UFO Shines A Light On La Mesa, CA

        This is my third close encounter I’ve experienced during my 36 years of life. The first was in 1994, just North of the Straits of Malacca, in the Indian Ocean. I didn’t get any photos of that encounter so you’ll just have to believe me when I say that it was an amazing experience for a 19 year old sailor, 8800 miles from home. The second encounter was during June of 2009. I have a photo and blog post of that encounter that you should read. This time, I have 2 images, both taken with my Nikon D5000 at 3200 ISO.

Why Do Aliens Come To America?

        Just a little camera info for you readers about these images: They were both shot with my Nikon D5000 at 1/4 of a second, f/1.8, 3200 ISO. They were also shot hand-held (no tripod), through the glass of my bedroom window, which explains the noise and general low quality of the images.

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.

Burning Man at Technomania Circus

The DJ Spins @ Technomania Circus

Burning Man Parody Up Close

        Before the show even began, the DJ entertained the crowd with music from the late 20th century, warming us up and setting the mood for “The Parody Show” at Technomania Circus. This was the first show for 2010, and The Technomaniacs pulled out all the stops, including fire, burlesque, juggling, Elvis Presley, blacklight theater and Lady Gaga even made an appearance, as did Martha Stewart. For The Parody Show, the cast of Technomania Circus made fun of just about everyone, including the audience, themselves and Tiger Woods. This was three hours of fun and satire and it closed with a fast moving awards ceremony honoring many of the most talented performers in San Diego. The show is so easy to get to, especially on the orange line trolley. Technomania Circus is located at 2438 Commercial St. San Diego, in Logan Heights, right across from the 25th & Commercial Orange Line trolley stop. Trolleys come by every half hour, and the schedule can be seen here. I was fortunate enough to be using a borrowed Canon T1i for the evening, so I shot every frame at 3200 ISO and a shutter speed of 1/15th for almost every frame as well.

Dr. Techno

Martha Stewart & Lady Gaga

        Dr. Techno started things off with his guitar playing balancing act and was also our host for the awards show that followed the performance. The cast were all presented with trophies that varied from a small statue of a three headed dog to a diorama that contained a hula dancer and shrunken skull. You just never know what will happen at a Technomania Circus show.

Sarah Palin Going Rogue

        Lady Gaga took cooking instruction from Martha Stewart, and one of the rhyming orders by Martha was something like: “Lady Gaga take this please and bake that bitch at three fifty degrees.”

The Cast Of Technomania Circus

        The entire cast was all smiles for this show, and rightly so because most of what they did was very funny, with several moments of outright hilarity. Their awards ceremony, which wrapped up the evening was just as funny as the show itself and even a lucky audience member won an award.

Fire At Technomania Circus

        Fire is my favorite part of these shows, and the cast always makes sure to add extra elements of danger. You’ll want to take note of a few things in the photo on the left, including the spaceship in the background, the fact that the left performer is balancing on a two point ladder, the juggling pins on the stage and the woman in the center wearing a bathrobe with possibly nothing else underneath. Saturday nights that hold a performance from Technomania Circus are just so easy to attend and are so much fun to watch. They are full of energy and engaging for the audience so the more you cheer the better and funnier the show is. Next time I will bring a tasty beverage because after three hours of cheering, I was feeling a little parched. Their next shows will be on February 13th & 23rd, with the doors opening at 7pm, pre-show at 7:30pm and the show starting at eight. The show is entitled “A Mob Show: Happiness Is A Warm Tommy Gun.” See pics from previous shows: The Fire & Blacklight Show, and The Wild Wild West Show .

San Diego’s Technomania Circus Cast & Crew, January 9, 2010

San Diego’s PETCO Park & Bridge To Nowhere

        I have grown in these first few days of 2010. Apparently, my personal possessions have grown with me. My camera has grown so large that recent digital images (pictures) taken make the world seem very small… Relatively speaking.

        Tilt-shift lenses have created a renaissance, or perhaps the actual creation of faux miniature photography. It is a neat effect, and if it is a genre of photography that existed before digital, I am not aware of any examples. I do not own a tilt-shift lens, but I do happen to own Photoshop CS4, so I can fake it like a pro.

Imperial Beach Dinosaur Cage

        The above photo is a repeat. Sorry. It was featured in a blog post I wrote up back in June 2009, and I really like this shot. Miniature photography seems to me to be a uniquely digital photographic genre.

San Diego Trolley Station – 12th & Imperial

        My short term goal is to get a shot of trolleys going in both directions, blurred by a long shutter. The scene above is a two second exposure, so I think it is doable, if I just keep my eyes open.

Steps Of The San Diego Convention Center

        I was at the San Diego Bay Parade Of Lights on Sunday, and since the parade started over an hour late, I had time to get some shots of non-boat things. As it turns out, they would be the gems of the evening. I didn’t get a single decent shot of any of the boats.

Shaky Monopod & Too Short Of A Shutter

        I have a Benro MA-91 aluminum monopod with fold out stabilizer legs that just don’t cut it for long exposure shots. The monopod stands up on it’s own, but it is never rock solid like a tripod, whether you are holding it or not. It was no help at all for taking shots of moving boats at night, all lit up as if Clark W. Griswald was at the helm of each one. For good shots of these boats I needed a lot of shutter time AND a firmly planted camera. The Benro just doesn’t provide it. High ISO on my camera is so noisy that it hurts me and makes me sad, so it was not considered as an option. Even with me bracing the monopod, 1/10 shutter was all I could count on to be clear with this tripoded monopod. I then placed my bag on the ground and my camera on the bag and took another shot. Since it was rock steady, I was able to use more shutter time and get a better photo. So… The pic above was 1/10, hovering over 5 feet above the ground on top of a Benro monopod posing as a tripod. The shot below was taken with the camera on firm ground with 1 second of shutter time. That’s what I got instead of boats on the night I went to a parade of Christmas-lit boats: Buildings and steps.

San Diego Skyline With One Second Exposure

        There are a few lessons here, the first being that fold out legs on a monopod are no substitute for a tripod when doing night photography. Another lesson would be a willingness to find something else to shoot if your original subject, your equipment or even your own mad, photographic skills fail you. The boats were out of my reach so I turned around and shot the Christmas city skyline instead.

South Bay Power Plant On A Colorful Night

South Bay Power Plant

        The southeast area of San Diego Bay is the home of South Bay Power Plant. It is not a desalination plant. Somehow, back in October I got it in my head that this facility removed salt from seawater. I took a night picture of it and wrote a blog post about it, titled, Night & Day With Salt & Dinosaurs, but it turns out it was factually incorrect. Oh well. This new and better information called for a new and better photo. The shot on the left is the image from the post I just mentioned.

        I like the colors and the composition of the newer shot are much better than the first. I was still over a mile away, from the power plant , so you have to give it up for the super-zoom! This was a 10 second exposure, with my camera sitting on a thick fencepost made of brick.

        Some slow shutter speed photography tips are: Turn off any anti-shake features on your camera, use a tripod and use the 2 second shutter release delay. If you don’t have your tripod, then set the camera on a firm surface. Multi-second exposures can not be hand held!

Beautiful Indian Being Played With Behind Fire

        Once again, I found myself at Technomania Circus, for some live theater entertainment. On this particular Saturday night, Technomania Circus put on a Wild, Wild West Show, complete with gunfire, indians, cowboys, trapeze, fire and blacklight. I arrived just as the show was starting, and was actually led into the theater by the cowboys, as they made their theatrical entrance. While this made for some initial excitement for me, it also meant I did not get my usual spot at the top of the stadium seating. Not a big deal for watching the show, but terrible for taking pictures. The two keepers I shot are presented to you in this post.

Technomania Circus Presents The Wild Wild West Show!

        This was a great show. For those of you that are not Technomania Circus Virgins, your will recognize the Indians of this show are also the fire performers from the Fire & Blacklight show back in July. It was so much fun, and the crowd cheered and encouraged the performers the entire time. Technomania Circus is simply the best, cheapest, funniest, most retro night you can spend in San Diego!

        You can see my post and photos from their Fire & Blacklight Show, which was presented back in July 2009 by clicking right here. I love Technomania Circus!

This post will be a little bit different because it the only text in it is what you are reading now.  Please enjoy a bunch of ordinary snapshots of some extraordinary costumes. They were are taken at Nightmare On Normal Street, 2009.

20 Seconds Of Open Shutter & A Desalination Plant (I Think)

        If you stand at the the Southern tip of San Diego Bay and face North, you will see a factory at your 10 o’clock. As far as I know, and judging by the piles of salt around the factory, this factory is involved in the removal of salt from ocean water. I suppose the salt is then exported to the salt deprived countries of the work, and the water deprived people of San Diego. I was 6000 feet away from the factory when I snapped this pic. Super-zoom cameras are the shit, right?

Golden Hour In San Diego

        Same factory, seen while the sun is casting it’s final rays for the day upon it. Ever since my tripod got smashed to Hell by a pack of rabid wolves over the summer, I have had to hand hold all my shots. Easy during the day but less than optimal during the night.

30 Second Exposure Of San Diego’s Silver Strand Dinosaur Cage

        I set my camera on a bench, near the bike path, pressed the shutter and let the magic happen.

Imperial Beach’s Dinosaur Cage

        I’m still hoping for my money shot of the Dinosaur Cage, located on the Southern end of San Diego Bay. I like what I’ve done but I think something better is in store.