Not that it would matter to a capitalist, but this giant fly has one of the biggest egos in the animal & insect kingdom. Why else would it go about life in color, when the world is so clearly black & white?

I returned to the scene of the crime.  As I monitored the progress of the latest Cop Condominium in my neighborhood, I was again challenged by an officer of the law.  The challenge was actually more of a wrestling match, but I had my own back-up present, so I won the challenge.

Taxpayer Money During A Recession: $12.3 million

What really got me was the complete lack of progress on the police station’s construction.  Maybe the cops in the area should threaten & belittle the construction workers like they do photographers, blacks, homeless people and Norwegians.

So, despite the fact that I was feeling bulletproof from standing toe-toe with a cop and emerging victorious, I wasn’t done for the night,  I found a cannon sitting nearby, so I took an image of it & the moon

This is a very old cannon,  What is a cannon anyway?

Maybe if I had the time to deceive people tonight, I would have PS’d a better rendition of the moon.

Hiding Behind an Industrial Truck So The Police Won’t Interrogate Me

Here is your lesson of the night people:  If you are in America and a Cop detains you, DO NOT SAY ANYTHING without an attorney present!

Infrared & Red Filtered Light

        Now, this is something exciting! The Hubble Telescope and the Palomar Observatory look to the far reaches of the outer universe, while simultaneously, men, women, and even children point microscopes downward in search of the mysteries of the INNER universe. Each of the following images represents pieces of matter, hundreds of times smaller than individual atoms, interacting and colliding together in brilliant displays of energy.

Digital Tsunami Moving @ The Speed Of Light

        This model is a 3D snapshot of that same matter a few moments after exploding and releasing their energy.  The energy being released is contained in the red mountains, heading toward you at the speed of light.  If this pure, initial form of energy scaled up into the world as we know it, our ENTIRE MILKY WAY GALAXY would easily fit inside one of the canyons in the lower foreground.

X-Ray Light Shows Spokes Of Energy Radiating Into Sub-Atomic Space

        Tube-like structures, of unknown make-up thrust outward from collections of matter, which had previously been pulled together presumably by gravity, or electromagnetic attraction.  These tubes are a mystery to science right now…  No one knows what they are.

UV Light Shows A Violent World Beneath The Base Of The Tubes

        Even with the strongest UV filter available, the internal structure of the tubes could not be seen.  What is the purpose for extending these tubes outward before the explosion?  Do explosions ever happen BEFORE the tube extends out?

Visible Light – Enhanced To Show Detail On Tubes

        This all happened on July 4th, 2009, so there were fireworks all over the universe that night.  Technically, there is no color at the sub-atomic level and these explosion happen so fast that our brains would no even register anything until we were dead from the radiation, but baring all that, this is what it might look like to us, if were were down there.

There are a few things you must remember when using your camera at night, one of them is the mentality of a cop.  This police station is being built right around the corner from current residence of the local police force.  Standing well outside the chain-link barrier, I snapped images of this giant, metal arachnid, all the while noticing that a police cruiser was creeping up on me from about my 5 o’clock.

When challenged by the voice hidden behind a beaming spotlight as to what I was doing, I said I was performing the art of photography.  The arrogant man then asked why I was taking pictures of a construction site at night.  I did not understand what he meant, which is what I told him.  A verbal explanation by my new, spotlight wielding friend made me understand that this particular crime-fighter thought that my camera, which was slung across my body looked like a gun, which is why he was questioning me now.

I politely asked him, “What kind of gun?”

“Excuse me”, he asked?

“What kind of gun is it that you think my digital camera looks like?”

For some reason, this caused him to launch into a typical authority-figure-in-a-no-consequence-environment lecture that was so boringly parental, it caused me to drift off at least twice while I was being spoken to.

Afterward he left & I continued my shoot.  “Viva La Revolucion” was what I shouted into the night as he drove away.  As a non Spanish speaker, I can only guess at what that actually means.  With any luck at all, it means that photography is NOT illegal.

So after that I went and mixed a little bit of flash with a WHOLE LOT of shutter time at a nearby fountain.  This constant flow of water was just what I needed to wrap up my impromptu night-shoot.

Luminous Beings Captured On Infrared Thermal Film

        It is not every day that you get to photograph something that is not from this planet. These beings, shrouded in light that was invisible to my naked eyes, beamed to life in this infrared image. I had been hunting something completely different, yet equally elusive as extra-terrestrial life, so I was already camouflaged to an obscene degree. That’s when I saw them.

        Facing west at about 2:15am, while standing on an uninhabited island off the coast of California, I had no idea these beings, or the debris strewn ramp on which they were working were there until I happened to look in that direction through the viewfinder in my camera. It was pitch black to my human eyes. Through the camera’s lens however, they gleamed so brightly that it was just impossible to pull any detail from the blown out highlights. I managed to remain completely undetected by these beings while capturing dozens of images of these being while they prepared for what turned out to be their departure. Images of these aliens, moving objects around, blasting huge plugs of infrared light in to the sky, and what I believe was one being of light being disciplined with what is best described as a floating stream of water, controlled by an unseen force. When the floating device touched the alien, it was like throwing bacon on a hot griddle. None of these shots were composed to my liking though, and were subsequently destroyed.

        While taking the images, I felt no worry about being discovered, because I felt that even if I was, I wouldn’t be probed. I believe probing by aliens is a stereotype that would not apply here. In my opinion, these, aliens, not the entire race of aliens, but these particular astronaut aliens would be more into gaming than probing. I would think that controlling flight between galaxies is like playing an XBOX Infinity. These aliens might be looking for uranium or platinum, so nothing inside me would interest them at all. Bringing the zoom all the way back out, and switching to regular light film, revealed a different scene altogether. I’m not sure which I like better, but at least you can see where the inspiration for one lead to the other.

With the calm and coolness of a man about to commit murder, this guy taunted the leaf before smashing it under his foot.  There was nothing I could do, because I really didn’t care if he smashed the leaf or not.  What I did care about was ensuring the final moments of this leaf would be recorded by me, so that no one could accuse me of fabricating these particular events.

The unmarked grave, somewhere near the Mexican border this leaf is now resting in will one day become a sacred and hallowed place, but until that time, it will just have to be a field behind an empty warehouse.

One day, this leaf will join it’s carbon family, and may become oil itself, or might become a part OF the oil, like his bottled friends to the right.  Either way, they will say that it went before it’s time.  It was sent to whatever is next through an act of murder.  Distraught over the loss of their friend, most of the other trees in the area threw their leaves to the ground that fall…  All except the pine trees, who didn’t seem to care at all.

Steam Powered Giraffe

        What happens when you HAVE to do something you enjoy, but you don’t want to do it? Being forced to do what you enjoy should be, by definition, impossible. Oh, but it is NOT impossible! Elaborate this point in your own head. Do it. Do it now!

What A Difference Shooting From Behind Makes!

        These face-painted space travelers named, “Steam Powered Giraffe” only managed to rapture the audience in front of them. From the rear, they had no color, super-powers or faces. They were reduced to mere people wearing worn out shoes on a hot day, carrying heavy objects and counting on charity from strangers to refill their water bottles. They enjoyed the front while I enjoyed to back. Only one of us can be right so, I’m right!

Foreground: All that remains of the I.B Limited Miniature Railroad. Background: Dinosaur Cage.

The Navy’s 800 foot diameter dinosaur cage on the southern tip of Coronado Bay has contained some of the more vicious breeds of dinosaurs ever created through genetic engineering.  From 1964-1999, the USN denied the very existence of the cage and it’s contents, despite being located in plain view of the busiest beach in all of California.

In the late 1980′s an author named Michael Crichton was marooned on Coronado during a bridge closure and while exploring the Silver Strand in that interim, came upon the cage, and was inspired to write a novel that would ultimately force the United States Government to admit the existence of the cage, and the poor location they selected to place it.

You see, after having George Lucas read “Jurassic Park” to him as a bedtime story, Steven Spielberg decided to make a movie about dinosaurs…  REAL dinosaurs.  Spielberg and crew managed to steal a few dinosaurs from the cage, film them for Jurassic Park and expose the truth to the world.  Forced with seeing dinosaurs on the big screen that looked exactly like dinosaurs living in the cage the Navy claimed didn’t exist was just too much evidence.  In 1999 the Navy admitted the cage was there, executed the dinosaurs and abandoned the site.

Becoming smaller & smaller in our minds ever since, the site was then used as the location for a beach side miniature railroad, but was destroyed in 2003 by miniature plane enthusiasts during The Centennial of Flight Celebration Riots.

The Spider’s Eyes Are Like A Doll’s Eyes

        As this wasp tracked down and hunted the spider, one veteran of The Battle of Palm Springs and I were present. Knowing the last living thing this spider would see, besides the wasp that would ultimately see to his demise was me gave me reason to snap his or her photo as the light went out out it’s eye.

        The eye of the spider showed defeat and when the wasp dragged the spider under a shrub, I wondered if the spider had a mind anything like mine, and what terrors would be going through that mind, if it did.

Aloha from Palm Springs, California

          A three day weekend is a pretty good reason to drive from San Diego to Palm Springs, California.  I never set foot in the pool and came out ahead in the casino so it was an oddly perfect weekend.  My fellow loungers were the perfect company and made the trip what it will be remembered as being.  For now it was an epic road trip from San Diego to Palm Springs, CA, with the photos here presented as a record of things that were seen, and might have otherwise been forgotten.

You must play with purpose!

          As we do not have air hockey in San Diego, we took full advantage of the tables.  As Palm Springs caters to the rich & famous, the pucks are made of solid gold and beautiful women bring you cocktails of blasphemous potency.

Different windmills currently in use in Southern California.

          Clean, renewable energy should be one of everyone’s favorite things.  Recycle cans, use permanent plastic water bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles and do what you can to get wind and solar in to the mainstream.

          Traveling through the colossal windmill farms of southern California was electrifying and terrifying.  So much energy is generated by the windmills, that the nighttime desert floor glows in a site so indescribable that no photographer has ever been able to spoil the view by looking through their camera’s viewfinder to take a picture.

          This vacation gave me a chance to remember that I love to create art, just for the sake of doing it.

          My friends and I were on a mission in Palm Springs, and we failed to complete it.  As warriors in a hazy battlefield of glass, fire and liquid we ultimately returned home defeated in war but soaring higher than any living things have before in spirit…  We had become The Trifecta.

The day we left for Palm Springs, this perfectly aligned throw took place.

          With a start like this, we knew it would be a good trip and that there would be some great photography taking place.  Our Triangle Zen arrives when the disc is thrown.

Unfortunately, even famous photographers must deal with traffic.