A Sanctuary from the Heat

It's been hot.  As in, I worked up a sweat putting on make up this morning hot.  And worst of all, it's been humid.  Sweating is not at all helpful when it's this muggy out.  Instead of evaporation wicking away heat to leave you cooler and more comfortable, you're now just soaked in sweat in addition to still being hot.  This seems like a flawed adaptation to me... as if the entire human race got the whole sweating thing down and then called it a day and never developed a way to deal with heat when the air is too saturated with moisture for evaporation to work its magic.

I'm sure people from around the country (and the world) will tell me this is their normal, "it's not that hot" and to quit whining... but fantastic weather is precisely why I pay a premium in both taxes and the cost of living to live where I live and dammit, I'll whine about it because I can.

Anyway, to beat the heat (and extend the bacchanal debauchery that is Birthday Week), we headed down to the Stone Brewing Company's World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido for a brewery tour and to cool off with some deliciously hoppy IPAs.  And so I could get some shooting in... although photographic skill (like many other skills) deteriorates quickly once drinking is factored into the equation.  While the creativity in composition might have been there, the hold-the-camera-steady motor skill was totally not happening later in the afternoon.  Fortunately, I managed to get plenty of shots before succumbing to beers with ridiculously high ABVs.  And even better, I wasn't driving and had all afternoon to recover.  As it turns out, getting older means day drinking gets harder.

Beers I had today:
Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
Arrogant Bastard Ale
Ruination IPA
Levitation Ale
RuinTen IPA - perhaps my new favorite, because it's hopped up like crazy, yet still pleasantly light, tropical, and citrusy, and a whopping 10.8% ABV.

Absolutely beautiful grounds

You would think there would be gargoyles all over the garden, but there were none.  In fact, in the entire place, I counted 3 and this was the only statue, which apparently they found at Lowe's.  Yes, normal people ask beer brewing & related questions during a brewery tour... having Wikipedia'd all of that already, I ask about the lack of gargoyles.

Beer, hanging out in bourbon & Bordeaux wine barrels and soaking up deliciousness

Taken with the iPhone.  I love me some hoppy goodness.  Hoppity hop hops.

Hours to Date: 17

Work, Play, and a Birthday Beach Cleanup

My birthday happened to coincide with a work meeting this year, but since we had a beach cleanup planned for the actual day of my birthday, I decided to take today off instead.  After all, doing community service on your birthday?  Can't buy karma like that.  I might start that as a new tradition, it's a good feeling.

Random side note: today is the first non-holiday vacation day I've taken all year and of course, I racked up 6 missed calls and 7 text messages.  No wonder taking vacation stresses me out.  Baby steps though, next plan is to take a real vacation somewhere with lots of opportunities to bust out the DSLR.

In the meantime, I still found opportunities to get some practice in after our meetings adjourned for the day and during the beach cleanup.

A cold brew at Karl Strauss

Ringing in my birthday with my signature - Maker's ginger with a lime

A luau evening event wouldn't be complete without dancers!

Seemingly clean beach and yet we still managed to pick up ~60lbs of miscellaneous trash in the course of an hour and half. Pick up your crap, people!

Birds

Sandy cliffs, subject to water and wind.

Hours to Date: 15

Portraits 101

I've been avoiding portraiture up until now... for good reason.  Personally, I find portraits to be the most difficult kinds of images to capture well.  The whole point of a "good" portrait is not only to convey the likeness of a person, but more importantly, to capture the personality, mood, the very essence of the individual.  Any powerful photo (of a person or not), should make the viewer feel something... my gut check is that if my reaction is simply "that's nice," it's a snapshot, not a photo.  And it's vastly easier to capture the feeling of a landscape or a still life that doesn't move while you're adjusting camera settings and composing the photo.

Not to mention the fact that we as humans are biologically pre-programmed to recognize and examine faces.  Newborn babies demonstrate a preference for looking at faces or face-like images.  There's even a specific brain area called the fusiform gyrus that is heavily involved in recognizing faces.  Several studies have associated damage to this area with the inability to recognize faces - a condition common enough to have its own name and Wikipedia entry - prosopagnosia.  But the psych major in me digresses.

All that said, the face is ultimately where human emotion is expressed.  According to psychologist Paul Ekman (one of my heroes in the field), there are 6 facial expressions that are universal to humans regardless of cultural upbringing and correspond to the following emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and surprise... and capturing these emotions genuinely and powerfully is really what a good portrait is all about.

Another added level of difficulty is that portraits are generally posed and most people develop a sort of anxious air about them while they're waiting and wondering what they look like and if their muffin top or wrinkles or whatever their chosen insecurity is showing.  Thus, as the photographer, I'm simultaneously adjusting aperture, shutter speeds, and composing the photo all while trying to engage the person in conversation to keep them distracted and natural as possible.  No wonder many photographers work with assistants to distract their subjects.

In any case... attempt #1 in portraiture yesterday afternoon was pretty weak by my reckoning.  I still consider these to be snapshots, not real portraits, but at least they're good snapshots of Niki and her pup, Woody!!  Thanks, Niki, for being a willing subject!!

A girl and her dog

Woody, the Wonder Pup!

Woody did not understand our attempt at the latest internet craze of dogbeards

Hours to Date: 14

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Ironically, I didn't actually go see or photograph any of the animals mentioned in the title of this post... the San Diego Zoo sits on 100 acres and I was too tired to hike all of the hills to see everything.  The beauty of having an annual pass is not feeling obligated to spend the entire day there.  I was good with hanging out for a couple of hours. 

Unfortunately, the light was pretty harsh since it was mid-afternoon, so the colors came out kind of harsh and flat, but at least I got some entertainment out of watching animals hang out and do their thing.  Most of the animals were napping in the heat of the day, I'll have to try and make it back to the zoo either very early or later in the day.  I did get to play around with my 50mm-200mm lens, which allowed me to get closer shots of animals that were farther away.

Flamingo chicks are pretty funny looking... little puff balls with fat legs

Naptime!  Takes some kind of balance to sleep like that.

Koalafornia!  Apparently, the San Diego Zoo has the largest herd of Koala outside of Australia

It was pretty warm, so the "drop bears" as they're colloquially known, were mostly napping.

Watching them nap made me sleepy too!!  What a squishy-face.

Show-off.  This bird was squawking up a storm too.

My thoughts immediately after getting this shot: I just took a picture of a flamingo butt.

Rhino - totally reminds me of a stegosaurus

Smiling for the camera

Hours to Date: 13

Following an Impulse

There's something magical about chasing a great idea on the spur of the moment - following something into the unknown and seeing where it takes you.  My entire world has always been governed by plans - planning for my majors in school, planning for my job, planning my life.  Plans certainly get you from Point A to Point B more efficiently than just flying by the seat of your pants (in theory), but sometimes, exercising the willpower and discipline to follow through on a plan is just exhausting and can feel like a chore in itself.

To be sure, I went into this weekend with plenty of plans: beach volleyball, dinner with friends, and errands.  And despite having consistently planned and set aside time to devote to photography for each of the past 3 weekends, I didn't actually go into this past weekend with explicit plans to do any photography at all.

But I literally woke up on Sunday morning with the random desire to go take pictures at Mission San Juan Capistrano... and something about just following that impulse (maybe the instant gratification?) because I wanted to and could... was just so damn satisfying.  Not to mention, I got to give my right brain some exercise and get some creative thinking in, which was much needed after a long week of flexing my left brain.

I love that it's specifically a civil engineering landmark... I wonder if there are others designated around Orange County

Interesting fact I didn't learn during the 4th grade curriculum on missions... Abraham Lincoln actually signed a proclamation in March 1865 which restored ownership of the Mission proper to the Catholic Church after some 20 years being owned by a private owner following a questionable auction

From the other side of the arches - adobe brick really does keep rooms cool during the summer.  Despite fairly hot while I was there, all of the rooms were easily 10-15 degrees cooler

The famous Mission bells

The near bell was damaged during an earthquake in 1812, which also took down The Great Stone Church - pretty incredible to think about what else was going on in the world at the time

One of the arches of The Great Stone Church - didn't see any swallows though (who build their mud nests in the arches), which apparently have been dwindling in number in recent years.  Did meet a nice couple from Argentina who had come to visit since that's where the swallows actually migrate from and got to practice some Spanish with them

Make a wish!

Monster koi in one of the ponds - this little girl threw a cheerio in the pond... not sure cheerios are part of a fish diet but it was funny when the big gold fish unknowingly swam up under the cheerio in the mad dash to eat it

Bloop

Hours to Date: 11 - woooo 0.11% complete!!

New Recipes and a Weak Attempt at Flash Photography

The whole Friday BBQ session totally inspired me to try another take on a summer BBQ classic: pulled pork.  Now, I'm sure all the barbecue purists out there will spend their time arguing and defending their method/sauce/style of choice, be it Tennessee, Carolina, Texas, or Kentucky.  As far as barbecue goes, I'm an equal opportunity eater - I love it all (as I have previously stated, I fully believe barbecue should be its own food group).

But, I wanted a new twist.  A spicy twist.  And a low carb one, now that I'm back on the watching-what-I-eat wagon.

Enter: Korean-inspired Spicy Pulled Pork Tacos topped with a quick cucumber pickle

This photo does not do this justice - I got impatient and just wanted to eat at this point

Cucumbers, pickling away in rice wine vinegar

And a southern-inspired Bubbly Bourbon Mint Sweet Tea to accompany

These photos are all pretty awful - the cucumbers probably came out the best.  This was the first attempt both at using flash and photographing food made in my teeny kitchen.  Given the practically non-existent counter space at my apartment and the awful light, it's no shock to me these came out the way they did.

Also, I just don't focus well on anything when hungry and surrounded by tantalizing food...  But at least the food came out delicious!!  Recipe below, because I hate it when people post something tasty without sharing how to replicate.

Korean Inspired Spicy Pulled Pork Tacos:
Tools: Slow cooker, some mixing bowls, mixing utensils

Pulled Pork:
~2 lbs Pork butt/shoulder
 Sweet Onion
4-5 cloves Garlic
Cayenne Pepper
24oz Root Beer

1. Cut up the onion and garlic and layer half in the bottom of the slowcooker.
2. Coat the pork in cayenne pepper and any other seasonings you want & place in the slowcooker.  Cover with the other half of the chopped up onions/garlic.
3. Pour root beer over all.
4. Cook on LOW for 8 hours or so.
5. Drain off the liquid, remove the onions and garlic (I saved it for toppings later), and shred the pork.

Spicy BBQ Sauce:
2 tbsp Gojuchang (Korean spicy pepper/miso fermented business - found at Asian markets)
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp Sesame Oil
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar

1. Mix the gojuchang, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and 1 tsp of the rice wine vinegar together.  Dunzo!

Quick Cucumber Pickle:
2 Persian Cucumbers (the teeny seedless ones)
Red Onion
Salt
Sesame Seeds
Crushed Red Pepper
Rice Wine Vinegar to coat
1 tbsp Sugar

1. Slice the cucumbers thinly and chop the red onion into a bowl.  Coat with the rice wine vinegar.
2. Add in salt, sugar, crushed red pepper and sesame seeds.
3. Toss and let it sit for half an hour.

Assemble onto a tortilla and try your hardest not to inhale it like a starved hyena.

Bubbly Bourbon Mint Sweet Tea
To be fair, for drinks, I never measure, I just kind of pour until I'm pleased.

~2oz Bourbon (I'm a Maker's girl myself)
~4oz Iced Tea
~4oz Ginger Ale
Fresh Mint
Lime

Mix and pour over ice.  Add a spiffy straw if you're so inclined.  I love drinking out of straws, but apparently the action of drinking out of a straw causes mouth wrinkles over time :( so I've been trying to wean myself of the habit.

Hours to Date: 9

Half Day Friday: Beach, Beer & BBQ

One of the many perks of my job is the ability to take half days on alternate Fridays during the summer, and yesterday, we used it as a reason to throw a going away BBQ for a guy who's going back to school.  I'm pretty sure there is no better way to ring in the summer than with a BBQ at the beach, which I then rounded out with happy hour with a friend who happens to live in San Diego.

The only casualty I incurred was some sunburn because I forgot to reapply sunscreen amidst moving around trying to take quality photos and make up for yesterday's laziness.

Still, despite the potential sunglasses-tan-induced raccoon eyes, added some time to this week and took some action shots instead of still subjects.  Photographing moving things reminds me a lot of skeet shooting... you follow the movement and then pull the trigger at the apex - in this case, once the subject gets into an interesting or visually striking position in the frame.  With the pier that juts into the water near the surfing area, I was at a pretty good angle to catch some surfers doing their thing.

But first, an homage to BBQ, which I'm pretty sure should just be its own food group entirely.

Chicken & hot links: yum, yum, and more yum!

Fall-off-the-bone ribs.

Surfer, f/8 @ 1/500s, with the colors punched up a little in Picasa because the light was kind of bleh

Just about to lose his balance - I love the reflection of his shadow in the water.

Fat pigeon that bullied 2 other pigeons out of the way for this perch - what an asshole. Nikon D3100 f/5.6 @ 1/640s.

Pier, as seen from the beach

If only life decisions were this simple - colors punched up in Picasa

Hours to Date: 8