LA Women

These are my two beautiful daughters! LA Women! We sent shopping in Santa Monica the other day, and Liz, on the left didn't have a hat, and needed something to keep the sun out of her eyes. Sun? You know, the round bright thing that we used to have on Long Island? Anyhow, I went into "Lids" store with her, and when we came out she had this cool blue LA hat. Which almost perfectly matched the one that Amy already had! Looks like a picture, I thought!

Two For The Price of One

I am having so much fun, and taking so many photographs, that I have decided to post two photographs each day this week. I am seeing wonderful things to photograph at every turn! The first photo is Tarzan the cat. He belongs to Amy and Gus, and this is his first day outside in five months. He is a beautiful cat with long, soft fur, and so friendly to strangers. The second photo is sunset at Venice Beach this afternoon. The Pacific ocean stretching to infinity, and the golden rays of the sun on the water. The trick was to find something of interest in the foreground which would make or break the photograph. I took a number of photographs as people came and went, and this is my favorite.

Vacancy in LA

Blew into town this afternoon from the East coast - 71 degrees and sunny - what else would you expect in LA? Hit a Mexican restaurant down in Venice because we were starving to death. Knockout food and on the way back to the car, found this motel that looked just too LA to pass up, so here it is. Also found two other definitely LA kind of shots, but they will have to wait for later on to be posted. Nice to be on vacation, nice to be with our daughters!

Cheap Tricks

It was very foggy this morning, which is a bit unusual. I was at Nassau Community College for an assignment, and with the fog and the modern buildings, it looked like some kind of spaceport, I thought. I quickly took a few pictures, and then when a student walked into the frame I did a couple of more shots. Then I looked at the LCD on the back of the camera to see if the exposure was OK. I was surprised to see this blue photo! I had set the color balance to tungsten light yesterday and forgot to set it back. I then set it correctly, and took some more photos, but decided that I liked the "cheap trick" filter effect, so here it is. I think the blue makes the image look just a bit less Earthly.

Lights, Camera, Action!

I have only shot video for the last two days (well, OK, I did a food job today, but you don't want to see that...) so I thought that maybe some of you would like to see how I do the set up for the video for doing this series of portraits. The setup involved two light stands and a pole for the background, (on the left in photo) and another light stand for the umbrella and quartz light, and then a tripod for the video camera. Then I have a wireless microphone for the subject, and a wireless receiver for the camera, and earphones for me. Whew! It takes a while to set this all up. (Maybe tomorrow I will find a real photograph for you...)

A Dedicated Educator

Several of us photographers are photographing about 30 people for a project. We are all using the same light beige background material and soft nearly-frontal lighting so the photos will look the same when used next to each other. Oh, and we are doing video interviews with each subject as well. With the video camera running and my subject answering a long question, I moved over to the left and leaned down to get my Nikon for some still photos, and when I looked up, the edge lighting knocked me out! But it needed more. After I was done with the video, I went out to the car and grabbed the piece of black cloth I have in the trunk, put it over the lighter background, and then did this photo. It won't fit in the layout, but I will submit it anyhow. This man is nearly 85, is a PhD and has been an educator all his life, where he began by working with underprivileged children, trying to make a difference in their lives. I was hoping to capture a sense of dignity about him, and a sense of how much he must have seen, both good and bad, in his lifetime.

Winter Light

I took this photograph at 8:15 this morning, of the winter sunlight coming in the window, and leaving patterns and shadows on the bedroom door from the wavy glass in the window panes. The reason this happens is that in the wintertime the sun only reaches an altitude of 26 degrees above the horizon at noon. At 8:15, it is only 10 degrees above the horizon, so the light can come in the window and shine across the room. In the summer, by the way, the sun's altitude reaches 71 degrees at noon. This is funny what I do... I am trying for mystical and magical photographs, and then when I find one, do I talk about the image itself? No. I give you an astronomy lesson instead! Well, I guess I hope that the photo will stand on its own.