We interrupt these trip pictures to bring you a magazine cover!
Back in May, I got my first paid photography job — photographing some San Francisco-related things for a cover and the cover story for the magazine The Bourbon Review. Go me! Here’s a link to the article (opens a PDF)–the pictures on pages 1, 4, and 6 are mine, as is the shoreline one on page 5. SWEET!! Many thanks to Josh, who offered me the chance to do this!! :-)
Summer 2010 cover. Josh, is this where I get in my dig about being right about lining the picture up horizontally rather than vertically? ;-)
The urban forest in which I live
The urban forest in which I live, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
When I first moved to Sacramento, I must have heard at least a dozen times the statement that this is the second most treed city in the world after Paris. I don’t know how true that is, but I like driving past downtown on the freeway and looking down into the city and seeing a sea of green, and, even more, I like living downtown, in the midst of that sea of green. I love the flowering trees in the spring, the shade in the summer, the fall color, and even the bare skeletal shapes in the winter. It’s crowded and raucous and dirty and parking stinks, but it’s home.
I live in an urban forest: vibrant, dense, and full of life, and I love it. I may not always stay here, but for now I can’t imagine living anywhere else, and I’ll miss it this summer when I’m gone.
Herbie goes to Sacramento
Y’all seen the Herbie movies? The REAL ones, not the cheezy knock-off from a few years back? I always loved those movies.
I’ve seen this car on my way home from work a handful of times, but I’ve never been able to get a picture of it before. Today two fortunate events conspired to help me finally get a picture — I happened to get right behind it on a one-lane road, and the one stoplight on that road turned red just as we got there. OMG WIN.
Herbie the Love Bug
This one is tiny and grainy because (a) I took the picture in my side-view mirror after I'd already passed it, (b) I cropped the heck out of it, and (c) I flipped it so that it wasn't reversed (from being taken in the mirror.) Awesome. :-)
Sunlight through a stained glass window at SeaTac airport
Yeah, sun. In Seattle, even. Who'd have thought? Seriously though, I just wanted to stand and bask in the loveliness that was the warm sun coming through that window. So so beautiful.
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9:15 PM: Late rainy evening looking east over the Puget Sound
No picture can do justice to the quality of light, or the cool evening air, or the gentle rain, or the peace of this place. So you’ll just have to use your imagination. It’s beautiful here, y’all.
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Ok, so maybe we got a bit carried away with the strawberry shortcake…
- This is what happens when I don’t use a recipe and start dumping in ingredients. It tasted great… but I don’t think any of us finished our shortcakes — waaay too much food!! Such a fun evening though!! :-D
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Apricots, strawberries, cherries, and kettle corn — it doesn’t get much more summery than this
This is my haul from today's farmer's market. More than any other fruit, apricots represent summer to me. Not sure why that is, but they do. :-)
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Art in neon
Neon sign on the MAARS building a couple of blocks from me, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
This is a sign on the MAARS building a couple of blocks from my apartment. I’ve been meaning to take a picture of this sign ever since I moved to this town–there’s something I really like about it. Even when it’s light out, it still looks neat.
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I love Tower Bridge
(Pssst — go to the main page of my blog and check out my new header pics, then leave a comment here letting me know what you think!) :-)
One of Sacramento’s more distinct landmarks is the lovely art deco Tower Bridge, which spans the Sacramento River and leads to the state Capitol building. While I’ve driven across it, I for some reason never got around to actually walking or riding over it to take pictures. Now that I’ve finally gotten that new used* wide-angle lens that I’ve wanted (it’s the same one I rented for my trip to Rome last fall) I figured it was a good excuse to go and take bridge pictures, so I played hooky from work for a couple of hours yesterday morning and rode my bike dolwn there to get some lovely morning light pictures. And then I rode down there again this evening to get some lovely nighttime shots. Now I just need to go down at sunset — the bridge really glows at sunset, and I want to get a few pictures of that. I think that this is my second favorite downtown thing to photograph, after the Capitol building.
*I’ve been looking for this lens used on Craigslist ever since I got back from Rome. While it’s fairly common in the Nikon mount, it’s darned near impossible to find in the Canon mount, AND forget trying to get it new — it’s ALWAYS backordered everywhere, unless you want to pay an exorbitant (33%!) markup. Ummm, how ’bout NO. I’ve bid on eBay auctions before, and FINALLY won one…
Anyway, well, these aren’t the pictures I took with my new lens. Those will be forthcoming though, at some point. These were taken with my cameraphone, since I like how it looks and I like being able to post pictures so easily. As you can see, I had some fun with the sketch filter in the photoediting program on my camera for one of the pics… good times. :-)
Tower Bridge glowing in the Friday morning sunlight
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Fun with the sketch filter
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Just after sunset earlier this evening
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Eerie, dreamy reflection
Reflection on a window in downtown Sacramento during Second Saturday on May 8th, 2010.
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Fire dancing
I took some pictures of the fire dancer at Second Saturday a couple of nights ago–she was using a hula hoop internally lit by colored LEDs that had flaming wands attached to it. She was absolutely AMAZING. More pictures are in the gallery here. Oh, and these were intentionally long exposures–I wanted a motion blur. However, I had my 50mm lens on the camera, and I wanted a shallow depth-of-field, so I ended up at ISO 100 and overexposing them just to get the shutter speed down low enough to capture what I wanted, since that lens can practically see in the dark at its low end (f/1.4) and it was still too fast to get what I wanted. Thank goodness for being able to drop the exposure in post-processing. :-)
This is my favorite shot of the bunch, and I knew it the second I took it. Not sure how I did... sometimes that just happens.
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She looks like she's having so much fun... Not sure I'd be having a good time with a fiery hula hoop, but she was a pleasure to watch.
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I love the clarity of this shot and the look of rapt concentration on her face. Not bad given that I had my left elbow crooked and my left hand holding onto my right shoulder, with my camera propped on my outstretched elbow to use it as a tripod of sorts.
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The neck, the neck, the neck is on fire... (sorry, song reference... it's not that obscure, is it?)
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Long exposure meant that it looks like she has multiple sets of arms. So so so neat.
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Neighborhood night life
I never thought I’d enjoy living downtown in a large largish city, but know what? I really really do. Yeah, I hate it when the garbage truck shows up at 5:00 in the morning to empty the dumpster in the alley behind my bedroom. I’m not a big fan of the hipsters that hang out all day outside the business next door, sitting on the ground and smoking. And parking can really stink sometimes.
But there’s always something interesting going on–I always find something or someone to observe, and photograph when I can. I love my runs around the Capitol. I love being close to everything. Having so much life right outside my door more than makes up for the 5AM garbage truck, and while I know I don’t want to stay living in the middle of everything forever, it’s a heck of a lot of fun right now.
Tonight John and I went and wandered around Second Saturday for a bit. It probably would have been longer, but I seemed to have somehow pulled a muscle in my foot (I did a 5K this morning, but I don’t think it was that–not sure how I managed the injury!) and after about 15 blocks, I couldn’t put weight on it anymore. Meh.
Anyway, I had an absolutely lovely time during the time we did get out of the house… and it was even better when I realized that for the next Second Saturday, I’ll be in Croatia. SWEET.
Some video and pics from tonight:
Sorry this one is sideways–neither Flickr nor my phone will let me rotate it, and I’m too lazy to find a video-editing program just for this. :-p
Part of a group of musicians playing a block from my apartment. I love the shadow here.
Bass time.
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Quintessence of a spring evening in Sacramento
The Capitol at sunset, again
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Scenes from tonight’s run
First Capitol lap
Kids in identical t-shirts
Racing on the lawn
Taking pictures of the dome
Castle and children vivid gold in the setting sun.
Second lap
Kids herded to their bus
Waiting at my end of the block.
A few bolted to it
I sprinted toward them
We slapped hands as we passed
Laughing in the gloaming ether
Faces luminous in the fading light.
What a piece of work is this
The lovely quintessence of a spring evening.
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Some voices I could recognize anywhere
Totally randomly I ended up with a free ticket tonight to see Arlo Guthrie in concert at UC Davis. I grew up with both of my parents playing tapes (and then CDs, and now mp3s) of his music, and I’ve a huge soft spot in my music heart for him, but for some reason it never occurred to me that I might someday get to see him perform live.
So tonight when he came out on stage and started talking and then playing, there was something almost surreal about it. His voice sounds a bit different than on the mp3s I have of him from the early 80s — a bit deeper and more raspy… I guess older? He’s not *that* old! But at the same time, it’s the same familiar voice. I kept closing my eyes to listen to him so that I could focus on the sound and not be distracted by the visual. So in a way I guess it’s fitting that I did a lousy job aiming my phone when I was taking the video, so I don’t actually have any image? Also, sorry about the songs skipping a bit — my phone’s started to do that ever since the last firmware update, and I don’t know why.
I had such a lovely evening. Thank you so much for the ticket, Will — it was really a treat. :-)
Click here for the video for “Trainwreck At Los Gatos”
Click here for the video of “City of New Orleans”
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Fun with filters, again
When I take pictures with my cameraphone, I generally open them up in PicSayPro, an image-editing app for Android phones (I have the Motorola Droid) and do a bit of adjusting, mostly for temperature/white balance and tint (my phone tends to take pictures a bit on the bluish/greenish side.) Given the fact that (a) it’s a program on a cell phone, and (b) it cost all of $3, I can do some fun stuff with it (like this picture I took of my niece last Christmas.)
Anyway, PicSayPro has a ton of neat filters that I keep thinking I want to use, but then I almost never do. I’ll play with them, and then decide I want a more realistic look. I don’t know why… that’s just how I roll, I guess.
But in an effort to break out of the “realistic” rut and do something different, I took a picture of a random decoration on the side of a parking garage a couple blocks from my house, and then I dinked around with the filters. (You might remember I did something similar a couple of months ago… that was the same program as I used for these.) The results were kind of fun… not something I’d do all the time, but it was a good way to spend the 20 minutes I spent fiddling with them. :-)
This is the original shot
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Inverted.
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Neonified.
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Messing around with the hue...
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Heat map. Kinda fun!
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Cross-processed, then I upped the saturation and contrast.
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Rainbowized. :-)
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Scenes from a run
I finally decided a couple of weeks ago to get off my lazy behind and start running again. It’s been far too long, and I really don’t have an excuse not to. And I can’t wuss out after a week, since Darryl goaded me into doing the Race for the Cure on May 8th. I always forget how good I feel when I finish (ok, most of the time anyway) but I’ve discovered a new bonus to running–enjoying the lovely spring evenings in Downtown Sacramento. Now if only I’d remember to put on mosquito repellent before I go out…
The front of the Capitol at sunset
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Dogwoods at the Capitol
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Milo the Screech Owl
Milo the Screech Owl, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
This little cutie is Milo, a Western Screech Owl and a resident at the Discovery Museum of Sacramento. John’s nephews (ages 9 and 11) spent the night last night, and since it was pouring rain today and we didn’t want to do anything outside, we took them to the museum instead. It was a fun afternoon. :-)
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Threat Matrix
I have a bad habit of flipping off inanimate objects when I’m irritated with them. And since I’m weird and like to chronicle random moments, I’m slowly accruing a small gallery of pictures of me flipping things off.
This prompted a friend today to tease me about it, asking me if I was going to flip him off over a joking remark he made. I happened to be at my desk at the time, waiting for a student who ultimately didn’t show up for her appointment… and since I didn’t feel like working on the mound of paperwork I have to do, I opted to do this instead.
This is a quick and dirty Microsoft Word version of the Homeland Security threat level chart. I would have much preferred Adobe Illustrator, but beggars can’t be choosers… and besides, I would have spent way too much time in Illustrator tweaking things, and I did have to do paperwork at some point.
Anyway, so in case you wondered what it takes for me to flip something off, wonder no further. :-)
(And for those who wondered, his remark only earned a threat level of green, or “Stony Silence.” Sorry Josh – you’ll have to try harder next time.) :-D
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Full moon over a Midtown mural
Full moon over a Midtown mural, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I’m actually using this as a test post–I’ve got someone helping me fix a couple of broken things on my website, so this is to see if that works or not. Carry on, not much to see here. :-)
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My bedroom windows, looking straight out of a 1930s film noir
The geometry of my open bedroom window and the wall beyond, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I was able to open my bedroom window for the first time EVER last night.
This may not seem like a big thing, but when I first moved into this apartment, NONE of the windows opened. Between the million coats of paint in the wooden sills, the broken sash ropes, and the fact that the building had settled over the years, it was pretty much a lost cause. I chiseled open the bathroom window out of desperation about a month in, but other than that, the only source of ventilation was the open front door… and my bedroom is in the very back of a long, narrow apartment.
Earlier this week, my landlord finally sent over a handyman to fix the windows (something about it, oh, NOT BEING UP TO CODE.) Granted, the building has settled so much that he was only able to open windows along one wall (the one with the lovely view of the concrete block wall)–in order to get the other ones open, the whole wall would have to be ripped open and the windows themselves would have to be replaced. Bummer. But anyway, last night at 8PM it was still about 70F outside, so I decided it was the perfect night to sleep with my windows open.
It was the greatest thing EVER.
As an aside, I had fun playing with photo filters on this picture (using an in-camera program called Vignette.) I like the geometry on this shot. :-)
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Bookshelf at Borders
Books on the shelf at Borders. I read in a photography book that you’re always ten meters from ten good pics. I found one. :-), originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I went to browse the photography books, and in one of them I read that you’re always ten meters from ten good pics. So I started looking around. It wasn’t easy–the bookstore’s lighting was flat and fluorescent and it was your standard chain bookstore. So I decided to play with the neat symmetry of the shelves vs. the chaos of the books on the shelves… and I still wasn’t happy. So it was time yet again to play with the photo editing app on my phone. Fun stuff. :-)
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Oil drops on wet pavement
Cool pictures of mundane things: oil drops on the parking lot at my bank, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I stopped at the bank today and saw this and had to stop in the middle of the parking lot to take the picture. I think the people walking by thought I was a bit odd… Oh well–it was cool!! And since when do I care about people thinking I’m strange? Seriously now. :-)
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Fun with my cameraphone and in-phone processing
I know I’ve been totally MIA lately with regards to this blog. I’ve been working on a HUGE report project for work, and I’ve routinely been putting in 14+ hour days. Yes, I’m getting paid extra for this–it’s going in my trip fund for this summer. And it’s an interesting project–frustrating, but challenging. I thought we were done a couple of times already, but alas, no… but it’s just about there. Have to finish up a few little things this weekend, then it’s going to the printer on Monday, getting bound, and getting mailed off to the people who it’s for. Good times.
Anyway, last night I took a short walk because I needed to get out before I went crazy, and I took a picture with my phone of a neon sign on a car repair place around the corner from me. I’ve been meaning to photograph it for a while since I think it’s kind of a neat sign, and eventually I’ll get back out there with my “real” camera, but I thought this little experiment would be fun for now.
The first shot is the original one I took, and the successive shots are different processing methods done with an app on my phone called PicSayPro. Feel free to click on the title of this post and scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment voting on which one is your favorite–I’d really appreciate it! :-)
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Original shot.
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Duotone.
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Duotone again, but this time I dropped the exposure and upped the contrast.
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Posterized.
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Inverted.
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Cross-processed.
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Sepia and then cross-processed.
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So… favorites? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom to comment. :-)
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2009 in review
2009 was, pretty much without a doubt, the best and craziest year of my life. It wasn’t the easiest, but I had ridiculous amounts of fun living it.
Snapshots:
I acquired a number of colorful shirts while playing on several kickball and dodgeball teams in the winter, spring, and summer.
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Early April found me on the slopes, taking pictures of a coworker’s son snowboarding in exchange for a free lift ticket and rental, and also managing to hurt myself pretty badly after doing a faceplant into a mountain. Whoops.
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Later in the month, I headed to the California Auto Museum for a photo workshop, and lots of drooling over lovely classic cars.
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In May, I went to the Gladding, McBean factory with a photo group to take lots of pretty pictures.
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June brought my school’s graduation, which I had a really good time photographing.
Graduation.
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In September, I was a fairly busy bee. Besides the school year gearing up, I went on a number of adventures:
I jumped out of a plane,
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went to the Reno Balloon Races,
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and hit up the Sacramento Zoo a second year in a row for their free zoo day.
Om nom nom nom.
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Travel:
I also got to satisfy my itchy travel feet a bit in 2009! In August I went to London… and I just now realized that I never did write blog posts up on that trip… whoops!
To be fair, I wasn’t really thrilled with most of my pictures. Alas.
Fountain in Trafalgar Square.
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On the same trip, I also went to Amsterdam.
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In November, I went on an absolutely awesome trip to Italy with two of my favorite people.
Colosseum at sunset.
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Two weirdos.
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And last but not least, I bought a ticket to fly to Dublin next summer, on the first leg of a trip I’ve wanted to take more or less since I was 16:
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Death and Life:
In June, I had to say goodbye to my kitty, Stein. I miss him tons.
Stein and his pet ferret.
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Because life just isn’t the same without a cat hogging the bed, I decided it’d take two beasties to compensate for Stein. So I adopted two feral kittens–Jem and Scout.
They're considerably larger than this now--that's a one-cat window these days.
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I think that’s more or less it for 2009! In my next post, I’ll post what I felt were my best shots of 2009.
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