A Child's Wonder

I find myself drawn to a person's private moments all my life. My parents would tell me as a young kid, I have a good amount of these moments where it seemed I was in my own little world. Those moments would occur when I'm not being mischievous and getting into trouble and that happened alot. I digress but those early moments, I don't remember but as I growing, I do remember being fascinated when I see someone in their moment. Even to this day I still am. As I take notice, I think about what it is that person is thinking about. Are they worried about something? Has something taken their interest that made them stop being physically active and become more...brain active...imaginative. Wanderlust? Now that I'm more active with my photography, I'll get lucky every now and then and capture these moments as I see them.

A couple of months ago, I went out to the California Poppy Reserve with two of my dear friends and their lovely kids and towards the end of our trip, as we were collecting our things and heading back to the car, I find their son having his own personal moment. Now, I've taken a good amount of these kinds of photos and moments but rarely do I get to see and capture a kid's personal moment and these photos are particularly special for me because they remind me of how I was told I was and because I don't remember them. In a way, I get a glimpse at how I probably was as a kid in that moment. That said, recognizing and shooting this moment brought a great deal of warmth within me.

For whatever reason, this poppy garnered the attention of this kid and I can't begin to think what exactly was going on in his head. I'm sure it was something very imaginative and magical...

Trainsetters

Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. Sure, all the technological advancements we've made are all fun and good, but I always find myself drawn to all things classic and vintage. Everytime I find myself within the walls of Union Station, I feel like I've been transported to a different time. Other than the new section of Union Station that houses the entrance/exit to the Metro Red Line subway and Gold Lines, the place hasn't really changed much. At least to my knowledge. From the vintage, boxy seats, to the arched entrances and walls within its walls, the place is truly classic in every respect. I'd even go on to say the place is timeless.

It really is a weird thing to be in Union Station when you take into consideration how well kept and original the place is and the present day. Sometimes I expect to see well dressed people walking through the halls, much like people used to do when they traveled. We've seen the old photos. Train stations filled with men in their slacks and suits, wearing fedoras and the women wearing lovely, knee length dresses and their little hats all doing their best to look like Jackie O. I don't see many well dressed people inside Union Station much. Just a bunch of people that look...comfortable. Sign of the times I suppose. I'm not going to try to dissect the reasons or causes of this. It just is.

To my surprise, I happened to see these two lovely and stylish women walking through Union Station. I was at UA for a shoot with the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and I was positioned to take a photo of the station's long and somewhat cavernous main hallway and these two women caught my eye as they entered the hallway from the newer hallway, possibly coming from the subway. They were pretty stylish enough to help strengthen the fond images of Union Station's past and traveling back in the day etc. So I waited until they were close enough to take somewhat of a portrait type photo and all the way through, I saw that they were having some sort of great conversation. Laughing and smiling as they walked towards me. The closer they were getting, the more I thought to myself "please don't see me and walk out of my frame" because I knew if I caught them the way I wanted to, I'd capture a bit of magic and when I snapped the photo, I think I did. I was able to compliment the style of the women, with the timeless walls, architecture style and colors of Union Station. All the while capturing them in a moment of enjoying the conversation they were having. One of my best photographs I've taken and one of my favorites.

Little Things

I try to do a lot of exploring. Many times I would find myself just getting into my car and driving off somewhere or taking public transportation to whisk me off somewhere in the hopes of finding and capturing something special. Something interesting. Something people will most often times miss...me included.

I had some free time on my hands one day a week or two ago and I felt compelled to go on one of my little journeys. I ended up in and around the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles and decided that this is where I'll do my exploring. So I parked my car on La Brea and did my walkabout in the area. Oddly enough, I was at a loss as to which direction I'd go. As I was walking, various thoughts were running through my head. I could head west and see what I could find along the way to LACMA. There's the El Rey and the Tar Pits. I could head east and probably do some street as there's Starbucks and a school towards that way or maybe I would catch some more interesting street subjects if I just keep heading south on La Brea and if I was up for it, keep walking all the way till I reached Roscoe's and maybe have a meal at the end of my journey. Juggling all these options in my head, I found myself on the corner of Wilshire & La Brea waiting for the light to turn green as I was leaning towards heading west. I looked at the sky to gauge how I would set up my camera to shoot whatever it is I'll end up shooting. The light was taking it's sweet time to turn green and I look on the concrete to see if there were any unique stencils spray painted on the ground. I notice a sticker or two on the light pole and as my head starts to move up, I came upon this little thing written. I thought about it for a good minute or two. What would compel a person to write this? What was his or her intention? Meaning? I finally lifted my camera and took a shot and did a little smirk. I think I got it...

Fearless!

This little Filipino girl was AMAZING! I was in Venice Beach, CA last Sunday and I was shooting some street photography. I found myself shooting most of my photos at the skate park located there and there was a lot of talent there! This little Filipino girl was one of the few that caught my attention. When I first saw her, I thought it was cute that such a young person, a girl no less, was out there in the skate park and working on her skills. I didn't think she was serious business. As wrong as it is, and boy was I wrong, my first impression of her was "Aww how cute! A little girl on her board all suited up with a helmet and pads and everything!"

Well, as soon as I saw her, she totally surprised me. She had her board on the ledge of the pool/pipe and jumped right in and handled her business like a pro. She totally owned the pool during the time she was in. I assume she was a regular because everyone else gave her right of way and let her handle her thing. This girl was what? probably no more than 7 years old? FEARLESS! She caught some MAJOR air. Her skills rivaled many of the kids there! The deepest part of the pool to the ledge of the pool was probably 8 - 9 feet deep. When she caught her air, she accomplished probably 5 ft above the ledge for a total of 13 - 14 ft! I was able to pop a shot off when she did this...



During the time I saw her do her thing, I was fucking inspired. All the air she caught, all the tricks she did...my god it was BEAUTIFUL! As young as she was, and as serious as she was...really inspired me to be as fearless as her. I was also a bit envious because as old as I am, I have to say that I've become a bit more fearless...more of a go getter with how I go about things, but as much as I've grown lately in that respect, I'm not even a quarter of how much guts and courage this little lady has.

I feel terribly bad for "judging a book by it's cover" when normally I try not to. I've done it before plenty of times and everytime I've been proven wrong but I've taken something out of watching her. She probably started young with her skateboarding and with more practice, in a couple of more years, she'll become even better and probably go pro. I sensed the dedication and love she had for skateboarding and I need to follow suit with my various passions. I've been getting better at recognizing my talents and skills but I think I can do better. I always think I can do better but I need to step it up a bit more. It is the experiences like this and the past couple of entries (which unintentionally had a running theme) that allow me to catch myself and reassess everything and I'm always thankful for such experiences.

I think I'll try and go back on another Sunday and catch her again and hope to gain just a little bit more inspiration from her.

Youthful Exploration

Here's another story about the fearlessness of kids. Like the previous entry, this was taken in Descano Gardens and this photo occurs before the one in my previous entry. I'm right along a stream and I'm trying to take another awesome photo of water flowing much like this one (sorry if the link is bad, flickr is notorious for hyperlinking photos based on their site...) and I'm taking...3, 4 shots and as I'm shooting, these kids walk into my frame and at first I'm thinking "get out" but after thinking about how I need more "people" photos, I figure, hell if you're going to be in my frame, I might as well keep shooting you and see what I can get. I didn't really expect them to come any closer. They saw me with the camera and well, normally people would walk away from a perceived shot or just stay where they are you know? Not these kids!

I took one shot after they initially came into my frame and they came closer. Took another shot from their new position (while I stayed in mine) and they came closer again. I'm thinking, "do these kids know what I'm doing? or do they just don't care?" and as they kept coming closer, I kept shooting and it dawns on me that these kids know what I'm doing and they just didn't care. The way they were talking and interacting with each other, it almost seem as if I didn't exist to them! They just kept going on and on about using their sticks to pick up the moss and algae that was gathering on the side of rocks. Then, they came awfully close to the point that if I were to take a shot, they'd finally realize what I was doing and ask me about it or just say something to me and this was the shot I took.

Did they then turn to me and say something? talk to me about what I was doing? Nope. One of them was able to lift up a good sized lump of algae while the other congratulated him and they walked right past me and went on their merry little exploring way.

The Sweetest Thing

One of the best things I've ever experienced occurred this past Sunday while I was shooting Descano Gardens in the lovely city of La Canada, CA. I had already spent a good couple of hours walking around the gardens and exploring when I happened upon this small, cute bridge. First thing that came to mind was "gotta get a photo of it" so I walked on over and when I got closer to the bridge, there was this family of four that was about to walk across it so I figure I'd wait for them to cross before taking the photo. I initially wanted a photo of the bridge by itself.

So, imagine if you will, this family of four. Dad was leading the pack and he was with his daughter. Mother was trailing behind and she was with the son. Now, father notices that I was in position, waiting to take the shot and wanted everyone else to hurry up so I could take the photo. Kids being kids, they don't really follow parents' every wish and are in their own little world doing their own kid things like exploring and having fun or what not so these kids were basically holding up the parents back. Father decides to take the initiative and walk across the bridge first, hoping that the littles would follow suit, even calling for them to hurry up. Little daughter follows behind and finally gets across the bridge. Little son on the other hand, decides to take it sloooow. I notice this and at this point, I think "hey, might as well get a shot of little dude with mom and hope to capture a moment". So I took the shot when mom and son were halfway across the bridge and when little daughter hears the sound of my shutter, she stops dead in her tracks at the end of the bridge and looks at me and then looks at her mom and brother. Mom and son are just about to finish crossing the bridge and I'm about to ready my camera when they do, hands firmly on the camera and I raise it up a bit closer to my eye. That's when little daughter said, with such excitement, "I want to be in one of them". This TOTALLY throws me off! I'm thinking "does she...want me to take a photo of her?" This NEVER happens to me and I'll explain later, but I start to get excited because I now have the opportunity to possibly capture something nice and I'm gonna take it. So I said out loud "Do you want to be in a photo?", smiling as I said it, and I briefly look at mom to see if she gives me an "ok" sign and she does and while this is going on, little daughter doesn't really care what's going on and proceeds to head back towards the middle of the bridge, all the while holding on to little brother and she poses once and I take the shot. She then hugs brother and brother doesn't seem at all into or knowing what's going on and I take the second shot. You can see from the photo that she's smiling and having a great time and brother is like "get your arms off of me, I want to get off this bridge" but they're both looking into the lens and I feel like I've captured something just beautiful!

Like I said, this never happens to me. I've been trying to get more people photos but everytime I attempt to take a shot, whatever it is that person was doing that inspired me to take the photo, they stop and look away. Its like a gut reaction for alot of people and I can't really figure out why. That's why alot of the times, I try to be sneaky and ninja about it and sometimes I get the shot and other times I don't. I don't own a good telephoto lens for extra ninja status but if I did, I'd be more successful at these shots but that's neither here nor there. What I absolutely loved about this situation and any situation that I'll face in the future that'll be like this is that, I didn't have to be sneaky about it. This little girl wanted to have a photo taken of her by a complete stranger. Outright. No ifs, ands, ors about it...I want it and you're going to take it. It kind of felt like she was strong arming me subtly but it was oh so lovely!

Even though she just wanted her photo taken, I took it a bit differently. I'd like to think that what happened was a gift to me. Indirectly by her or the serendipity fairy. Whatever it was, it totally made my day. Well, it was one of the moments that made a beautiful day even more beautiful because believe it or not, there was also another moment during the day, involving kids again, that allowed me to capture another great moment. But I'll save that story for the next entry.

Anyway, one of the best moments I've experienced in my life and I'm glad and thankful I was the one to capture the photo and also to have lived in the moment.

The Inaugural

Wow what a weekend! I've had a blast shooting with my new camera Lola! The first day I bought her I didn't really do much. Did a couple of test shots around my apt building and at a friend's house and did some testing of the camera's hd video recording capability which performed fabulously. Did most of my shooting Saturday and just came back from a lovely time spent at Descano Gardens. I'm totally worn out and tired. I went in there with a memory card that's capable of storing 280+ raw images and filled up the memory card and I didn't even get to shoot the whole garden area.

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon, I had planned on using Lola in a serious manner. I had my sister with me and we were going to meet up with her boyfriend at The Stand for one of my photo ideas and it was pretty much going to be a diner setting and I had passed by the place once and for that brief moment, it looked like the place was what I was looking for but upon getting there first with my sister and entering the establishment, the place ended up not being what I wanted. I needed a full on diner, with diner booths and all those bells and whistles that come within a diner type establishment. This place? Not so much. One corner booth and plenty of tables and chairs. So we ended up just talking and having lunch. Talked to my sister's bf much about photography since he's going to school for it at Brooks.

I left early a bit disappointed and I wanted to make the best of the day so I started to drive out to a local park area to check out the Japanese Gardens. When I got there, I find the place to be closed and that bummed me out. I wanted to properly break the camera in you know? I left the Japanese Gardens defeated and proceeded to go home and while I was on my way home, I passed by a park and the first thing I see is a cherry blossom tree! Bam! Went to that park and spent the rest of my afternoon there just shooting the lovely trees. I some how managed to salvage a day and got some pretty amazing shots. Its a good thing I took the route I did to go home or else I wouldn't have seen those trees. When I got home I loaded up the photos into my computer and proceeded to work on them and I really didn't have to do much to them but me being me, I had to turn these great shots into beautiful ones. And this image is one of my favorites from that series...



I'm working on call this weekend and normally I don't like working on the weekends but considering how much shooting I did this weekend, and as tired as I am from it, I'm looking forward to taking a break and just relaxing this coming weekend. However I might end up going back to Descano Gardens next Sunday. Just because I feel like there's so much more there that I wasn't able to see!

Anticipation

Nearly 2am and I probably won't get much sleep tonight. You see? In a couple of hours, I'll be heading over to my favorite camera store to purchase and pick up a brand spanking new camera! I'm SO excited! This would be my first new camera ever! Well, I have purchased a small p&s digital camera once or twice in the past and all the other "serious" cameras I own and have owned were hand me downs or used equipment. So what will I be getting?



Booyah!

Canon 7D! Oh? Digital you say? (some of my friends would probably say that) I know I've been shooting primarily on film in my photographic history and I know I've said my praises and prefer film over digital and I meant it. Still mean it. But this endeavour into the digital realm will greatly help my photography. For one, I'll be able to shoot more without waiting on developing and turn around times of film (at the moment, I have 3 rolls of film waiting to be developed) and two, I can shoot without hesitation and fear of thinking about whether or not I got the shot I wanted (but alot of times the results were pretty good so it wasn't really that much of a worry to me and I rather enjoyed a surprising result or two).

I'll still be shooting film. The way I think I'll do it is that I'll go shooting with the 7D whenever I have rolls waiting to be developed and I'll use that 7D alot since I only develop rolls one at a time every 2 weeks or so. Ah the future is bright and the end of the universe is the limit! Expect another entry sometime this weekend after my inaugural break in of the camera.

Now...what should I name this bad girl?

Dreamland

This is a favorite photo of mine. It was 2007? Maybe 2006...and I was going through our storage compartment and I found my dad's old Canon AE-1 Program. This camera holds a special place in my heart. It was my dad's first camera when he arrived to the states so it was the first "family" camera. When I was a kid, I was so captivated by this marvelous thing. From the way how sturdy it looked and the way the silver metal shined when the sunlight hit it. When that thing fired off a shot, the sound of the shutter! My god it was music to me. He stopped shooting the thing decades ago and never really handed it down to me so when I found it, I transformed into a little kid again and took it upon myself to make me its new owner.

Later that day, I bought myself some b&w film and took it out that night to the Santa Monica pier and fired off every exposure in that roll and alot of them turned out really great but this one photo of the ferris wheel stole my heart. It was really cold that night and a bit windy so it was very difficult for me to try and keep my hands as steady as I could to take this long exposure shot. I had the aperture @ f1.8 with a 3 second shutter speed delay. I shot this image twice because the first one, I felt a bit of handshake, more so than I was comfortable with and this was the second one.

Sadly, the camera was damaged in a car accident about 2 years ago. I still have it and I suppose I could get it repaired but it'll cost me a pretty penny. More than what the camera is worth, monetary value wise. I had some nice adventures with it and I'll keep and treasure those fond memories but I think I'll leave it be. Eh, maybe I'll just clean it up and use it as a show piece.

The princess is in

Well this one is a doozy of a photo! We were in Burbank celebrating a friend's birthday at some sushi joint in 2008 and the night was young so we decided to head over to Hollywood to do some bar hopping. I can't remember what time this photo was taken but when we got to this place (Boardners) I was a bit tipsy but sobering up from the sake bombs at the sushi place. The party was in full swing and a couple of us were pretty adventurous. They served absinthe and I had never tried it before. I was told by the bartender that this is a weaker form of absinthe...something about it missing a key ingredient, I think it was wormwood, but still strong enough to get you messed up. I had a drink and I remember it tasting really bad. Like licorice. Black licorice. I HATE black licorice. I drank it anyway and I really didn't feel any effects from the absinthe...initially. About 15mins into finishing the drink is when shit turned south. Very south! I can't remember all the details but I was really drunk. Not belligerent drunk but a very, VERY happy drunk and I remember seeing the tiara on the table that my friend was wearing for her birthday and when I get happy drunk, I start grabbing and picking up things that grab my attention. So I took it and put it on my head and put on my aviators. Don't ask me why I did it. I just did and that's when this photo was taken. That little hand gesture thing I'm doing...I think I was doing that thing evil characters do in movies? The "yessss yeeessss" thing if that makes any sense.

Anyway, to end this story on a pretty high note, this place has many areas. One of which includes an outdoor area. I and a bunch of people in our group decide to go to the outside area to have a smoke and wouldn't you know it? There's another, separate party going on and it was a goth party. You can't tell from this photo but there I was, with a group of goths all dressed in the black and goth wear, with goth music playing, and I'm chilling, really happy drunk, with a tiara on my head, aviators and my soft pink and grey argyle sweater from Banana Republic...