Senior picture time
I do intend to finish my trip journal at some point… and I also plan to get through my trip pics… somehow. All 36 GB of them. I will. Honest.
Anyway, in the meantime, I had the privilege last Saturday of going down to Old Sac to meet up with a former student (he’s attending a different school for his senior year) to take his senior pictures. I think we spent most of the time making fun of each other, but all in all, it went pretty well. I’m not done with the post-processing yet, but I wanted to toss up a couple that I liked from towards the end of the shoot.
I had so much fun with the light — I couldn’t have asked for better portrait-taking conditions. :-)
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.
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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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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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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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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ChalkItUp!
Ok, I know I promised balloon pictures, but I figured I should stick to chronological order and get these online first. Hence, balloon pictures shall be online sometime in the next few days. (Incidentally, I have quite the backlog of posts to get to–I would like to actually finish my trip to the car museum from, er, last April, and then there’s my trip to the Gladding McBean factory which was incredible, but those pictures haven’t yet made it out of RAW format. And finally, there’s my London/Amsterdam trip from this summer, which is on Flickr, but I’d still like to blog about. So yeah… trying to get everything on here, eventually anyway.)
Last weekend I rode my new (used) bike (my old one was stolen while I was in London) down to ChalkItUp, a street chalk art festival at Fremont Park in downtown Sacramento. I’ve been to I Madonnari in San Luis Obispo several times, and I’ve always loved it, so I was really looking forward to this. While it was nowhere near on the scale of I Madonnari, it was still really neat to see–I absolutely LOVE the colors and watching art come to life like this!
Here’s a few pictures–the rest are at the Flickr gallery here. :-)
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Tools of the day.
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Street chalk artist
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I don't know--what would Scooby do?
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I love these bats. :-)
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It's an egret. Playing a bass. SWEET.
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I absolutely LOVE the color on this one. I SO would hang this on my kitchen wall if I had it in painting form!
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Not only is this awesome for sheer weirdness, but check out the foot shadow.
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I decided to take this next picture:
Neat concentric circles.
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and have fun with a long shutter+zoom. It would have been better if I’d used a tripod instead of handholding the camera, but it still came out neat.
Trippy!
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A few neat old odds and ends
A replica of an 1882 horsecar (streetcar pulled by horses) purchased from 20th Century Fox, used in the movies "Hello, Dolly" and "Cavalcade".
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1909 Wolfe Touring Car.
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Wheel from the 1909 Wolfe Touring Car. Check out the chain drive on this!!
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1908 Ford Model T Touring Car. 1908 was Ford's first year producing the Model T.
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According to the docent I talked to, this was the highest-selling Model T ever a few years ago–I think he said it sold for $73,000. Nice. It’s one of only a handful in existence of this type, apparently. One thing that makes it unique is that it has two pedals and three levers (instead of three pedals–gas, brake, and clutch) and two levers, which Ford switched to shortly after this car was built.
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Gas generator for 1908 Ford Model T headlights.
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From the display:
In the top half of the canister is water and in the bottom there is a screen that holds calcium carbide. Turn the valve and let the water drip on the carbide crystals at about 90 drips per minute. This forms highly flammable acetylene gas. It also creates a stinky foamy mess inside the can. During the chemical reaction, the gas is released. It builds up pressure and flows through the tubing to the headlights. Quickly, you open the doors of the headlights and ignite the lights with a match.
Everything works just fine for a while. Then, pretty soon the stinky, foamy mess will start through the tubing also, eventually plugging the little holes in the headlight burners. In the dark, you will have to poke a wire around to open the holes again so that the gas can come through and the lights can be lit again! If the water and carbide last, and the system stays clean and unplugged, you have lights for a while. A lot of trouble, but worth the thrill of motoring!
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1906 Ford Model K Touring Car
Like I mentioned yesterday, over the course of the next few days, I’ll be posting some pictures I took of the classic cars at the California Auto Museum this past Saturday. Normally I’ll mix things up, like I did yesterday, but today I’m sticking with only one car, because someone said that it made his week to see the engine of this car, and I thought I’d put pictures of it online for him.
As I happened to be wandering through the museum, a nice gentlemen asked the docent to open up the hood of this car so he could take a look, and I happened to be right there and popped in for a picture. He asked me to email me a copy, so I gave him one of the Moo MiniCards I had made with my website address on it, and told him I’d put it online. I can’t remember your name, sir, but please email me if you need me to send you this picture–I’d be more than happy to do so!
After I took this engine picture (more difficult than it sounds because of the lighting in the museum), I took a few more pictures of this car, because it was just a really neat car. As always, click on these pictures if you want a larger version.
Engine on a 1906 Ford Model K Touring Car.
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Text from the display:
This 1906 Ford Model K made its debut as a true luxury car. Henry Ford never cared for the car as building it was the desire of his business partner, Alexander Malcomson, who wanted to build expensive, luxurious cars for wealthy customers. Ford eventually bought out his partner and turned his attention to smaller, less-expensive cars. The Model K, selling for $2500, was built at the same time as the much Smaller Model N, which sold for $500.
The K roadster was guaranteed to reach 60mph, which would have taken courage given the roads and tires of the time. Its great weight, cost, and persistent problems with the transmission, combined with Henry Ford’s dislike for the car led to ending its production in early 1908. The Model K was the first six-cylinder Ford, and the last until just before WWII. Only 11 of the 867 Model K touring cars remain today. This car is one of only two known to have its original body, a style called “Victorian” or “Tulip”. A lighter and faster model, called the “Gentleman’s Roadster”, was also available.
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1906 Ford Model K Touring Car.
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When I look at this car, I can’t help but break into song. Come on, tell me this doesn’t make you think of the musical “Oklahoma”… You all know what I’m talking about, right?
…right?
…no?!?!
…sigh. Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself? Ok, here goes…
All the world’ll fly in a flurry
When I take you out in the surrey,
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top!
There, now do you know what I’m talking about?
Ok, back to the pictures.
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Closer up shot of the cab area. Check out the horn and the two shift levers (? I think that's what they are?)
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And now a few detail shots…
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Front wheel.
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Top of a headlight
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Headlight/spotlight. Look at the wood! It's so beautiful!
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It’s classic cars week here at HowISeeLife.com!
Today I went to the California Auto Museum downtown for a photography workshop, where I was fortunate to spend several hours there having fun looking at the gorgeous cars and talking to one of the docents. While I don’t really care about a car’s performance (well, except the one I’m driving!) I’m a sucker for body styling, especially of classic cars. I think I have a slight obsession with anything related to transportation (hence the train pictures I feel compelled to take, and why I love sitting and watching airplanes.)
Anyway, over the next week or so, I’m going to be posting some of the pictures I took, with links to more on my Flickr. Tonight I’m going to start off with the few I took at the outdoors portion of the workshop, where they took three classic cars outside for us to experiment with. Unfortunately, since they were outside, I don’t have much in the way of details about what the cars were. I was able to look up make, model, and year for two of the three, but I’m not entirely sure about the first one (other than that it’s a Ford, which is pretty obvious.) If you know more about this than me, help me out here–take a peek at their inventory list and see which one you think it is. :-) A few more pictures are available in my Flickr gallery of pictures from today, and I’ll be putting more up there as the week progresses. :-)
Driver's side of an old Ford
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Old Ford
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Back in the days when trunks were trunks.
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Logo from a 1951 Ford Crestliner
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1951 Ford Crestliner
They don't make 'em like this anymore
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I love the lines on this. Beautiful.
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Are we there yet? (I was trying to go for the feel of what it would have been like to be a kid sitting in the back seat of this car taking a road trip. Don't know if it worked or not.)
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Dashboard.
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1967 Chevy Camaro convertible
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Welcome to California
Take a minute to look at the lovely tranquil scene… people camping in a green field late in the golden sunlight of late afternoon. Peaceful, no?
Tents in a meadow.
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For no reason other than literary promotion, I’ve decided to share with you some excerpts from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Or wait, maybe I did have a reason. In any case, if you want to read the whole chapter the following excerpts are from, click on this link (warning – it’s a PDF file.)
The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop. And the men of knowledge have worked, have considered, and the fruit is rotting on the ground, and the decaying mash in the wine vats is poisoning the air…
Let’s zoom out a bit on that earlier scene, shall we? Same golden afternoon. I decided to take advantage of the fact that, because of the time change, it’s now still light out when I get home from work, so I set out to watch the sun set over the Sacramento skyline (and hopefully take a lovely sunset picture.)
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This is a tent camp three blocks from my house, located off of the Sacramento Northern Bikeway near the American River and downtown Sacramento. That's the Blue Diamond Almond Factory in the background.
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This little orchard will be a part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.
This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries too. And four pears peeled and cut in half, cooked and canned, still cost fifteen cents. And the canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years.
More tents on the left.
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The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hands over the State like a great sorrow. The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up…
Click on this one for the larger version. I was just up on this hill a few months ago and this wasn't here.
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A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene spayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
More tents.
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There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates—died of malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
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Here’s a link to a photo gallery of a 1936 tent city in the EXACT SAME PLACE.
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
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In case you’re curious, here are a bunch more links, including an MSNBC photo essay on this exact tent city.
- MSNBC photo essay
- Blog post
- Oprah talks about them
- UK Telegraph article
- UK Daily Mirror article
- Calculating unemployment stats accurately
- California’s surging unemployment
- Local news article
- Another blog post
- Still another blog post
- One last blog post
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Signs you don’t want to see on one of your favorite restaurants [cameraphone shot]
So I went after church this morning to my favorite dim sum restaurant for some Sunday morning dim sum… Whoops. [Click on the picture to enlarge it if you can't read the sign.]
Bummer.
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And now the warped part of me wants to know which one it was–insects or rodents.
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Wandering about town last Saturday
(This post is brought to you by They Might Be Giants. For why, check out the last picture in this post.)
Last Saturday was the Sacramento stage of the 2009 AMGEN Tour of California, and as it was happening less than a mile from my house, I figured I’d amble on down there and take a peek. As Saturday’s weather was chilly and windy and there was the threat of rain, I didn’t stay too long, but I did have a nice time wandering around while I was out. I was hoping to get a picture of Lance Armstrong, but alas, I showed up at 12 and Lance didn’t get there until almost 4, and I didn’t feel like hanging around that long. And he probably doesn’t like us all that much anymore anyway, given that while he was here, his bike was stolen. Whoops.
I took my time wandering around downtown, and on my way home, I decided to detour down the bike trail toward the river a ways, then I walked home through the alleys rather than on the main streets. It was quite nice–this town is infinitely more interesting in the alleys than on the main streets, I think.
Wall mural.
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I really needed a wider-angle lens for this one.
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During warm-ups.
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Not so mellow yellow.
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He has jelly beans on his jersey!
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I must still be five years old, because I get a kick out of when the train engineer waves to me. :-)
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Fun with reflections.
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The old (Victorian house) reflected in the new (modern building).
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I got waved to TWICE today!
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Train crossing.
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Don't eat the berries!
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Cattail along the bike trail.
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Seen in a window in an alley between C and D somewhere between 20th and 27th Streets.
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Dumpster kitty.
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Blossoms.
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"Make a little birdhouse in your soul..."
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[More pictures in the Downtown Sacramento set on Flickr]
