Anyway, for Valentine's Day, my wife and I took a stroll by the beach and had a nice dinner at a decent restaurant. Looking back, we've been married for 10 years already, and we have developed an irreplaceable bond of comfort with each other. Looking forward to many years to come.
I see people do this all the time... turn the camera around for a selfie. However, it's as easy with the M9... my arm was just a little short of the minimum focus distance.
Anyway, for Valentine's Day, my wife and I took a stroll by the beach and had a nice dinner at a decent restaurant. Looking back, we've been married for 10 years already, and we have developed an irreplaceable bond of comfort with each other. Looking forward to many years to come.
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It's already the start of February, and I've barely picked up the M9 for the past few weeks. I've even given some serious thoughts of downsizing my lenses since they are not seeing much use. I quickly came to my senses, of course :) Today, while showing some friends around Downtown LA, I got the chance of revisiting some of my favorite spots. It got my juices flowing, I'm reminded why photography is such a rewarding hobby. We went to visit the Los Angeles Central Library, where I've never been before. It was quite big, but somehow it didn't feel as grand. I only got a few worthy snaps from there since we didn't stay there for long, maybe I'll revisit it again to explore it in detail. There's also another good news... the Rolleiflex SL66 has came back from service and repair. I've loaded a new roll of T-MAX400, and have begun to shoot a snaps around the house. Not being able to natively guess the exposure is really hampering the progress. I'm looking for a metered viewfinder accessory for the SL66, but it's rarely on ebay. Once I'm done with this roll, I'll send it out for processing, and if some didn't turn out too bad, I'll post a few.
Anyway, just glad to be back in the swing of things :) We've strolled by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) quite a few times, but I decided to actually pay the admission and checkout the inside for a change. Of course, I couldn't resist go by the old spots again, like the Bradbury Building. The exhibits were quite interesting... at first I thought I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, but the friendly guard/usher told me only flash photography. Great, I don't have flash anyway. Outside the museum, while waiting to buy the tickets, a flock of photographers rushed into the area and started to snap away. I quietly sat on the side and took this shot of them: You can see the full set [HERE], but here are some other interesting shots from the day:
Took this shot to test my SD card. I recently experienced some weirdness with a card that I've been using for almost two years. At a friends house I took some shots, but when I wanted to show my wife, some shots disappeared! I quickly freaked out and put in the back up card everything was normal again. So at least I know it was the camera being flakey. Back at home, I was able to download most of the images and I started to research why my card was failing. My conclusion of the problem is that I've been deleting images in camera instead of reformat it. Many more knowledgeable people have recommended a in-camera reformat every once a while because simply deleting images doesn't always clear out data. Sure enough, once I reformatted the card, it was functioning normal again... *phew*
I'm starting to feel a little desperate for some photography... being kind of lazy lately. I'll have to think of somewhere we can go this weekend... I woke up inexplicably early this morning (a sign of getting old?), and noticed a reddish hue on our bedroom window shade. It must means fire in the sky! I quickly grabbed a few quick shots...
I don't think it's possible to take a bad picture of jellyfishes. There's something special about them... a little mysterious, a lot of beauty. We've been to the Long Beach Aquarium before, but I would say the Monterey Bay Aquarium is few order of magnitude better. When I look back at the shots I took of the jellyfishes, I think the better few are the ones that look more like an abstract painting. While in the tank, they're floating in every directions, just need to wait for the right moment when it turns and give a beautiful display of its tentacles. Just outside the aquarium, is the Cannery Row. Its real name is Oceanview Ave, made famous by John Steinbeck's book: Cannery Row. The old sardine canning factories are replaced by shops and restaurants for the passing tourists. We ate lunch at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant, and I was wonderfully surprised by how good their Fish and Chips tasted (I'm allergic to crustaceans).
I got a chance to go to the Couchbase[SF] conference in San Francisco this past weekend (on Friday the 13th, no less!). We decided to take the whole family up for a mini weekend vacation. While I'm in the conference all day Friday, wife and kids went to the Exploratorium, which is amazing from I've heard. Then we did the SF tour on Saturday, drove back on Sunday by swinging by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I thought it was a jam-packed super fun weekend, but you wouldn't know it from all the whining and complaining about the long drives from my son and nephew. I'll probably split the post into three parts, showing the SF and Aquarium pictures later, but you can see all of them now [HERE]. As for lens choices... I wanted to take the 28-50-90 combo that I've been familiar with, but since the 35'Lux still has the "new lens smell", it bumped the 50'Lux off the list, and it stayed on the M9 for probably majority of the time. I have come to appreciate the versatilities of the 35mm focal length and the low-light capabilities of the 'Lux. It's a bit unfair, because now I'm treating the 28mm and 90mm focal lengths as a special occasion only option. Things will probably balance out later... I'm thinking maybe when I do bring multiple lenses, next time I may stick with one lens per outing just so I can get in the groove with each.
In French, it means "against daylight". In photography, it describes the type of shots when shooting toward a light source, or backlit subjects. Lately, I find that I like the look more and more, especially in black and white. I especially love it when the light glows and creates an outline of the subject's face and body.
Downtown LA is always an interesting place to visit. The area has a lot of rich history tucked away in various corners, and yet there are also modern developments happening in the city. Took my son on the Metro and headed into the Union Station on our last day of mini vacation. We've always came during the weekend so the station has always look emptied and deserted, during Friday's high traffic hour, the place was actually bustling with passengers. I'm sure it isn't like its glory past, but I allowed myself to imagine how this place looked when trains were the main mode of transportation between cities. There are always soft light filtering through the various windows and interesting people to watch. I was limited to the 35'Lux I had mounted, but I think next time I would like to try a 90mm for stealing shots of people, and maybe a 21mm so I can capture its grandeur. Across the street from Union Station, there's the Olvera Street, which is a permanent market full of Mexican restaurants and shops. Also around there, is the Pico House, which was hosting a gallery of photos taken around the place. The Pico House has an inner courtyard which was glowing red by the sunshine reflecting off the brick wall and floor, and even though it was closed to general public, the lady in charge was nice enough to let us in to take some photos. Of course, I couldn't resist visiting the Bradbury Building again. What an amazing place that continues to challenge me to photograph all its beauty with a single image, still can't do it though. Then we went up the Angel's Flight and walked our way east to the Civic Center Station and eventually back home. Here are only some selected images to show, and the full set can be found [HERE].
Living in Southern California, we don't go to the beach nearly as much as we should. Aidan's summer school ended this week, and that gave me a signal: it's time to catch up on all the fun before summer's over. It's probably my bad luck, but for some reasons, when we go to the beach, it's usually pretty cloudy and feeling much cooler than I thought it'd be. Nothing would stop the kids from jumping into the cold Pacific waves, though. The sun did peak through once in a while to provide some dramatic light rays, but most of the shots I got had this blue/gray tone that lend themselves to be processed as black and white. For a gloomy day like this, I got a few more keepers than I expected. The full set of images can be viewed [HERE].
Once again, it's better to bring your camera and not use it, than to not bring it at all :) |
AuthorDavid Young Archives
May 2023
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