Ocean Silhouette

I really have never understood the appeal of the beach on a sunny summer day (read: rotting washed-up seaweed, hordes of fishermen, dodging sandcastles, dodging volleyballs/beachballs/baseballs/frisbees, crazy children and crazy dogs, joggers and cyclists who don't like people in their way, parking-spot wars, elaborate cleanup rituals, sandy cars and sticky clothes). Besides, the water is southern California is cold!

Fortunately, the hordes leave en-masse after sunset, leaving the beach to the locals. This is convenient, because this is when the ocean tends to be at its most evocative. While I believe that both sunsets and silhouettes are somewhat cliched photography subjects, I am constantly struck by the touch of poignancy they add to any picture, especially when in combination.

Below is a series taken during a recent late-evening walk on La Jolla Shores beach. There is nothing overtly conceptual about these images. They're just...pretty.

...and sometimes, pretty is all you need!

L A......

Sharing some pics I took when Lensored met up in LA...

Fire !!!

After an awesome trip to LA what can be a bigger dose of reality? The call of The Laundry. Follow that up with a crazy fire burning up on the roof of a brownstone across the laundromat just sums up an average day in Brooklyn. For some! These are some images I captured of the inferno-from-across-the-street-from-the-laundromat. No one was hurt.

Lensored in LA II: Griffith

As documented in the preceding post, the Lensored gang got together in Los Angeles last weekend. While I had no initial plans of posting any pictures from that trip, yesterday I came across a quote from Leonard Nimoy in the New York Times, where Nimoy paraphrased Robert Heinecken. Heinecken (a concept photographer) supposedly stated that if one saw an object falling from space, one should only photograph it if one was on a mission to photograph objects falling from space, and that anything else would be mere photojournalism.

Thinking about this quote, I went through my pictures, and picked out the series below, all of which were taken outside the Griffith Observatory. These pictures are not part of a mission to photograph the observatory - however, Robert Heinecken was at UCLA, Leonard Nimoy has a theater named after him at the Griffith Observatory, and observatories, in general, spend a lot of time contemplating objects falling from space.

On a more personal note though, this post is tip of my hat to the old friends I met this weekend, one of whom gave us the reason to get together, one with whom I am engaged in an ongoing debate about concept and composition (which underlies much of the thought behind this post) and one who taught me to appreciate and photograph architecture (which I have attempted here). The old times aren't really the old times if we get to refresh them ever so often!

Lensored in LA

Last weekend, we decided to take a cross country trip to Los Angeles from Raleigh to hang out with old friends, including those that contribute this blog. It involved two red-eye flights (including one exceptionally long flight delay), reaching LA at 3:30 am, lack of sleep, mini-vuvuzela inspired midnight birthday celebrations, vegan meals (when in LA.....) and generally randomness around the city. You get the overall picture.

I started going through some of the photos I took there when I got back. I had decided not to take my usual SLR along this time .That lens, while I love it, is simply too heavy and I wasn't too keen on lugging it around. So I had just my iPhone (broken screen and all), with its not-so-great camera to take any photos. Now I admit I'm not really fond of phone cameras, and am a bit snooty when it comes to using them. However, I recently found this interesting app called Hipstamatic, which recreates old film camera prints. The app is intended to be used mainly for fun, but then again, so was the Brushes app, and you only need to look at the New Yorker magazine cover from a new months back to see the extent that people take an app. Ultimately, photography (like art) is about composition. And if an app like Hipstamatic can add a certain character to that composition, then all the better. And yes, it is definitely fun to use. Enjoy a small selection of these photos.

The Lone Surfer

A sister-post of sorts to Pacific Palette

Pacific Palette

I live close to the Pacific Ocean. I've frequently walked on the shore and told myself that I need to come back with the camera. Last weekend, I finally remembered to carry it with me during a late evening walk on the beach and clifftops.

There is much I could say about the pictures below. I could talk about timing (though I did not time anything), weather conditions (though I did not check the forecast) and location (though I happened to be here only because it is 5 minutes from home and I was too lazy to go farther). I could discuss camera settings (though I didn't really change any at all), concept (though anything I say would be retrofitted) or composition (if 'stand, look, click, repeat' equates composition). I could talk about the parallels between this post and Horizons, which are both legitimate and uncanny, but ultimately coincidental...

Truth is, sometimes all you need is a little imagination, and a camera in the right place at the right time - the sun, sky and ocean take care of the rest!