Lazy Photography is No Bueno

I was a lazy photographer today. 

I used all my energy, productivity, and willpower on getting up early after a night of insomnia, getting to work early, and then convincing my tired self to follow through with my plan to play pickup beach volleyball after work anyway.

I brought the camera along just because I thought I could get some time in before and after, but it ended up an afterthought once I got to the beach and I sat down with my feet dangling off the boardwalk in the sand.  All the interesting subjects were far away and all I wanted to do was sit.   Especially given the fact that I was about to run around chasing down errant balls all over the beach, I had no desire to move around and think artsy fartsy.

The light also wasn't quite right since it was still roughly 2 hours to sunset and overcast... and 30 minutes and several haphazard shots later, I ended up with utter mediocrity. 

But hey, at least I got in a great workout.

Hours to Date: 6.5

This would have been much more interesting if I hadn't been lazy and actually went up to the umbrellas

Lifeguard tower by Main Beach

Living the Dream: Industrialists & Philanthropists

Having just watched Baz Luhrmann's ostentatious rendition of The Great Gatsby last weekend, I've had 1920s opulence and leisure on my mind ("A Little Party Never Hurt Nobody" - my current anthem off The Great Gatsby OST) and wanted to photograph somewhere reminiscent of that wealth. 

With that in mind, my friend Niki and I decided to head to the Getty Villa, which sits atop a hill in the Pacific Palisades overlooking the ocean.  Later in the afternoon, we also made an impromptu trip over to the Griffith Observatory just because we felt like it and we could - trademark attitude of the rich and famous?  I can only imagine what kind of lifestyle J. Paul Getty and Griffith J. Griffith rocked given the prime real estate they purchased and then donated along with funding to the city of Los Angeles to create free, public access museums with expensive exhibits.

We kicked off the day as any wealthy industrialist would: with champagne at brunch.  And the whole concept of "great pictures are taken with great technique, not fancy equipment" proved itself to me when I got this shot with my iPhone 4:

Bubbles!!! iPhone 4, with a little color punch from Instagram

And later, while "people watching" (read: waiting for people to get out of my shots) at the Griffith Observatory, I realized that most people take pictures very casually.  They literally have a "point and shoot" mentality without considering what's in their picture, light, color, or other focal points of interest.

Some of these people also seemed to fall prey to the fallacy that expensive cameras will magically make their photos better, given that lots of them were hefting around fancier and pricier DSLRs than mine, but not taking their time, adjusting anything, or moving around to take the photo from a different perspective.  For all of their dropped dollars, their pictures (at least the ones I could glimpse from their LCD screens without being an obvious and awkward creeper) were boring, blurry, and sometimes just awful.

I even experienced some of that in my attempt to capture the observatory's Tesla coil in action:

Despite capturing the awesomeness that is a Tesla coil spitting out some serious voltage, this is a sucky, sucky photo: unintentionally blurry, reflections of people with cameras and the other exhibit sign in the glass, cut off neon letters, and random people in the shot.

Most people would say that I got the Tesla coil doing its thing.  I'm sure a person could show this photo and tell the related story, but after being subjected to an entire album of poorly photographed pictures like this one, any third party observer would be looking for the nearest exit.  It was definitely an important epiphany to have - being aware is the first step in not taking crappy photos.

In any case, 4 hours and some 200+ shots later, I did manage to capture some decent images.

The Getty Villa:

Fountain statues. The eyes creeped me out too.

Niki, in the vine covered breezeway

Columns along the garden

The Griffith Observatory:

From the road, looking up towards the observatory

The Foucault pendulum in the rotunda, 18mm f/3.5 at 1/200s.  Probably my favorite shot of the day... I love the reflection of the lit panels in the metal pendulum - it's reminiscent of a solar eclipse.

Niki, with DTLA behind her.

He may be a rebel without a cause, but he's got Hollywood looking over his shoulder.

The Hollywood Sign, just before sunset.

All in all, a great day at two very iconic and beautiful places in LA.  I even learned some random facts to add to my Jeopardy! trivia knowledge along the way... like the fact that the area in Italy that the word "Etruscan" describes is actually called Etruria - I'd only ever heard of things being described as "Etruscan" without knowing the area.  And the fact that Saturn is currently 800 million miles away, but we still got to see it pretty clearly through a telescope.
 
Hours to Date: 6

Hour 2: Day Drinking & Relaxation

2 hours of shooting into this project coincided perfectly with Day 2 of Memorial Day Weekend.

I started off the day with beach volleyball, but didn't bring the DSLR because it was so cloudy when I left this morning.  First learning early on in this endeavor: bring my camera everywhere.  Admittedly, I was a little paranoid of bringing my brand new camera out and letting it hang out in my bag in the sand while I ran around chasing errant balls.  I could have taken more snaps with my iPhone, but just didn't feel like whipping it out.  Next weekend, I'll probably bring it along to get impromptu shots of the dogs and practice taking some action shots.

Still, I got some great shots in during the course of 6 hours of day drinking both at brunch and poolside with my bestie, Melissa, who was ever so gracefully cooperative when I made her be a subject in a few shots.  Love you, old roomie!

Lazy Saturdays, margaritas, pools, and palm trees... and now a seamless segue from day drinking to walking to dinner... life was meant to be this awesome!!

Quintessential California

The beginnings of a fantastic brunch

She didn't realize I was taking a photo and I caught her secret smile at a text message.

Obligatory legs shot, poolside.

My view upwards while laying out

1 hour down, 9999 to go

It's really true how you lose what you don't use... and another reason why an eidetic memory would be an awesome super power.

I haven't picked up a SLR camera since the photography class I took my senior year of high school.  I spent the first day of my glorious 4-day weekend relearning basic concepts like aperture, f-stops, and shutter speeds via the Internet... which then of course, inevitably led to me getting lost on Wikipedia following in-article links.  At one point, I ended up on an article about James Clerk Maxwell and electromagnetic theory.  But, I digress.

In any case, because the camera bag I ordered hadn't arrived yet when I went out for a hike this morning and I ran errands like a real adult all day, I didn't manage to get out and shoot in outdoor light like I originally wanted.  It was probably for the best, since I ended up with a lot of blurry or way too dark pictures of stationary objects around my apartment while playing around with apertures and shutter speeds.

Liiiiiightbulb.

Change monster.

The one thing I do remember from the photography class way back when (and well-corroborated by The Interwebs) is that great photos are more a product of technique and the artistic eye of the photographer, and less to do with the equipment.  After all, Ansel Adams' work is still unparalleled, and he was photographing long before the many technological advances. 

I'll have to take a cue from him and other photographers and just practice, practice, practice.  Good thing I have the rest of this weekend to do just that!  Updates to come.

Begin at the Beginning

This all began, as many great projects do, with late night ruminations about life.  Something about the quiet solitude of the late hours is so conducive to philosophical forays about the future and also the what-might-have beens.

As a highly passionate person, I have always thrown myself wholeheartedly into whatever my current focus may be... school, sorority, significant other, etc.  And for the last few years, that focus has been solely around my career and climbing the veritable corporate ladder.  Don't get me wrong, professionally, I gain a lot of satisfaction from, and, do genuinely enjoy my work.  Lately, however, I find myself a little too superficial and one-dimensional.  At first, after my promotion last year, I wrote off constant work as getting over the learning curve for my new role and that it would be over in 3-6 months.  But now, a whole year later, I still find myself working all the time, even on weekends and holidays.  Mostly, I used this time to catch up on emails, get ahead on other projects, etc.  And worse still, sometimes, (as pathetic as it sounds) just because I didn't have anything better to do.  During this period of self-reflection, I also happened upon Erin Callan's Op/Ed for the NYTimes, which profoundly resonated with me, and I realized that one of my greatest fears in life is to wake up on the day I retire with no other accomplishments, passions, or relationships to my name aside from professional work.

Thus, the idea to begin on my own 10,000 Hour Venture was born.

Malcolm Gladwell explores this concept in his book, Outliers. Basically, the idea is that becoming an expert in something takes an enormous amount of time - namely, 10,000 hours.  He uses examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates, and even himself as confirmation of this model.  Doing the math, even working on something for 20 hours a week (far more time than I'd probably be able to devote to my project), it would take approximately 10 years to reach 10,000 hours.

But, daunting as that sounds, I'm still fascinated by the concept and comforted by the fact that beginning on this venture provides me another area of focus and interest: photography.

I've always loved photography and find it to be the one artsy thing I can do.  I may not be able to sketch much, but I can point a camera and fiddle with some knobs and push a button.

And I think focusing on honing the craft of photography is something that will force me to go on adventures - seek out new and exciting subjects, travel, explore, and meet new people - all things I love to do, but for various reasons, have eluded me to date.

And so, having just purchased a new DSLR camera and starting with this post, it's off to see the wizard, tallyho, and full speed ahead!!