Great Minds Wait For The Bus

        I’ve been riding the San Diego trolley since 2006 so I feel I have come of age enough to say two things: First, the trolley, SDMTS, bus and trolley system is a joke with an embedded scam to write tickets to unwary passengers. Second, if you are a tourist, rent a car to spare yourself from the lunacy that is San Diego public transportation.

Heating The Lines

        For those of you that don’t know, the wide stripes at intersections are rolled out like carpet and then heat blasted into the ground. This roadwork was going on near my local bus stop, which is why I included it in this post.

Sunset, As Seen From La Mesa, CA

        All three photos in this post were taken at the same time, in the same place. I was just walking around my neighborhood at sunset, and the photos in this post is what I came up with. La Mesa is 12 miles from the coast, but the scenery is right in front of you.

Silhouetted Flowers Against The Setting Sun

        There are an infinite number of ways to photograph a single event, including an ordinary sunset. Above we see a typical sunset silhouette with the foreground being a clutch of flowers. Nothing special, 1/1000th, f/5.6, ISO 200. The shot below is different, but the same.

Sunset With Foreground Lighting

        The shot above is the same as the middle photo above except that there is more light on the foreground. The difference between the two photos is massive, even though they were taken at the same place at the same time. Pressing the shutter release button is just the first step for creating a great photograph. Photoshop is your friend after the fact. Admit it.

Pitching A Movie

        There are some very big, inherent flaws in the movie making industry. Not needing talent in order to be successful is the biggest flaw. Paris Hilton, Keanu Reeves and anyone that has directed either of these “movie stars” in a motion picture know what I mean. Just like the ratio of rich people that serve prison time (*cough* OJ Simpson, Vince Neil) to poor/middle class people serving prison time, we can see that if you have money, power, influence, parents with money or are in a successful rock band you can do whatever you want including kill some one, even if you have no talent.
        The rest of you have to earn it. Those of us that ONLY have talent are the ones that have to do legwork, prove what we can do and do it for little or no pay. Or… Am I wrong? No, I’m not wrong because If I was then 75,000 people would be filling a stadium every week to watch cancer research, live on TV instead of watching a bunch bitchy millionaires doing a victory dance for catching a ball or watching silver screen “stars” protesting a war.

La Mesa Police Station

        There is one very weird thing about photography that is exactly the same as a pot of boiling water. A watched pot never boils. Have you ever popped a couple of pop tarts in the toaster and stared at the toaster waiting for the pop tarts to pop up? I have, and one of those weird quirks of fate is that things don’t happen unless you are not looking. Wherever your camera is pointed is where there will be no action. Those Pulitzer Prize winning moments happened on days just like today, except that someone happened to take a picture.

A Regular Thing Or A Record Of The Future

        Even though there is a rash of instances, right here in the United States Of America of photographers being arrested and detained for taking pictures from a public vantage point, it is not something that can be captured at will. It is an elusive beast that can hide behind the law, and people paid to uphold the law.

Just A Regular Photograph

All That Remains Of La Mesa’s Old Post Office

        Once the new post office opened up in La Mesa last year, the old building was slowly phased out and has now been torn down. No word of what will be constructed in it’s place or what is to become of the soon to be abandoned La Mesa police department building across the street. In the background is the city hall building for La Mesa.

Demolishing La Mesa’s Old Post Office

        There is a lot of construction going on in la Mesa right now, and most of the downtown area streets will be receiving face lifts over the next year or so. It will be nice to have another opportunity to document, photographically, the process of raising a building.

Along University Ave & La Mesa Blvd

        Just down the street and around the corner from the La Mesa post office, University Ave, has been dug into regularly over the last month or so. It seems that most of the work is cable/phone line related, with most of the in charge looking people having the AT&T logo on their hardhats.

Make Your Own Taco Night

        I am not a foodie, but I do like to make homemade versions of my favorite fast food menu items… Much healthier and better tasting versions. I like Taco Bell, and they have a seasoning mix available, so I bought a pound of premium ground beef, a fresh head of lettuce and some grated, sharp cheddar cheese. The point of this post is to say that both the Lawry’s and the Taco seasoning packs above require the same ingredients to make, but the Taco Bell seasoning is WAY better. If you like Taco Bell already, this is really for you because it has the distinct flavor of a Taco Bell taco, but because the ingredients are better and fresher, it tastes like the best Taco Bell taco ever made. As for the Lawry’s, it was way under seasoned, and tasted like it needed salt. Yeah, go with the Taco Bell seasoning, brown the beef on a Foreman Grill and prepare some surprisingly awesome tasting tacos!

Hidden Hummingbird Sanctuary In Balboa Park

        This trip to Balboa Park actually had a purpose, and that was to find a supposed hidden hummingbird sanctuary on Old Globe Way. I found it, right where it was supposed to be, around the back (north side) of the The San Diego Museum Of Art building. Up in the trees are a bunch of hummingbird feeders with brightly colored nectar. Unfortunately, there were no hummingbirds at the feeder, so after I do a little research to find out when hummingbirds are the most active, a return trip by me will have to made.

Hummingbird Feeders Sans Hummingbirds

        Without any hummingbirds at the feeders, I felt like I found a buried treasure chest that did not contain any treasure. That’s OK because I was in Balboa Park, and there is always a lot to see and photograph. This clutch of hummingbird feeders is very close to the Botanical Garden building, so I headed there next.

Water Lilies In Front Of The Botanical Garden Building

        The water lilies and lotus flowers are in full bloom right now and there are a lot of them. Hundreds of people, tourists and natives alike pose for photos in front of the reflecting pool, in front of the botanical garden building.

Lotus Flowers In Balboa Park

        If flowers and flower gardens are your thing, then you need to plan a trip to Balboa Park. There are 13 flower gardens, and most of them are very grand.

People Enjoying Balboa Park

        There are fish in the pools in front of the botanical building, and that is what the children above were looking at. Beyond them is another group of girls enjoying Balboa Park. There really is something for everyone, and there are restaurants for when you get hungry.

Playing Around The Fountain

Construction Can Be Chaotic

        The La Mesa Downtown Village Streetscape Improvement Project will widen sidewalks, install new lamp posts with unique night-lighting, plant new trees, flowers and shrubs and many other things in the downtown area of La Mesa, CA.

Allison Avenue Being Improved

        This is an ambitious project, with one of the goals being to solidify the downtown area’s identity as La Mesa’s city center. As we can see on this map, most of the streets and sidewalks that go through and around downtown La Mesa will be receiving a face-lift.

Intersection Of Palm Ave. And Allison Ave.

        The entire project is called the “La Mesa Downtown Village Streetscape Improvement Project,” but there was a sign in the area these photos were taken that read, “Allison Avenue Streetscape Project,” so I’m guessing that each leg of the project will have it’s own designation like this one. That makes sense to me and will avoid confusion, no doubt.

Guarding The Open Trench

Comic-Con 2010

        After attending Comic-Con and taking a few days to think about the experience, in particular how I could have made the experience better as well as things I flat out didn’t like, I’m ready blog about the entire experience. Photographically, it was not challenging AFTER the first day. It was a lot of fun.

        The people and their costumes were the highlight for me. After spending time amongst them, I’ve learned there are no levels or degrees of a Comic-Con fan. They all sit at the same tables and wait in the same lines. When you consider that thousands of people rode (in full costume) to Comic-Con on public transportation after flying to San Diego from locales all over the world, you start to realize that the playing field is even for these ladies and gentlemen.
        For the press, professionals and celebrities, it’s a somewhat different story. Everyone there is NOT on the same level and the game is rigged, which is not surprising but still disappointing. The big, well known media outlets like to do stories and shoot video of what or WHO the big, well known studios are presenting. This created two issues for me that I… Didn’t like. The first was that even though I had a press pass, I’m not a big media outlet, so I wasn’t granted any exclusive interviews with any big studio guys or one on one interviews with network stars. The second thing was that the smaller, unknown artists, illustrators, etc. seemed to be ignored by mainstream media. These are the guys that would get the biggest boost from the media exposure, so I’d like to see big media giving more time to small print and up & coming artists next year.

        I did not attend any panels, film screenings or have any autographs signed for me. All of those things required waiting in line, and I just didn’t want to wait in line. I spent most of my time roaming up and down the aisles of the convention floor as well as the autograph signing area (The Sail Pavilion), which turned out to be the best place to get celebrity pictures. This is my first tip for better photography next year: After you find out where the signing will be, look around and try to deduce how they will be brought to the signing area, position yourself somewhere along that route a few minutes BEFORE the celeb is due to arrive… And wait. Everyone in the autograph line will STILL be in line 90 minutes after you already got your shot. This method turned out to be very time efficient because you need less than 10 minutes of lead time so you can just swoop in, take the shot and move on to the next thing.

        My main reason for attending Comic-Con was to take photos. There are any one of (at least) several common “main reasons” for attending Comic-Con, and that is what I wanted to capture. I was very fixated on taking pictures so I had to make conscious efforts to stop and smell the roses. One of the roses that I didn’t smell enough was S.W.A.G.
        My primary mission was photography so I didn’t want to be fettered down with stuff other than my photographic gear, which was my Nikon D5000, a 55-200mm and a 18-55mm lens, all contained in a Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW. I was also using one of my custom camera straps. I have a SanDisk Extreme III 8GB card, which allows me to take 538 RAW photos. I brought extra batteries and cards but never had to swap out either one (I get over 1500 shots per battery on my D5000). I averaged around 200 shots per day, with 15-20 making it into my daily blog posts about Comic-Con. For the most part, I was at 1000 ISO on the convention floor and 200 ISO and in the Sail Pavilion.
        Next year, I will bring an f/1.8 lens. A 1.8 would have made the shots a whole lot better and required less time in Photoshop. That being said, I’m going to see if next year I can worry less about gear, and more about the show itself. That’s my second bit of advice: Bring extra batteries and cards with you to San Diego, but you probably won’t need them at the show. In the case of my D5000, one battery and one card were enough for each day. Maybe next year I’ll spend some time in panels or try to collect my body weight in S.W.A.G. You never know and a year is a long time from now, but I’ll be back, and I’ll have my camera with me.

Klingons Invade Gaslamp Trolley Station During Comic-Con 2010

Jack In The Box & A Woman In Red

        This post will contain photos taken throughout the four days of Comic-Con 2010 I attended. These are pics that didn’t make it into my blog for the daily postings I was doing while Comic-Con was going on, but that I ultimately thought people might like to see. I attended the preview night, which was on Wednesday, as well as Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I did not go to The Con on Sunday, the 25th of July.

        The reason I referenced “the cutting room floor” for the title of this post is because for one reason or another, I feel there is something technically or photographically wrong with the pics used in this post. Composition, messy background, bad exposure or not being tack sharp are the main culprits, so when I was making my decisions about what would make it in to my daily posts for Comic-Con, these pics didn’t make the cut.

        I have never liked it when tabloids print embarrassing or bad photos of celebs making a funny face. That being said, after attending Comic-Con this year and taking a bunch of celebrity photos, I think I understand why they do it… Sometimes a bad photo is the best photo you were able to take. With Comic-Con being a mad-house of 160,000 people, sometimes you are luck just to see the celebs with your eyes, let alone through the viewfinder of your camera. Above we see Mark Valley and Chi McBride during an autograph signing.

        Of course, it is next to impossible to take a bad photo of Kari Byron. The photo of Katey Sagal was taken when a security guard actually allowed me within about three feet of her. She was looking at me, but listening to the person that was in front of her, so whatever he told her caused her to make that face, not my camera. She was with Ron Perlman promoting Sons Of Anarchy.

Elvira Announces Her Return To Television

        Comic-Con is an imperfect place, and I think the photo above may help to illustrate this. Elvira held a press conference inside a room that is supposed to be for press only. Notice that in the photo above, taken just as Elvira’s press conference was wrapping up, there are nothing but people holding up camera phones, not journalists and reporters absorbing a story.

        A couple of flashbacks from the 1980′s were present at Comic-Con. To the left we see the metal skeleton from the Terminator movies, one of my favorite movie trilogies. Above is the actor Dirk Benedict, who played “Face” on the awesome, totally radical 1980′s TV show, The A-Team. I will not be watching the theatrical version of The A-Team because I think some things should just be left alone, and George Peppard as Hannibal Smith is the ONLY way I want to see Hannibal Smith.

        Star Wars is another story altogether. I’ll eat up just about anything that has to do with that set of movies, except for that asinine character Jar Jar Binks, of course. Comic-Con really is a natural habitat for Star Wars fans, especially those that want to arrive in costume. The R2D2 you see on the right was brought in by a fan and was operated by remote control. He slyly stayed a good distance away while operating his robot, so most people walking by actually thought there was some one INSIDE, working the controls, just like in the original movie. Someday, I’ll build my own lightsaber and tie-fighter, not necessarily in that order, but someday I’ll build them both.

        It is important to remember that Comic-Con is a place to have fun, meet people, look at costumes, dress in costumes, eat bad food, take pictures and collect S.W.A.G. If you have well thought out plans or an agenda, you will probably end up being disappointed because Comic-Con is a very fluid place, and plans will generally fly out the window once you arrive and hit the crowds.

Just Dance At Comic-Con!