WALLS

I was reading something a few months ago and there was a quote that caught my attention - something about the walls [difficulties] we encounter in life are not there to stop us from reaching our goals but to test how badly we want them and are willing to work to achieve them. I can't remember who said it, but I thought it was interesting.

It seems like I'm always running into walls. Since I can't go through most of them I try to go around them but that just takes me farther away from my goal. I keep taking two steps backward or sideways for every one step I take forward.

But then there's the concept that it's the journey, not the destination that is important and that one learns more from failures than from successes. I have learned a lot of important lessons and, of course, I'm still learning. Well, one learns a lot of wrong ways to do something and maybe (hopefully) one right way. I just wish I had a few more successes than failures. It would be a bit more encouraging.

Cycles

It's Spring - time for everything to come alive again! The wildflowers are coming out on the hillsides, the daylight is lasting longer. People are going out to parks, beaches, the streets, they're going outside again.
Even though we've moved away from being an agrarian society (well, here in LA anyway) we're still controlled by the changing of the seasons. Now is the season of doing stuff - planting gardens, making home repairs, Spring cleaning, planning on where we want to go for the summer.

Always Learning

The universe is whacking me on the head again saying "pay attention". From 3 different sources in the past month I have been given instructions on various aspects of communication -

1) a workshop about learning the vocabulary necessary to communicate an experience,

2) my design class is getting more in depth about the mechanics of communicating ideas visually,


3) at work we all just went through a workshop about recognizing everyone's "core self" and using that knowledge to communicate more effectively with one another to alleviate confusion/conflict/misunderstandings and better serve our customers.

3 seemingly unrelated events/classes that I just realized yesterday were all about the same thing - effective communication (something I really need to get a handle on). Growth, for me, seems to come in explosions, not spurts.

This Wasn't Where I Was Planning To Be Today.

I started out my morning trying to buy some art supplies. The store near me isn't open on Sundays (which I found out when I got there) so I ended up going up to Agoura to Graphaids where I found just about everything I was looking for.

From there I went up the 23 to 126 to get back to the 5 north. Going north on 23 is quite beautiful (until you get to one area, where, on the west side of the freeway, some company is eating away the side of the mountain). It's really quite a shock to see all these beautiful green hills then this ugly scraped away mountainside. The grafitti carved in to the beautiful hills was quite depressing also. Really, is your message so important that you have to carve it into a mountainside in letters 3 feet high? How self centered! But other than that it was a beautiful drive.

Anyway, my destiny was Grapevine. A friend had told me yesterday that there are 1,000 acres of lupine growing there. I found them - WOW! It was amazing coming down the grade and seeing this sea of purple going on forever. Unfortunately the sun was hiding today so it was very overcast and not a good day to try to shoot wild flowers. They would have just looked gray in the photos.

There are small patches of lupine, yellow mustard, and a bit of orange poppies growing on the hills, but in about three weeks the hills will probably look like buckets of paint have been splashed on them. I've seen them that way a few years ago and since we've had quite a bit of rain this year the wildflowers should be absolutely beautiful!

So what does this have to do with snow on Mt. Pinos, you ask? Well, I got out to the lupine fields and enjoyed the view for a bit. Then I pulled out my map and was trying to figure out where I wanted to go next. Couldn't really decided so I just turned around and headed home. I got as far as Frazier Park and saw snow on the mountain tops. I called a friend, who lives in the area, and asked how to get up to the snow. He gave me directions (very simple - get off the freeway at Frazier Park Rd., head toward the mountains and follow the signs to Mt. Pinos.) 

It was a beautiful drive and the sun actually came out in the afternoon.  I stopped in a couple of places to take photos. I haven't been in the snow in many years and there were several things I learned on my trip today:
1. Being spontaneous takes me to unexpected places (which so far, have been worth it).
2. Little cloth slip-on shoes are totally inadequate for tramping around in the snow (I SAID I wasn't planning on being in the snow today).
3. Snow that has been walked on and looks like it's packed - isn't. I was 1/2 was up to my knee with some steps I took today.
4. Walking in the snow is hard work. Just trying to get to this tree to take a photo took me 10 minutes. Twice I had to sit down in the snow to pull my foot out and then stick my hand down the footprint hole to pull out my shoe (Mom, if you're reading this I was walking in an area where there were lots of families playing in the snow so if I'd gotten into trouble there would have been plenty of help nearby - and I wasn't very far away from the Ranger Station). You have to walk with your foot very flat or else you sink right into the snow.

The trip today was definitely worth it! It was a beautiful day and I got some great snow shots, which I have been wanting to do for a while. Next time I got up to the snow I will take more appropriate shoes. Maybe I should just leave those shoes in the car so if I want to be spontaneous again I will be prepared.

Dead Things Are Interesting

This is a cactus that had died. I had to look around the desert for a while before I recognized the shape and figured out which kind of cactus it was (see post for March 4th). The lines and forms are quite beautiful.

Have you ever wondered where a "tumble weed" comes from? They were living plants once. It was years before I saw a growing, living tumble weed and actually understood what I was seeing.

I think it is interesting that we, as a culture, try to hide away death (or the process of it) but we flock to museums to see the symbols of it - mummys, skelletons, etc.

Wine & Candles

I love shooting everyday, ordinary things and then seeing if I can crop the image to make it look interesting.

Lights in the Dark

Sometimes I have a difficult time driving when the streets are wet. I want to pay attention to the patterns of light on the wet pavement rather than the vehicles around me. It's very distracting. You'll be glad to know I took this photo while standing on a sidewalk - although a cooler image would be from near ground level standing in the middle of the street (also not a safe idea for the photographer).

Cactus

No insights today. Just a pretty picture.

Fail? I Think Not

You're at a party taking photos. The room has low light so you shoot with a flash. Then you turn off the flash (so no one notices you taking photos) and try to shoot with existing light. Unless you're a mannequin or are using a tripod, you're probably going to get blurry images. And then you get something like this.

At first glance this looks like a fail for sure - it's blurry and has all those streaky lights. But on second thought, this is kind of cool. The blur gives it a smokey atmosphere and the light trails are really interesting. It makes you want to look through the smoke to see what's going on and that's what makes an interesting photo - the need to look at it again or to try to look deeper to see what's going on. Not every photo has to be sharp, clear and immediately accessible.

Say Cheeeeese!

This is what a cheese platter looks like about two hours into an event. The smoked cheddar was awesome!

An Untold Story

 Walking around under the Santa Monica Pier I came across this set up. I'm wondering if it's something left over from Christmas or it's some kind of memorial. For some reason I got the feeling it was something a homeless person put up, but I don't know for sure.

Trapeze School at Santa Monica Pier

Did you know there's a Trapeze School at the Santa Monica Pier? http://losangeles.trapezeschool.com
I don't know how long they've been there but I discovered it today. Very cool! This photo is an instructor (catcher) and a student (flier). This was her last try of the day and they didn't make the catch. However, the student is in a safety harness which is controlled by a spotter on the ground so even though she missed she landed safely in the net.


Even though I have a fear of heights I think I'd like to try this. It might be fun. I will be going back in the summer time with a longer telephoto lens.

This is looking south from the pier. I think that might be Catalina Island out there.
It was pouring rain in the valley when I left this morning. I was supposed to meet a Street Photography meet-up group on the pier at 11. Never did catch up with them. They were talking on the web site about not going because of the weather. If they didn't come, they missed a really nice morning there. It wasn't raining and there were beautiful clouds for background. I took about 70 shots on the pier and under it.

The pier is much cleaner than it used to be when I hung out there in the 70s & 80s. I remember when the shooting gallery (with bb's, not lasers) gave away a case of beer for winning. Times have changed. I have some beautiful black and white photos of the underside of the pier before they added the new parking lot and concrete pylons.

I would have taken shots from the top of the Ferris wheel but they wouldn't let me ride alone. :( What, do they think I'm going to jump out? Unlikely with a new camera hanging off my neck! Guess I'll just have to take another body with me next time.

I'm glad I didn't let the rain stop me. It was a nice morning and I got some great pictures..

Anza Borego

Last Sunday was a beautiful day for driving in southern California. I started out in San Diego and decided I wanted to go out to the Anza Borego desert, which is north east of San Diego.

I stopped in Julian on the way (the Apple Capital of California). There was a shop there called Cabbages and Kings Rustic Stuff Refined Things. I went inside just because I liked the name. In the front of the shop they had really large photo prints that were just beautiful - details of painted doors, front end of an old car, a snowy road. The photographer is Edward Thomas Masterson. His website is www.edmastersonphotography.com and well worth the look! There were some other wonderful pieces of art in there by other local artists - gourds, Native American paintings, jewelry. If you get the chance you should visit this wonderful little store. Oh, and I bought a couple of pies while I was in town too.

Traveling east from Julian I entered the Anza Borego desert. It's very different than the Mojave desert. They have very different kinds of cacti there. This picture is of Ocotillo, Fouquieria splendens var. splendens.

This cactus caught my attention because it has bright red flowers. I saw them while I was driving but when I got to a place where I could park and get out to walk around the plants nearby didn't really have many of the red blooms left on them. I really want to go back for the wildflowers this spring.  Also, there are very photogenic canyons that I would like to get to.

It was just a beautiful, relaxing day. It did take me 6 hours to get home from San Diego, but the detour was well worth the extra time.

A Way to Look at Things

I was at a fund raising party the other night and this was one of the photos I took. I truly believe that people can be taught to see creatively. It's just a matter of learning how to see things for more than just what they look like at face value.

These are just a bunch of wine glasses set up on a bar before a party starts. Looking at it from a normal point of view standing at the bar they don't attract much attention. However, looking at them up close and from the level of the bar top they make a more interesting image.

Beauty in Unexpected Places

I was recently at a fundraiser at the House of Blues down in San Diego. When I went outside for air I saw these lights wrapped around the rail. Something so simple turned into a very cool shot.