke. It only cost me $25 to buy the thing originally so I can't complain too much.

I don't know where the twin lens Yashika Mat came from or even if it works. I'll have to buy some film and try it out. It's a VERY heavy camera.

Polaroid announced that they were discontinuing the instant film last year. Apparently there was such an outcry from loyal users that they are coming out with new cameras again. Gotta give the public what they want.

If I could just trade in all these cameras for a really good digital SLR I'd be happy.

Happy Mazdas

 

I was walking around the dealership the other day delivering fliers and as I walked across the Mazda lot, I noticed that they looked like they were smiling. Do you think they design them that way deliberately? Do you think their designers sit around and ask, what anime character should make this one look like? The one on the left here really reminds me of someone, but I don't remember who.

Untitled

This one is a departure from my "nice" photos. I have a secret desire (well, not so secret any more) to have my artwork on the cover of a Stephen King book so I'm playing with dark/ambiguous/menacing/creepy images. I have a way to go. This one is only my first stab and I haven't any idea what to title it.

Stable in the Afternoon

Ok, I go through my list of photos for the week and this is today's. I haven't actually ridden a horse in over 20 years. Pitty, I enjoy (or I did then) riding horses. There's a wonderful sense of power and strength in a horse, and personality, and attitude; just like people.

My friend owns a horse and this is where she stables him. Well, ok, not this specific row in the photo, he's over on the north/west side where the shadows were. This side was more picturesque (sorry Moo). The smell of the place was very comforting; soil, hay, horses (and yes manure, but not as much as you'd think). It was definately not a sanitized, perfumed, recycled air kind of scent we smell in our offices and malls. It spoke of...oh, I don't know what it spoke of, but I kept noticing it and being comforted by it.

I think the last time I was on a horse was on Catalina Island. It was an early morning ride and I remember coming around a bend on the top of a hill and all of Avalon harbor was laid out before us. It was beautiful!
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think this photo, with it's long shadows and golden afternoon light is beautiful. I know not everyone will agree, but it is my blog, after all.

Fountain

I've been playing around with having the camera on or very close to the ground for some shots and so far I like the results. Kind of makes this fountain look like ancient ruins in the jungle.

Experimentation

Just experimenting with bits of this and that I have laying around. I might try this with sand underneath instead of a mirror, although I do like shooting on top of mirrors. I also like shooting with candlelight.

At The Stables

A friend of mine owns a horse so I went over to the stables to see it/them the other day. She was giving him a bath so it wasn't the time to take photos of him (beautiful as he is). It was late in the afternoon with golden sunlight and long shadows so I wandered around and found some interesting shots. This was one of them.

Labyrinth

I walked a Labyrinth for the first time on New Year's Day. I didn't even know there was one around until I got an email saying there is one at Glendale Forest Lawn. Apparently it's been there since the 90's. It is a copy of the one in Chartres Cathedral in France. Apparently this one was originally done in marble, but as that becomes slippery when it gets wet they remade it in some other, non slippery material.

If you have never seen or walked a Labyrinth, it is basically a walking meditation with 11 winding circuits from entrance to center. You walk the path with an open mind, cleared of thoughts and clutter, expectations and worries and you listen for whatever speaks to you - the wisdom of the ages, the spirits, your inner voice, god. I thought it was a good way to start the year.

Snowy Mountains

The sight of snowy mountains in the distance always makes me happy.