Santa Monica Photos, Sunday Before Memorial Day

I posted up some of the pictures I took at the Santa Monica Pier on memorial day weekend. I'll post soon some pictures I took of the Veterans for Peace display of crosses for fallen soldiers in Iraq, something that's been going on every Sunday on the sand just north of the pier.

Santa Monica Photo Set

Downtown L.A. Fashion District

I added a set of photo's I took a little while back, in downtown L.A. around the fashion district. My friend Samantha was there to buy some fabric and I thought it would be nice opportunity to poke around with my camera in a part of town I haven't explored. Snapped a number of mannequin shots, a subject that has always creeped me out, while at the same time fascinating me.

Downtown L.A. Photo Set

Memorial Weekend, Sunday Ride Photos

Went out for a more leisurely ride just between Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey, snapping some photos along the way. I also took some more photos around the Santa Monica pier, and I'll be posting those later under my Santa Monica set.

Bike Rides: Photo Set

Finished Tour de Cure: 65 Miles

I finished the Tour de Cure, with a final fundraising total of $705 for the American Diabetes Association. It was an awesome 65 miles, with a lot of beautiful scenery between Longbeach and Newport. The uphill was pretty brutal, not as long as the Rosarito Ensenada climb, but just as steep. I got up to 40 mph this time though, as there was no head wind on the downhill, which was pretty darn fun. Now it's time to take it a little easy for a few days, though I'm still going to bike to work, and then I'm going to start getting ready for the 75 Mile LA River ride on June 10th.

Camera + Bicycle

Seeking to combine my creative side with my increasing interest in bicycling, I will start periodically setting out on my bike with my camera strapped to my rear rack and go out shooting. I got a nice bike bag with protective sidewalls and a pull out rain cover to keep very safe "My Precious!" (invoke tonal inflection of Gollum from LOTR). The first series of photo's are all from a night ride going from the Santa Monica pier to the Redondo pier, one of my favorite routes to travel.

Link to Flickr Set

Tour de Cure, 65 mile bike ride for charity.

On May 19th I'm going to participate in a bike marathon to raise money for diabetes prevention, treatment, and research. I will need to raise at minimum $150 to be in the event, but I'd like to exceed that by as much as possible. I've personally seen what diabetes can do, and I'd like to do what I can to help. So I'll be challenging my self to the 65 mile course, which will be the longest single ride I've done. I'm also trying to organize some fellow people at work to join in. If we can get enough people we can form a team for the event.

Wish me luck, and if you'd like to give support, the link below goes to my donation page. The links at the top of it can provide more information about the organization and the event. If you'd like to show support by coming out to the start/finish line, there will be food, drinks and entertainment going on at El Dorado Park (Golden Grove Picnic Area), 7550 Spring Street, Long Beach. Let me know if you'd be interested in doing that.

My Donation Page

Just got my Rosarito Ensenada photo.

Here it is, the unflattering image of my self taken near the peak of the longest and steepest incline of the ride. Notice the lack of horizon line in this image, and how small the ground level looks. It was quite the climb, but so worth it for the 35 mph downhill run, whooo! Pumping Power, By the Hour, Speeeeeeeeeeeeed!!! (bonus points if you know the film reference)

50 miles & over a mountain, on bicycle, in 4 hours.

It was one hell of a ride, though very beautiful. But I did it and I think pretty well for this being my first bike event, and having never done any serious elevation climbs or a distance that long before. I finished in a few seconds before the clock hit 4 hours. Richard, another tech artist from Sony whom I went with finished a few minutes after me. There certainly were a lot of people who finished long before I did, but it felt good knowing I passed quite a few people who looked more experienced, and were riding professional racing bikes.

Big props to the guy in the full body sponge bob square pants suit who finished only a few minutes after me despite being in the most unaerodynamic outfit imaginable, that's pretty hard core. I also ran into one of the group leaders for the Friday Night Skate rollerblade group. He was rollerblading the whole course, which is quite the impressive feat, and I saw 2 other rollerbladers out there as well.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the trip as my camera would have been a heavy and expensive liability, but next time I go, because I do plan to do this again, I'll get a portable camera for the trip. There were professional photographers out there getting pictures of everyone during the slowest part of the mountain climb, and I'll probably buy mine when it gets uploaded, though I'm sure my face will be in some unflattering cross between heavy breathing and cursing the mountain.



I hung around for a little while at the finish line Fiesta, and communicated the best I could to the man serving food that I did not eat meat, which was a little complicated and I think a bit of a shock to him, but it worked out and I got a fairly satisfying meal for 2.50 US Dollars.

Also of note was seeing the Mexican flag in Ensenada, the most ridiculously big flag of any nation I have ever seen. Here's a picture I found of it online.

Skating Santa Monica & Venice

I went out for the LA Friday Night Skate last night for the first time, and whew, that was some crazy fun. I was expecting a rather chill outing, which it was for a little while, just going down the beach and around Venice, but there was some intense sections of the course. Which included skating all the way up to the top of a Santa Monica parking garage (9 stories I believe), and then rushing all the way down again (I'm sure to the displeasure of the cars and staff). The evening was concluded with a race to the beach downhill from one of the higher points on Montana Ave. I think I need to invest in some safety gear if I want to hang with this crowd and not break something.

I remember as a kid, after watching the movie Hackers, I wanted to grow up to work with computers and thrash through the urban landscape on rollerblades. Now I have fulfilled my destiny.

P.S. If you haven't seen Hackers, and would be interested in seeing a younger Angelina Jolie on rollerblades with mad computer skills, then this is the film for you. Keep in mind hacking as portrayed in this film is several dimensions removed from reality. Seeing this film also made me disappointed later in life when I actually went to some night clubs and they did not have giant arcade machines with indoor rollerblade tracks and ramps.

Fear the mouth of the Megalodon.

I finally got around to posting on my Flickr some of the pictures I took while at SeaWorld with Diana a while back. For how very low the light was for most of these shots, I was pretty impressed with my new cameras ability to still pick up a fair amount of detail. Yay for the biodiversity of sea.





Also added some long exposure fun with street lights, and neon lights down at the Santa Monica pier.



And I posted yet another set, which I did last year while at Otis using my roommate's 20D, incorporating a painted hand mold made by another student in my class. Our class had gone bowling together as an out of school trip and we each had to make tangible art objects inspired by the experience. Then we exchanged them with another student, and had to make some form of digital art based on that (which these digital photos were for). Kind of an offbeat assignment, but I had a lot of fun with it.



__________________________

I'm definitely loving the freedom of digital photography now that DSLR's have caught up with, and for many types of shots, surpass, their film equivalents. Unlike my first digital camera (which I returned to buy a SLR film camera) back in the early days. A time when shooting digital in low light meant unbelievably bad artifacting, and at the best settings, less resolution then most cell phones can do these days. Now using my 5D it just puts 35mm film to shame when it comes to low light hand held shots, and the resolution is on par or better then scans I made, even from high quality slide film.

There will always be a place in my heart for the dark room, but as a digital artist who was scanning most of my film work anyways, and with less free time and no more easy darkroom access, digital is the way to go. Someday I will revisit you Darkroom, take solace in your absence of light, and do some crazy stuff with chemicals, ah the chemicals...