34° 8’35.80″N 118°23’47.55″W
Seen in an alley in Studio City. I really like the strength of the impression made by the small number of simple lines sprayed quickly. The use of a stencil for the face is especially eerie.

There’s no way I’d head up those stairs.

Taking a bright red Lava Lamp away from overblown colors and into “serious looking” black and white seemed fun. This was much harder than it looks. The background is a flashlight shining against the tile backing of our bar. It turned out to make a huge difference getting the tiles to show through the glass.

From my backyard. I tweaked the color and contrast a bit in Adobe Lightroom, but otherwise it’s what I shot. The black background comes from shooting with a flash after dark.

37°24’35.38″N 122° 9’47.43″W
A sculpture by Tom Otterness in the Stanford hills. There are three characters made of hay that are harvesting hay across the field. Each one is probably ten feet tall.

I boosted up the colors in Adobe Lightroom. I usually don’t like really saturated colors, but this shot seemed to lend itself to it.

37°28’5.20″N 122°13’25.82″W
I have a camera mount for cars that allows me to stick a camera just about anywhere. With long exposures you still get a crisp image of the car with the lights streaking by.

37°26’48.77″N 122° 9’38.89″W
Lunch with Sarah on her birthday. Nice restaurant in Palo Alto called Madison & Fifth.

36°59’48.15″N 121°35’4.49″W
Taken at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. This is what happens when you add cold calimari to hot oil. The bank of pyro chefs specialize in making big fire from small animals.

Big lesson in photography today. The Pyro Chefs are a signature event at the Festival, and a thrilling sight to see, so I thought it would make a great image for this photoblog. I shot dozens of pictures to get high dramatic flames, which is exactly what I got. But upon looking at the images at home I realized there really wasn’t a story behind the images. What I should have done is shoot images of the chefs, for that is where the story really is. The image you see here is the best I could do with what I had, it is a heavily cropped image showing less than 20% of the original photo. A better shot would have been focused on the cook rather than the flame, perhaps even cropped tighter, and would have expressed through lighting and heat distortion the furnace blast experience.

Next year I’ll get a great shot!

We’re getting ready for The Bourne Ultimatum by watching the other two Bourne films. Last night was The Bourne Identity, and tonight The Bourne Supremacy. I couldn’t resist the continuing the kicked up feet theme from yesterday. Otherwise, it’s just a snapshot today.

37°10’48.28″N 121°37’21.95″W
Taking some R&R on Lake Anderson. Looks peaceful considering there were also three teens and a golden retriever on board.

I went into the garage to put away the lights from the Bolex camera shoot (7/24/07) and felt inspired to use them again. That, and the fact that all the other pictures I shot today sucked so I was desperate. I liked the idea of holding one of the lights to help convey that it was a self portrait and had some dynamics to it.