Posts in Category: Photography
Morning Commute, March 16
This morning’s commute was inspiring. Starting with the dumped over the shopping cart and bag of baby shoes and ending with downtown buildings in soft overcast light.
“Confusion will be my epitaph
as I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh
But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying
yes, I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying”
State of California
I’m not sure what further connection there is between these two yet, but I feel strongly that there is one.
Is it cheesing out?
Fog on Hwy 132 © neo serafimidis 2010
In addition to committing to a projet to post every day on this blog (I know, I know, that Vegas trip got me two days behind. But I’ll catch up!), I have been participating in a post-a-day project over on flickr as well. Needless to say, it is pretty hard to get all this in, especially after a painful 2 hours working with the kid on his homework. And I really didn’t have an opportunity to shoot anything today.
So, I was reading a discussion thread over on the flickr project 365 group where a poster shared his strategy for deflating the pressure of getting something up every day. That was to shoot the same object every morning as a backup shot in case no better shot gets taken that day. That way there is no pressure in completing the daily assignment. I was about to start employing this myself, with a little queasiness that I wouldn’t feel too good about just putting up a dispassionate shot of something sitting on my desk every once in a while.
Then I saw another strategy that I like even better and I can combine with another task I have to do anyway. This strategist points out that her goal in participating is to get post-production practice in as well as clicking the shutter. So, she’ll sometimes post a photo that was taken previously, but that was processed on that day.
I realized this would work well for me. I too, have thousands of photos that I have not processed yet. I also have a huge amount of file backup work to do. So, if I don’t have a newly shot photo to put for a given day, I will process an untouched photo from the current batch that is getting backed up. That way, I get some processing practice in, and some processing done, and get back to burning backups of all my files. Whew!
Here is the original unprocessed version of the shot found I rediscovered today while digging back through for the backup task.
Alternative Trailer
Travel Trailer © neo serafimidis 2011
I have been walking by this trailer twice a day for a few months now. Every single time I walk by I say to myself, “photograph that thing before its gone.” It is parked out in the back 40 at El Cerrito Plaza. I can’t quite tell if someone is living in it or not. I’m a little surprised that it is still there, because the Plaza security is, or used to be, quite vigilant about people parking in the Plaza when not actually shopping there, for example, while catching the BART to work for the day. Maybe the bad economy solved that problem and so no one’s watching anymore. Or maybe the owner is paying to park it there. Still I wish I had shot it when I first saw it, because at that time, it was all alone out there. Lately, there have been a few other motor homes and trailers parked around it, too. And often this little guy is sandwiched between a couple larger ones. So, when I saw it open on one side, I decided I better go for it. As it was, I had to get in close at 16mm because there was a blue Fiero or something parked nearby in front, and a big motorhome right behind it. Getting close and crouching down, I managed to get it to look lonely again. I’ll keep an eye on it, and hope for better light, maybe in the morning hours, one of these day. This is my second try at post-processing. Here is my first attempt at a fake lomo film kind of look.
Lion Gate
Gate to Caesar's Palace
I won’t pretend to have any grasp of the history of architecture. Nor will I assert that I know much of anything about principles of, contemporary trends in, or prominent figures of architecture. But, as is often asserted by the ignorant, I know what I like. And now I will admit that I was surprised to find that I enjoyed strolling the strip and experiencing some of the excessive, overblown buildings that bring so many people to this desert city year after year.
I’m not so much talking of hotels like Treasure Island, with its campy pirate ships, or the Mirage and its volcano. Nor do I mean the Disney-like settings of New York or Paris. Rather, I’m thinking of the tributes to classical achievements like Caesar’s Palace, or the interiors of the Venetian. There are some great scenes to experience. While over-the-top in their own way, they yet manage to recall something of architecture’s ability to inspire awe while bearing testament to the human spirit. Great buildings are a necessary expression in any culture’s attempt to establish some degree of permanence and project itself into the future.
The irony here is that the continual tearing down and rebuilding in the competition to be the latest and most outrageous, luxurious, or spectacular, undermines the sense of human triumph over mere mortality that grand architecture was traditionally able to inspire. The vanity and greed of these buildings’ origin and the decadence in and around them obscures this aspect in the narrative about Vegas and hides it from us.
Nonetheless, the fact that they still impress is testament to the fact that grand works feed the human spirit. That makes me just a little hopeful.
Lost in Las Vegas
Caesars Palace
I’m having a bit of a reflective time here on this, my first real visit to Sin City. My presence here explains why this post is a day late. And why tomorrow’s post will likely be late. And the day after that, too. In any case, my former tendency to be dismissive in absentia of everything Vegas as a symptom of a sick culture is undergoing substantial scrutiny and reevaluation. Since I’m here now, and my typing is impaired, I won’t go into the details. Instead, I leave you with some images from which to draw your own conclusions. And I promise to get my thoughts down in a future post.
Angels
Where in the Hell Did I Get These Matches?
Where in the Hell Did I Get These Matches???
I’ll tell you. At Diamond Billiards & Arcade. But don’t try finding it. It doesn’t exist anymore. My earliest memories of this place are from my tween years. I had yet to smoke my first cigarette, and I still rode around on my Schwinn paper delivery bike, or “Bee Bike” as we called them–those of us who threw the Fresno Bee.
There were three pool tables and a couple dozen pinball machines. I remember there were even some machines that were off limits to us kids. They were over against the east wall, and there was simple plywood barrier blocking their view from the street. They were, shhhh (whispers) gambling machines. As I remember, where other pinball machines were framed in metal, these were framed in wood. They were mysterious. And they paid. I think I played one once, but I don’t remember what it was like. Then one day, them gambin’ machines was gone.
Anyway, I went away for a year or two. And Diamond Billiards went away. When I came back, the place had become Geno’s Pinball Palace. And that was the start of a whole new thing. Hanging out. Cigarettes. Gateway drugs. Stoner girls. Teenage angst. Pimping beer. Foosball. Ridiculous amounts of pinball. This isn’t the time or the place to go into the particulars. Let’s just say that still, whenever I think back on this time of teenage psychosis, I feel a twinge of shame and think I’m lucky to be alive. But fear not, my virtual friend, for in the fullness of time the stories will be told, the confessions made, and we’ll all shake our heads and laugh.
Minna 3
Last month we went to see the Cartier-Bresson exhibit at SF MOMA. It was a wonderful exhibit, and very inspiring. Yet upon leaving the building, I found myself up to my old ways as I tried to photograph an empty, unremarkable alleyway. It guess it was the converging lines that caught my feeble attention. But getting the shot took me several tries on account of the people that kept walking by. And why shouldn’t they? They had somewhere to go, somewhere to be, things to think about; they had no reason to pay any mind to yet another tourist with an oversized camera. Well, persistent misanthrope that I am, I finally got my desired shot in all its starkness. But now in the weeks that have gone by, the more I look at them all, the more I like the intrusions. Perhaps some of that sympathetic Cartier-Bresson started to sink in after all.
Minna #1
Minna #2
Minna #3
Albany Commercial Streetscape #5
Albany Streetscape Project
I managed to get some shooting in yesterday and today, and so made good progress on my project to photograph all of Albany’s commercial streetscape. In fact, I managed to finish off the north side of Solano Ave between San Pablo and Peralta. I even went into Berkeley a bit there. Where is that border anyway?
This leaves the south side of Solano as the big chunk left to do. But it’s a hard one, since the building fronts are virtually always in shadow, except for the sunrise and sunset during a few weeks around the summer solstice. Of course, I can just leave them dark. Or I could shoot for exposing the storefronts and not worry about blowing out the sky and surrounding objects. I’m not about to try HDR on this one section, so let’s not go there.
I suppose I should consider Solano on west side of San Pablo as well, but that feels more residential down there. Perhaps just the first block would suffice to call the project truly complete.
Theo and Effie
Theo and Effie / © neo serafimidis
I am about 10 DVD’s behind in backing up my photo hard drive. I have been thinking about getting around to it every now and again, but the death of my laptop hard drive shocked me into action. Once I started going back through the folders to do a light cleanup before burning to disk, I found all sorts of photos I had totally forgotten about. This was an interesting one. My mother and son in late 2009. Boy was that a tough year, but there were some sweet moments here and there.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Refuge
Meditation Window Display / © neo serafimidis
As we walked around the Mission last month with friends, we came upon this situation at Artists’ Television Access. Pairs of people taking turns meditating in the window. I was lucky enough to see the shift change, so I know they’re real. It just goes to show you, real refuge is in the mind of the refugee.
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