Click on an image to see the full picture.
20030328 (Friday) Tire, Santa Monica
Another good picture.
I like the textures of man-made things sitting on concrete. Makes for good black-and-white photos.
20030327 (Thursday) Pallets, Los Angeles
Pallets. Near my apartment. I don't know why. There are not any warehouses anywhere around.
But it made for a good picture.
20030326 (Wednesday) Dog Biscuits, Santa Monica
This is one of those pictures that I look at and say, "I hope I took another picture that day!"
Unfortunately, the other picture is worse.
Because it is very difficult to discern, this is a photograph of dog biscuits scattered on a small fence.
I don't know why. I only take the pictures.
20030325 (Tuesday) Shoe, Santa Monica
I have an awful lot of pictures of shoes and other discarded articles of clothing.
And I seem to like most of them, too.
I like this one.
20030324 (Monday) Couple Binders, Santa Monica
Bizarre trash by dumpsters never fail to fascinate me.
I have no idea what this is. I didn't care to touch it. And the truth would probably have been every bit as boring as the photo turned out.
20030323 (Sunday) No Stopping Any Time, Los Angeles
Street sign. Boring.
I do like the etherial quality of the trees, and wish I had just taken a picture of them.
20030322 (Saturday) Turtles, Los Angeles
I love this facade on an art gallery near West Hollywood. I don't know if it is intentional or not, but the turtles look like their heads move around, depending on the time of day (and, presumably, lighting).
And I really like how this photo turned out. Though, if it were not against my guidelines for this project, I would crop out the sky above and uncovered building below the turtles. You can imagine what it would look like.
20030321 (Friday) Shirt, Santa Monica
I guess this typifies the sort of picture I wanted to take - transitory.
Though in this case, it doesn't make for that compelling a picture.
20030320 (Thursday) Caster, Santa Monica
This shows what I like about this camera so much. The blurring towards the edges almost give the illusion of motion - zooming in on the subject.
One of the things that I sometimes (but only sometimes) hate about the camera is not being able to accurately focus, especially at short distances. Such as shown by this photograph, which gives me a headache if I look at it too long.
Unfortunately, this was the only photo I took on this day.
20030319 (Wednesday) That Means You, Santa Monica
The Santa Monica Big Blue Bus system posts their schedules at bus stops all over town.
To prevent theft or destruction, they encase them in plastic housings.
But they only mess up the housings now.
20030318 (Tuesday) Squeegee, Santa Monica
This thing was just sitting there in the middle of the sidewalk.
No gas stations or homeless people anywhere in sight.
20030317 (Monday) Shoe, Santa Monica
It's a shoe.
This turned out much better than I expected.
20030316 (Sunday) Starbucks Bottle, North Hollywood
Apparently, it isn't bad enough that Starbucks has to serve drinks in non-reuseable cardboard cups - now they have to introduce glass bottles. Bottles which are probably not refillable.
Not much of a photo, however.
20030315 (Saturday) Rain, Los Angeles
I hate the rain. It makes getting photographs difficult.
So I took this from my door. But this photo overlapped the previous one. This is all I was able to pull out of it, so this picture ended up non-square.
20030314 (Friday) Everything Must Go, Santa Monica
What can I say about this?
It's a sign for a garage sale.
Everything must go.
20030313 (Thursday) Carl's, Santa Monica
I don't know why I like this picture so much.
I like the tone of it, though it seems very much like an advertisement in retrospect.
20030312 (Wednesday) Mess, Santa Monica
This is without question the worst photograph I have ever taken.
It is actually a gummi bear, and if it were in focus, it might be a mildly interesting photo.
Why didn't I take another photo this day? I really wish I didn't have to put this up here.
20030311 (Tuesday) Car Park, Santa Monica
I'm not entirely sure why I took this photo.
I think I was trying to capture the dent on the car on the upper ramp.
In many ways, this epitomizes Los Angeles to me.
20030310 (Monday) Car Part?, Santa Monica
I have no idea what this is. But I like the photo.
20030309 (Sunday) Lego Maniac, Carlsbad, California
Had Legoland been open when I was a kid, I would have given anything to go. I would probably have forgone a trip to Disneyland for it.
Even after it opened, I somehow never managed to go. I think I feared feeling like some creepy pedophile going there alone as a grown man. But now that I have a girlfriend, it doesn't seem so weird, so long as we go together.
It is a pretty amazing place. As a theme park based on a toy, it is somewhat predictable. Big Legos. Little Legos. There are some pretty impressive displays.
This Technic dinosaur belongs to the big category.
I like how menacing it is, particularly given that it breathes smoke.
20030308 (Saturday) JIIS MH229, San Diego
There is a place in San Diego called Dishwasher Pond.
Really. They have a sign and everything.
The story I was told involved a dishwashing machine somehow making its way into the middle of the pond. Sounds a tad dubious to me, but regardless of whether or not this is true, there is no dishwasher there now.
There are, however, a variety of things to look at on the paths around the place. Some of them I have no idea of what they are, such as this one.
20030307 (Friday) Parking Meter, Santa Monica
Not to thrilled with this one, though I guess it turned out okay, if a little blurry.
I like that someone felt okay with disposing of their bubblewrap on this parking meter.
30 Seconds To Mars is a band that includes actor Jared Leto. These stickers are plastered all over this part of Santa Monica. The album is supposed to be good, but I'm sick of all these stickers, so I haven't been able to bring myself to give it a listen yet.
20030306 (Thursday) Chair, Santa Monica
Another photo I really like. Its all about the texture. I also like the surreal quality of the chair just sitting there, abused and abandoned.
20030305 (Wednesday) Television, West Hollywood
And then there's this photo, which I'm not really fond of - at least in terms of the light. It was pretty late in the evening when I took it, and it has created a flat, dull image.
I took the photo because a television on the sidewalk touches on a few things I find fascinating. Mostly, I am fascinated by the things that people will throw away. This TV seemed to be in good shape, so I am presuming that it works just fine. And that presumption leads to my next fascination - that people will throw things like this away even though we live in a very materialistic society.
20030304 (Tuesday) It's Miller Time, Los Angeles
On the other hand, I really like this photo. It's got a nice texture that's not overpowering. The can is almost perfectly centered (which is very difficult given the nature of the viewfinder on this camera) - normally a compositional tactic I try to avoid, but the parking space dividing line rather nicely provides a more interesting composition and is perfectly positioned. And I like how the light seems to spotlight the subject, which is mostly a function of the lens on the Holga.
I did not stage this picture, by the way. Someone decided to leave their beer can right on one of the lines of the parking spot behind my apartment, and I thought it looked interesting.
20030303 (Monday) Graffiti Board, Los Angeles
I hate this picture.
I'm sorry to have to show it to you, but it was the only one I took that day.
20030302 (Sunday) To All Of Our Valued Customers, West Hollywood
But to anyone who doesn't shop here: make all the noise you want.
20030301 (Saturday) Train Arriving At The Station, Travel Town, Los Angeles
Okay, the train is not moving, but this picture reminds me of the Lumiere brothers film by that name.
20030228 (Friday) Caution!, Santa Monica
Well, sure. Every caution sign ought to have a fragment of clothing attached to it.
20030227 (Thursday) Homework, Santa Monica
I almost wish the piece of paper weren't there. But then, I wouldn't have noticed enough to take the picture. But I like the color of the flowers, and their interplay with the cement.
20030226 (Wednesday) Street Lamp, Santa Monica
They're a little hard to see, but there is a pair of shoes hanging from this street lamp, which is why I took the photo.
20030225 (Tuesday) Attention, Dog Owners, Los Angeles
Now here is a person with remarkable faith in the overall intelligence and reasonableness of their fellow man.
The cynic in me doubts that the sign works all that well, but then I didn't see any signs otherwise.
20030224 (Monday) You'll Heart This Place, Santa Monica
Oh, you say that about all the houses, I bet.
200302223 (Sunday) Shoe Repair, West Hollywood
This building is on the corner of the street. And as far as I can tell, there is no shop around the corner.
20030222 (Saturday) Bread Crumbs, West Hollywood
They don't do any good all piled up on one place like that. They have to mark your trail if they are going to help you get back again.
20030221 (Friday) Candle Box, Santa Monica
Used candles, from the looks of it. Though some are candles that one could refill, they are still thrown into the trash (or on the ground beside the trash container).
20030220 (Thursday) Man Cleaning Clock, Santa Monica
Okay, I know you can't see it, but there is indeed a man on a window-washer scaffold on the clock on the very top of this building.
I assume he's cleaning it, but I suppose he could have been working on it, too.
20030219 (Wednesday) Branch, Santa Monica
This is one of my favorite sights in Santa Monica right now.
It is also one of my favorite photographs in a while.
I have no idea how the branch got there - I assume a storm was involved.
Well, it feels like a while, even though the last photo I wrote that for was taken just over a week before this one, as I wrote that entry months ago.
Both photos share a spectoral quality that I seem to like quite a bit.
20030218 (Tuesday) Winston, Santa Monica
Winston is 14 years old, I think. He's very friendly.
I also suspect he's deaf, as he is very easy to sneak up on.
20030217 (Monday) Do They Owe Us A Living?, Santa Monica
Found messages are always interesting, but this one was wonderful. I found it sticking out of a recycling bin in an alley.
I can't really make out the top part. But the bottom half was particularly nice: "Do they owe us a living? No!"
20030216 (Sunday) Stencil, West Hollywood
West Hollywood is known for one particular demographic, but it is also home to a concentration of another population: Russians.
I don't know if this has anything to do with this bit of street art or not, but it seems to.
20030215 (Saturday) Baby Seat, Eagle Rock
I guess the kid grew up and didn't need it anymore.
20030214 (Friday) Angel, West Hollywood
This is what I love about photography: you can be standing there, seeing something great, like a hanging plaster angel (as in the circumstances which led to this picture), but when you look at the photograph you take of it later, that thing that made you take the picture may be invisible.
I love this because it means that taking a photograph forces a new perspective on the world. It allows you, for that fraction of a second, to see the world through a different set of eyes.
The human eye is a wonderful thing, capable of so much more than even the most technically advanced camera. Taking a photograph means making choices about what will be shown and what will be hidden. This happens not only in the framing and perspective, but also in the limitations of what the camera can register in terms of light and color. When I point a camera at something, I see one thing, but the camera will take a different picture.
One thing the human eye is great at is focusing in on details and ignoring the rest. This is probably to avoid information overload (a very bad thing when one is in a life-threatening situation). It is possible that no two people something the same way because of this. Photography is the opportunity to freeze a subject so that everyone will see it the same way. The skill of the photographer lies not only in exposure, framing, &c., but also in knowing how to make the camera select the very aspect of a subject that they see through their eyes.
It is this selectiveness of the camera, producing images necessary different from what one sees with the eyes in their head, that makes photography a potentially transcendent act.
Is this transcendence possible when one can view the resulting photograph while, or even before taking it? Perhaps, but I believe that the effect is diminished. When one can see exactly the photo to be taken on an LCD screen, there is no surprise. The selectiveness is known. The challenge and skill of getting what one wants has been removed (to some extent).
This might be overdramatizing the situation, but this is part of my dislike for digital cameras. In a way, digital photography means the death of transcendental photography. And that is a sad thing.
(Although, I was playing with a digital camera recently, and under extreme situations, the unpredictable results were exciting in the very way I describe above, only the feedback was more immediate. So perhaps there is a future here.)
20030213 (Thursday) Cloud, Santa Monica
Heartened by the last attempt to photograph the sky, I tried again with this rather dramatic cloud.
20030212 (Wednesday) Rain Spout, Los Angeles
It does not rain often in Los Angeles. When it does, everything goes to Hell. Literally.
I hate the rain personally. And I was worrying what I would do for a photo on rainy days. Fortunately, it all worked out and I managed to stay dry while taking my pictures.
This is taken from under an overhang in my car port.
20030211 (Tuesday) 34/32, Santa Monica
This is one of my favorite pictures in a while.
I have no idea what this tag is for, or how it came to lay on the sidewalk in Santa Monica.
If the spray paint rectangle was a frame, you couldn't have placed the mystery tag any better.
And I wasn't even trying to get the "frame" in the photo, either.
20030210 (Monday) Butterfly Thing, Santa Monica
I'm not sure what this thing is. The bulb has liquid in it, but it's not a feeder.
20030209 (Sunday) Two Hour Parking, Somewhere In Southern California
Okay, this looks like it was taken near work. So I must have been working this weekend. Humbug.
I'm pretty sure the cart was there more than two hours. The cops must have not given it a ticket because they couldn't find the windshield wiper.
20030208 (Saturday) Somewhere In Southern California
I really don't remember where I took this picture. It looks like it was taken near the office, but I don't spend my Saturdays at work if I can at all avoid it.
I remember coloring this same illustration when I was in school.
20030207 (Friday) Baseball Cap, Santa Monica
More interesting junk.
20030206 (Thursday) The Centaur, Santa Monica
I have a trained aversion to throwing away books. Particularly potentially good ones (I haven't read this one, but have enjoyed other John Updike books).
So after I took this picture, I picked up the book and kept it. Maybe someday I'll read it.
20030205 (Wednesday) Dyno-mat!, Santa Monica
If these guys weren't so uncontrolably cute, I would have KILLED to have this mattress as a kid.
But what's the point, really? Why have a print on your mattress? It's not like you leave it uncovered. I do not understand.
20030204 (Tuesday) Taking A Rest, Santa Monica
Actually not far from the location of the pine box.
20030203 (Monday) Box, Santa Monica
I think it's pine.
I really don't set these photos up. People leave pine boxes sitting on their sides on the streets of Santa Monica, a city with fairly clean streets. Really.
20030202 (Sunday) Tiki Room, Disneyland, Anaheim
In the Tiki-tiki-tiki Room! In the Tiki-tiki-tiki Room!
Actually, this is outside the Tiki Room, but it had gotten awfully late before I took this and it came out real dark.
20030201 (Saturday) Graffiti, Hollywood
I saw this returning to the world famous Zankou Chicken in Hollywood from the ATM across the street, where I had a truly Larry David-ish experience with a rather paranoid bank patron.
Curse Zankou for only taking cash!
This odd building is a smog check station which sits next to the strip mall containing the Zankou.