The Christmas Amaryllis Grows

        Back on March 13, 2010, I posted about the planting of an amaryllis bulb I received for Christmas from my parents. If you would like to read that post and see the photo of the planting, click here.
        It’s been just over two weeks, and the bulb is really starting to take off, as you can see from the photo above. That’s it. Yes, I am basically watching grass grow, but at least I’m having fun doing it!

A Pedophile Christian Tried To Lure Me Into His Van With This

        I don’t have a problem with religion, cults or secret societies. What I DO have a problem with is followers of these groups that assume I know less than them. I’m actually really smart, and I have 18 years of theological study under my belt, and that is why I KNOW (not believe) that religion is just a fairy tale, with a moral to the story.
        Some douchebag bible thumper actually tried to entice me into a conversation with the counterfeit money above. I asked him, “If religion and god are so correct and powerful, why does he want you using fake currency to lure followers like pedophiles use candy to lure children?” He had no answer and walked away. Once I got back home, I checked the website printed on the fake money (livingwaters.com) and saw that they are actually selling these bills for $5 for 100 bills! That’s right. A tax exempt business is printing fake money and selling it for REAL money. Where in the bible is this activity condoned?

Photography Helps Us To Reflect

        After all, we are human beings and not vampires. With or without a mirror in front of us, we should be able to reflect with impunity. I believe that photography enables us mere mortals to do just that. Ever since 1826, we have been able to reflect on events that took place before our birth and reflect on places we have never been… All thanks to photography.

Iceplant Flowers

La Mesa Police Station Construction Nears Completion – March 2010

        It’s been over two months since my last post with photos of the new La Mesa police station being constructed. During that interim, proper walls have been fabricated and windows have been installed. For this post I will be recycling photos I have taken during construction.

La Mesa Police Station – January 2010

La Mesa Police Station – October 2009

La Mesa Police Station – July 2009

Let’s Go Fly A Kite Up To The Highest Height…

        …Oh, let’s go, fly a kite. For those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter, I have a very minimalist work schedule for the next 9 days. Today is the first of those 9 days, so I chose to spend it down by the San Diego Convention Center, Seaport Village and the Embarcadero. After de-boarding the trolley at Park & Market and having brunch at Azteca, my favorite (most convenient) taco shop, I wandered to the bay and saw some people flying kites.

A Couple That Plays Together Stays Together

        These two really knew how to throw their stunt kites around. They were all over the sky and with 4 strings per kite, they were definitely in charge. The structures in the background are the San Diego convention center and WAY in the background are PETCO Park’s lights.

Men With Beards Have To Eat Too

        This particular location, where these men are, is a restaurant, and they were somewhere in the middle of their meal when I took this photo. This stats of this shot are: 1/50th, f/1.8, 1400 ISO.

D5000, 1/50th, f/1.8, 2500 ISO

        Here we have a self portrait of my Nikon D5000. A friend of mine recently rented a wide angle lens, so after playing with it for a little while, I want one of my own. I have no idea when or where I would actually use it, but that doesn’t matter… If you use it, the photos will come.

D5000, 5 Seconds, f/8, 200 ISO

        This was an accidental shot. I have no idea how or why I tried to take a hand-held photo with a five second exposure, but apparently I did. There is nothing redeeming about this photo, but I thought it looked cool, so it made it into the post.

SDKA Go-Kart Race At Qualcomm Stadium, March 21, 2010

        There is never a dull moment when SDKA (San Diego Karting Association) rolls into Qualcomm Stadium for a race. Incredibly enough, it seems that full fledged adults are the main demographic for racing go-karts, because I saw exactly 2 kids on this particular day. Grown-ups, some with salt & pepper hair were the ones tearing it up around the stadium, and I really do mean, TEARING IT UP!!! In the photo above, a tire flies dangerously through the air after being thrown from a go-kart at 40mph.

Push The Envelope

        There are two things that I personally like about SDKA go-kart races: The speed, and the photo-finishes. These races are really tight. The difference between first and last place is measured in seconds, not laps like NASCAR. These guys are warriors, and go-karts are their weapon.

Orange Cone Impact

        The driver on the left, in the photo above had the bad luck of having an orange cone thrown in front of him. I happened to snap a shot at the moment of impact, capturing his front fairing shatter.

SDKA Races Are Always A Thrill

Stupid Stupid Stupid

        Pop quiz hotshot. You have a Ford Focus with folding seats, and you want to cram a 60 inch DLP projection TV into it. What do you do? You open the hatchback and try to prove logic and reason wrong. Just look at the photo above. The TV is bigger than the car, yet this customer “made the decision” that it would fit INSIDE her car. To be fair, it was the boyfriend of this woman (barely visible inside the car, wearing a plaid shirt) that was just too fucking stupid to realize to a square peg won’t fit into a round hole, but that is really neither here nor there because they both made the idiot’s decision to try. This situation is repeated many times a day at the place where I work. I suppose we should be able to slap some sense into people like this, but not today.

Technomania Circus Presents The Blacklight & Fire Show

        Here we go! Fire, black-light theater, aliens, music & comedy crash onto the scene at Technomania Circus. The full title of the show is, “Invasion of the Oojaians: A Blacklight and Fire Intergalactic Adventure.” With a title like that, you know you’ll be in for a good time. On my way into the venue, two young ladies stood just outside, the entrance, and asked me for a light. I obliged, and from the conversation that ensues while a cigarette is lit I found out that one them is the girlfriend of a cast member and the other was attending her very first Technomania Circus Show. Perfect! That is what I like to see. A veteran of the circus bringing a virgin to the altar.

Aliens – Oojaians Produce Fire

        The first thing we see as we walk inside the circus is an alien tending to some sort of fire producing retail enterprise. Fire! Yes, fire. Preshow entertainment was well underway, and the fires were already burning when I met Dr. Techno at the entrance of Technomania Circus. After chatting with him and Valerie, another cast member for a few minutes, I found a seat, pulled out my D5000 and got ready for the show.

Defensive Surfing

        Just is case you never thought you’ve see a surfboard on fire, Technomania Circus arranges it for you, in person, no more than ten feet from where you sit. This particular surfer then proceeded to balance this surfboard on his chin. Where else in the world are you going to see something like that?!? This show was a very well told story of aliens and trying to overcome very simple communication barriers. There was a full on alien orchestra, which played throughout the show, in the shadow of a pimped out flying saucer. We spectators learned Morse code and eventually learned to communicate with the aliens. The show was very interactive, and the more the audience cheers, the better the show!

Say Fire For The Camera!

        This photo is exactly what it looks like. There are some people that can command fire like a dog, and this man is one of them. Fire is still my favorite part of Technomania Circus, and real fire adds so much to a live theater performance.

The Weldermen

        The Weldermen appeared with their fire laden instruments, and they helped to sort things out with the aliens. There is something to be said for a group of people that create their own fiery instruments to compliment a live blacklight performance. All of a sudden, a group of people wearing welding masks and carrying instruments of fire appear and light up the stage with fire. Absolutely incredible!

Blacklight Balance

        This show had performance after performance of hilarious and amazing blacklight illusions. Invisible minions dressed in black lend unseen hands to the acts, and the acts are amazing. Spaceships, aliens, shooting stars, levitation and a bit of fire are all on the menu, and they are all gourmet.

Technomania Circus’s Fire & Blacklight Show

Honey Bee In Balboa Park

        Balboa Park is a 1200 acre park, between downtown San Diego and the San Diego Zoo, and it is just awesome. There are 15 museums 13 places to eat and 20 gardens so you need several visits to properly explore the park. For me it’s all about the outside things like the trees, plants, shrubs, flowers, trails, gardens bugs and people. They don’t allow cameras in the museums, so… Yeah, I usually stick to the outside stuff. Balboa Park really is grand, and the very mature trees are huge, the gardens are all different, vibrant, colorful and attract lots of docile bees and butterflies. People perform, sing and play music on the main thoroughfare, and there are helpful maps to guide you and there is even a live theater venue called, The Old Globe Theater.
        The problem I have is that I haven’t been able to capture any of that grandness with my camera. 4 years I’ve been taken pictures in Balboa Park, yet I don’t have any show-stopping shots. Come to think of it, I don’t have enough decent shots to even HAVE a show that would feature Balboa Park. So, this post will be me critiquing shots I took inside the park on March 16th, 2010. They are images that had potential in the viewfinder, but have mistakes made at the moment of capture, so they are not great shots. I’m going to explain what went wrong and how it can be fixed the next time. My D5000 was not to blame, I had setting wrong or composed improperly, and I’ll explain with my photos.

Playing The Cello

        Musicians playing in Balboa Park are the pleasant, ever-changing chorus of sound that gives you one more reason to stop and listen while you are in the park.
        The shot above is blurry and the background is distracting. Also, the shot would look better from a more frontal point of view so the classic and powerful cello shape can be seen. The composition and background can be fixed by moving to a different location. The blurriness of the pic is not because of a bad focus, it’s from camera shake. I was all the way at 450mm, but my shutter was 1/80th, and I was hand-holding the camera. When you are not using a tripod, you shutter speed should not be any slower than your lens mm focal length. In my case at 450mm I should have used a shutter speed of 1/450 or faster.

Park Bench Dedication, Terry Lee Stone

        There are many concrete benches in Balboa Park and all or most of them have these brass plates with tombstone style inscriptions.
        This shot just does not tell a story. If you know the inscribed person then this might be nice to have but it does not invoke emotion because there is no context. You can’t tell that the plate is on a bench in a beautiful park overlooking a wooden bridge and staircase that descends to the Palm Canyon Trail. It’s just an inscription on some mildly interesting texture and color. A better position that shows off the bench AND it’s location would be a much better choice next time.

Blackbird On The Bowling Green

        The crows and ravens in San Diego are definitely at the top of the food chain, right below people.
        This shot had potential because I did some things right. I was almost at eye level with the bird, which is good and the exposure (1/250, f/11, 200 ISO) is about spot on too. What I’m not liking about the image (besides the color of the grass) is that there is no scale at all. You can’t tell that this bird happened to be HUGE! A better shot would be with the bird in the frame with something else, preferably smaller than the bird, like flowers or another animal. This blackbird was abnormally large, but the photo lacks anything to convey a message about the size.

Alcazar Garden

        Situated between the Art Institute and Mingei Museum and modeled after the Alcazar Castle in Seville, Spain, there are 7000 annuals planted every year in this garden.
        I like the composition and depth of field in this shot, and the exposure is about right. The subject is just too busy. It’s such a mass of green stems and since the flowers are not fully in bloom, there is not enough purple to break up the green. Do you know what I mean, jellybean?

Balboa Park’s Fountain

        This shot just has too many distracting things in it. The light bulbs that run through the center, light poles and signs break up and distract from the people and the fountain.
        So, I am still searching for that great Balboa Park shot. There has to be a single, great shot that anyone who looks at it would know they are looking at Balboa Park, and want to go there. *sigh* Someday.