Dave Bullock / eecue : Programmer | Photographer | Admin | Human

After many many requests I now have prints available for purchase online. You can buy prints of my work here on my PhotoShelter page. I currently have some of my recent galleries up there. I plan to put nearly all my work up in the near future so keep checking back here for updates.

New LA River Photos

Recently a friend of mine took me on a tour of the Los Angeles River. He is working on one of the bridge widening projects and we drove between several of the projects his company is bidding on. Of course we stopped at each bridge along the way:

Click here to see the rest of the Los Angeles River at Dawn photos. 

Last night I stood on my balcony in Downtown Los Angeles and saw the Station Fire burning in the hills. I jumped in my car and headed towards JPL. This time instead of robots trying to get out of the sand or high-tech radar systems, I would be photographing fire. A giant fire, making its way down towards NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

The Station Fire burns out of control separated by a single ridge above the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

After photographing the fire from below JPL, I decided to head up into the hills to shoot a bit closer to the action.

A firefighter waits for the Station Fire to cross the gully separating it from the home he is protecting.

Click here to see the more Station Fire Photos. 

I took these photos the other night from our balcony. We're very happy with the view.

Our short trip to Austin last weekend happened to coincide with the Republic of Texas Biker Rally. I don't own a motorcycle and am not a biker. This didn't prevent me from enjoying some of the great motorcycles on display in Downtown Austin.

Penelope, her brother and his girlfriend hit some bars during the rally. Of course I had my camera with me.

Click here to see the "Republic of Texas Biker Rally" photos...

As I mentioned yesterday, I love junk. Last weekend, my wife and I visited her brother in Austin and on our last day there we took a trip to the Cathedral of Junk.

The Cathedral of Junk is basically a giant sculpture in Vince Hanneman's backyard. It's open to the public on most days and entry is free, although donations are accepted. The cathedral is an amalgamation of thousands of random pieces of junk including electronics, bicycles, toys, lamps, bottles and more. It's actually quite beautiful to look at and fun to climb on.

I shot some HDR photos of it using my trusty Canon 5D Mark II and 16-35 f/2.8 L II lens. As usual I combined the +/- 2 EV bracketed shots with Photomatix. The results are after the jump.

Click here to see the "Cathedral of Junk" photos...

If you have an opinion about me embedding the larger sized photos please let me know by leaving a comment. Enjoy! 

I love junk. One of my first jobs was working at the world's most amazing junkyard: The Black Hole.

Over the years I have photographed some really cool junkyards including Norton Sales and APEX Electronics. I am always on the lookout for cool places with giant piles of interesting junk. If you happen to know of any particularly cool junkyards let me know in the comments below.

A few weeks ago when I was shooting my June Gloom series in Vernon, I came across a metal recycling yard. On a whim I walked in with my camera and tripod and asked if I could take some photos. As it turned out they were fine with that. I made my way through the giant piles of aluminum, copper and steel scrap and captured the HDR images you'll find after the jump.

Click here to see the "June Gloom Series: Part 6/6: HDR Scrapyard" photos.

One of my favorite perspectives of Downtown Los Angeles is from atop a little hill between the 101 and the 5. I shot one of my most popular photos from that location. A few weeks ago I captured some more photos from that spot on the hill.

It saddens me to think that the 6th street bridge will be demolished someday in the near future. It has cement rot, due to the materials used in its construction. The new bridge won't be the same, but it will still be fun to document the transition.

Click here to see the "June Gloom Series: Part 5/6: 6th Street Bridge Revisited" photos.

The Los Angeles River is not your average waterway. Before it was channelized in the 1940s it frequently changed its path and flooded various parts of the Los Angeles basin during big rains.

Today the LA River hardly looks like a river at all, being completely encased in concrete. It does still attract waterfowl on their migratory paths and water does flow through it throughout the year. That water is about 80% treated sewage when it's not raining. I still find the LA River beautiful with its sloping concrete walls and many bridges and railroad crossings.

A few weeks ago I waded through muck and treated sewage to capture some photos of the endearing Los Angeles River.

Click here to see the "June Gloom Series: Part 4/6: Los Angeles River" photos.

Vernon is a very interesting city. I have written about and photographed it several times over the last few years.

South and slightly East of Downtown Los Angeles, Vernon is a fully industrial city with only a few residents (91 in 200 census). These residences are for the employees of the city. The Mayor of Vernon is the grandson of the founder of the city, according to Wikipedia:

The city held no contested elections from 1980 to 2006 ... most of the municipally owned housing is occupied by city employees, and has regularly voted to cancel elections...

Mayor Leonis C. Malburg is a grandson of one of the founders of the city, leading to frequent allegations of political fiefdom or illiberal democracy.

Currently, the District Attorney's office of Los Angeles County is conducting a criminal investigation into allegations of public corruption by city officials...

Vernon is packed with warehouses, food processing plants, glass and plastic bottle manufacturing, scrapyards, and it's crisscrossed with railroad tracks. I love shooting Vernon. To me, it's beautiful.

Click here to see the "June Gloom Series: Part 3/6: Vernon" photos

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent Saturday tooling around taking photos of the lovely clouds above the industrial wasteland that is Vernon. At one point I made my way down into the Los Angeles River.

The birds were out enjoying the water and the sunshine. I saw ducks, finches and sandpipers. It's great to see life thriving in a giant concrete spillway filled with muck and a bit of water.

Click here to see the photos.  

Last weekend I spent the day wandering through my favorite industrial city in greater Los Angeles: Vernon. The sky was perfect for HDR and I captured a wide range of interesting industrial goodness. I have decided to split the photos into a 6 part series.

The first part of this series is also the smallest. The two photos it contains feature two graffiti walls near Vernon. I shot these with my Canon 5D Mark II through a 16-35mm f/2.8 L II lens. Each photo is a combination of 3 bracketed RAW files which were used to create a tonemapped HDR image in Photomatix.

Check out the photos:

Keep an eye out for the other five parts of the June Gloom Series coming soon.  

• Delicious API
  Fun stuff!
  (tags: api programming)
• Sir Paul McCartney And Bob Dylan Set To Record Together - GIGWISE
  Very cool!
  (tags: music)

• 7 mind-boggling uses for frickin' laser beams | News | TechRadar UK
  Awesome, I shot two of the galleries they link to for this... must work on the other 5!
  (tags: lasers wired photos photojournalism)

My lovely wife Penelope and I have been taking walks around Downtown recently. I've been shooting photos as we walk. Here are a few random shots from our last two walks:

Click here for the Walkabout Photos 

Today I picked up my first produce box from the South Central Farmers' Coop and its contents were simply amazing.

My lovely wife Penelope and I have been trying out different organic delivery services over the past few months. We started out with L.O.V.E. Organic Delivery, which we really enjoyed, but much of the produce was grown far far a way. The nice thing about L.O.V.E. was that they delivered right to our door every week.

We stopped L.O.V.E. because we really want to support local farmers and not waste energy having our food shipped from other states or countries. Our next move was to try Community Supported Agriculture.

With a CSA you basically buy a semi-yearly share in a farm, if the farm is successful (and most are in sunny Southern California) you get a box of veggies every week. We read great things about Tierra Miguel, so we gave them a try.

Tierra Miguel's boxes were huge, but of the three we picked up, we found their selection to be lacking. This could be related to the season we're in right now, but for us, it was just too much greens. Our first two boxes were almost entirely different varieties of lettuce, and several bunches of each kind. TM's quality was top-notch, but for our small family of two, it was just too much. And for $45 a week, it was just more than we could justify while still having to buy other veggies to round out our meals.

I understand that a big part of the price of the CSA is supporting the farm, but TM just didn't seem like a fit for us. Enter the South Central Farmers' Coop.

Bordering on a reasonable amount of vegetables for two people in one week, the South Central Farmers' Coop box was packed full of beautiful organic, locally-grown vegetables.

Initially we didn't go with the SCFC due to the lack of fruit in their offerings. Today when I went and picked up the box at the Farmer's Market at City Hall I also picked up some organic fruit from the other vendors at the market, so that solved that problem. Once I got the box home and opened it up I was amazed. So many quality veggies inside, including:

• Spring Onions
• Red Romaine lettuce
• Romaine Lettuce
• Carrots
• Fava Beans
• Red Beets
• Golden Beets
• Rainbow Chard
• Swiss Chard
• Black Kale
• Blue Kale

I don't think we've ever prepared golden beets, but we love beets, and Penelope has a mean recipe for salt crusted beets with horseradish creme fraiche. I actually didn't realize you could eat kale, but I've already found some good recipes for it creamed. I make a mean fava bean cassoulet, and today at the Nickel, owner Monica May gave me a great recipe that I think I'll try.

We're very excited about the SCF Coop box, and we'll almost certainly buy a whole season's worth. The boxes were only $15 a month for the cheapest option, but you can pay more to support the farm or pay $30 and someone who can't afford it will get a free box... now that is cool. We'll most likely do the buy one, give one deal when we subscribe.

At first sight, the amount of vegetable matter contained in the SCF Coop produce box is deceiving.

Due to its massive size and weight when loaded with camera gear, I am no longer using the Tamrac 619 as my daily-carry bag. Last year I wrote about switching to the Tamrac 619. It served me pretty well until one day when it nearly broke my back.

The Tamrac 619 is a huge bag. Like everything from Tamrac it is constructed from tough, high-quality materials, and designed to last a long time. Unfortunately for me, my eyes were bigger than my stomach (shoulder?) on this one. Fully loaded, the 619 weighed in at almost 40 lbs! Way too much to wear on my shoulder every day.

After I nearly threw my back out, I went down to Samy's to peruse their selection of camera bags. I needed shoulder bag that provided quick access to my camera, had room for a couple of lenses and had a padded laptop enclosure to fit my MacBook Pro.

Up until this point I had sworn by Tamrac bags, but they just didn't make one that I felt really good about carrying around every day. After looking around I found the super-tough and non-camera-bag-looking ThinkTank Urban Disguise 50.

ThinkTank Urban Disguise 50

The ThinkTank bags are designed to not look like camera bags. The Urban Disguise 50 looks just like a laptop bag, but has some really nice features. Obviously it has room for cameras, but it also has lots of nice pockets for various gear and accessories, a laptop sleeve, a super-comfy shoulder strap and an integrated rain fly.

The guys are ThinkTank really went all out with their design, including unique features like a hidden pocket, super-tough ballistic nylon and YKK zippers. I love this bag and will likely devote a post to it for a more thorough review at some point.

Bottom Line

The Tamrac 619 is a well-constructed bag, but it is simply too massive to carry around every day. I still use it to carry equipment for big shoots, and at some point it will become my RedRock Micro DSLR rig case. If you need a giant bag, this one certainly meets that requirement, just don't try and carry it with you every day.

The massive Tamrac 619 / Super Pro 19 with a 77mm lens cap provided for scale.

A few years ago I switched to wet shaving and in doing so I saved money, got rid of my razor burn and now get a much closer shave.

Wet shaving involves using a badger brush and good ol' shaving soap. You soak the badger brush with water and coat it with shaving soap. You then spend a few minutes working up a nice thick lather. I form the lather directly on my face, but many folks prefer to use a separate bowl to do so.

Don't be fooled by the photo below, I actually use handmade natural soap from Classic Shaving. I just happen to put it in a vintage Old Spice mug. The shaving soap lasts for months and is much cheaper and more effective than the store bought glop in a can.

For the actual shaving I use a vintage Gillette safety razor. It has a nice large handle and feels well balanced in your hand. It's called the Fat Boy and is especially popular with vintage shave enthusiasts.

The blades I use are made by a Japanese company called Feather. They're pretty much the sharpest razor blades you can buy and they work wonders. You can get a pack of ten for about six bucks from Classic Shaving. That equals big savings if you consider that Gillette five pack of Mach 3 blades will run you around $15.

Regardless of price, the sharper blades combined with the badger brush and soap have eliminated the razor burn I used to get. Plus, wet shaving is fun!

Last night Penelope and I attended Downtown LA icon Rickey The Pirate's housewarming party at The Exchange. After 30 years living on the street Rickey finally has a place to hang his (pirate) hat. Rickey had a blast and received tons of gifts to help furnish his new apartment at the Rainbow.

Penelope and I brought him various food items and a first aid kit. Penelope also gave him a beautiful handmade card she put together with her card making kit. Here are a couple photos from the event:

A few months ago while on a San Francisco vacation with my lovely wife Penelope, I took a tour of Livermore Lab's National Ignition Facility.

NIF is an amazing experiment designed to create fusion using lasers. As you've probably noticed, I love lasers and robots, and NIF employs both to get its job done. The NIF gallery just went up on Wired.com. It uses the new gallery format which allows for bigger pictures and the ability to view the whole thing at once. NIF is probably the coolest thing I have ever photographed.

Click the photo below to see the gallery:

Last year I worked with Brett Gurewitz and Epitaph on a photo project for Bad Religion's newest album: New Maps of Hell. The photos I shot around Los Angeles were used for the Deluxe Edition of the album.

The project was really fun and I really enjoyed working with Brett and the folks over at Epitpah. I just got around to photographing the album artwork and booklet. You can check out the work below:

More photos after the jump... 

Keeping up with tradition, I photographed Coachella last weekend. This time around I shot for Wired, URB and of course, my blog. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also wrote the Official Coachella iPhone application for Goldenvoice.

I had a great, albeit busy, time at the festival this year and took about 50GB of photos and 10GB of video. If you look through some of the Coachella VRs, you will see me in about half of the panoramas shooting from the photo pit.

Here are some of the photos I shot:

Coachella Crowd for The Killers

Robert Smith

Photogs Shooting Morrissey

Henry Rollins

More after the jump... 

Made it to Coachella yesterday around 5pm. Got our RVs situated and our base camp set up then took a walk through the field and camp site. Here are a few photos to get you excited for Coachella:

A string of balloons blows in the wind above a row of tents in the Coachella Camp Site on Thursday night.

The Do Lab's new look includes a plethora of shipping crates and a wooden trough fountain, which they estimate will use up to 7,000 gallons a day.

The field is nearly empty for Paul McCartney's rocking sound check.

People from all over the world travel to Coachella, many of them camp.

A worker puts the final touches on The Do Lab on Thursday evening at Coachella.

Keep your eyes on Wired and Urb for more of my shots throughout the weekend. 

For the past few months I've been spending all my evenings and weekends working on two big projects: the Coachella iPhone App and the Cartifact Map Portal. I am really happy with the results and ecstatic that I am not currently working 14 hour days and weekends!

I've been doing web programming work for Coachella and Goldenvoice since 2005 when I wrote the Coachooser, a online scheduler where concertgoers could choose who they want to see. As soon as the time-slots were announced the Coachooser then allowed the user to print out their schedule for the event. I have programmed the Coachoooser each year since then.

This year I pitched Goldenvoice on an iPhone application for the festival. They finally gave me the green light a bit over a month ago. Considering that it was my first iPhone application I think it came out really well. The Coachella iPhone App has been up on the iTunes store for about a week and has been downloaded thousands of times. It was hard work hammering out this application in a month, but the response was worth it.

Another project I recently finished is an interactive map portal for a really cool mapping company called Cartifact. This project is the most advanced javascript application I have written. It does some really cool things, especially the lens tool which let's you see a different map over the top of the map you're viewing.

I enjoyed the hard work, but I'm looking forward to enjoying my evenings and weekends again! 

Last month my lovely wife Penelope I took a vacation in San Francisco. We go up every year to visit family and enjoy good food and culture. This year was no exception.

We drove up to SF the day before Valentine's Day and just two days after Penelope had taken her nursing board exam, the NCLEX. The stressful part of taking the NCLEX, apart from the five hours it can take to complete, is that you don't know if you passed for several days. Our first night we went to bed not fully ready to relax, worrying about the test.

That next morning, Penelope woke me to tell me she passed, we both screamed, tweeted, and jumped up and down on the bed. That was the our best Valentines Day ever. We had a lovely dinner at the tiny, but delicious Canteen. Afterwards we visited a plethora of bars.

During our trip we tried to jog every morning despite the rain, and we did a pretty good job. I think we jogged 6 times during the 10 days we were in SF.

I took a few working breaks to shoot photos for Wired, which due to work and a few other projects I have yet to post. They will be coming very soon, keep an eye out here and on wired.com from galleries from NIF, SLAC and a few other cool places.

The trip was wonderful and as always we can't wait to go back. Here are some of the photos we shot:

A lovely sunset as seen from our hotel room at the Kabuki.

Our kite soars above Penelope's head, despite the lack of a strong breeze.

A bouquet of locally grown flowers from the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Plaza.

More after the jump... 

Thanks to the recent rains, Downtown Los Angeles' Not A Cornfield park is in full bloom. It's really quite beautiful down there, if you haven't taken a look you're missing out.

Ok, so it's no longer called Not A Cornfield, and is now the Los Angeles State Historical Park. Either way it is totally covered with wildflowers. As you can see in the photos below:

More after the jump... 

Ed Grothus died in his home yesterday February 12th. He will be missed by the many people who knew him.

When I was in High School, I worked for Ed for a few summers at his amazing scientific equipment salvage yard, The Black Hole.

Ed is responsible for some of my best memories from New Mexico. His salvage yard is simply amazing, and according to Tom Jennings from World Power Systems, it will remain open.

If you never met Ed, you missed a chance to know an amazing person. He was funny, intelligent and quirky. His massive collection of nuclear and scientific equipment contrasted nicely with his anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons viewpoints.

I was lucky to see him again two summers ago and introduce him to my wife. He was still the same Ed, just older. I hope his peace obelisks will be installed somewhere in memory of Ed and to carry on his legacy.

Ed Grothus, you will be missed. Rest in peace.

Ed Grothus stands next to his Peace Obelisk in this file photo from 2007.

UPDATE: I just talked to my friend Don Orie in New Mexico and told him about Ed's passing. He's been visiting Ed every week for that last few months as Ed's sickness has been worsening. He is going to let me know about the arrangements which I will post about here.

UPDATE 2: I just received this from Ed's son Mike Grothus:

Edward Bernard Grothus, of Los Alamos, died of cancer at home, at peace and surrounded by love on February 12, 2009. He was born June 28, 1923 in Clinton, Iowa. His family moved permanently to Davenport, Iowa in 1930.

Following graduation from high school, he traveled extensively by ship and motorcycle. He attended the University of Iowa where he (most importantly) learned to play bridge and made lifelong friends. He eventually followed his father's trade as a machinist, the trade that brought him to Los Alamos in 1949. "Working at the Lab," he said, "gave me an education that I could get nowhere else." He met Margaret Jane Turnquist playing bridge in Los Alamos. They were married in 1951. In 1952 he began working at the Lab's R-Site where he was a link in the process for making "better" atomic bombs. By 1968, he had become an antiwar activist and was an alternate delegate for candidate Eugene McCarthy at the notorious Democratic Convention in Chicago. He left LASL in 1969 when his conscience could no longer tolerate his role in nuclear bomb development. Since then, because of his singularity in speaking out against the nuclear mission of the Laboratory, he became the most interviewed and photographed person in Los Alamos.

Ed was a hardworking and successful entrepreneur who invested in "things." A child of the depression who extolled thrift and hated waste, he established the Los Alamos Sales Company in 1951 to buy and resell things--mainly surplus equipment from the Los Alamos Laboratory. For many years the company operated as a catalog business, selling to universities world-wide. He typed and mimeographed pages that were assembled into catalogs by his children who also assisted with mailing, packing, and shipping.

Ed took an active interest in the community. When the government began to plan a subdivision for individual owners to develop, Ed got involved. He helped name the streets on Barranca Mesa and purchased the lot on which he built the first adobe home in Los Alamos. He took great pride in his plans and designs for the house, seeking to make it as durable, functional and maintenance free as possible. Nearly 60 years later, the house remains a testament to his attention to detail. Ed was a founding member of the do-it-yourself home builders association known as "The Nailbenders." Later, in a new area known as Pajarito Acres, he was the first to build a home with the intention that it would be a rental property. When government houses came onto the market, he bought and sold those too, and upon his exit from the Laboratory, he and Margaret used proceeds to purchase The Shalako Shop which they operated for thirty years.

In 1973, he purchased the Grace Lutheran Church property which he first called "The Omega Peace Institute" and later named "The First Church of High Technology." In 1976, he acquired the adjacent "Mesa Market" property, which remained a grocery store for two years. When the grocery operation ceased, the Los Alamos Sales Company began moving things into the building. In recent years, the operation became known as "The Black Hole," because "everything went in, and not even light could get out." The business is well-known to set-decorators, artists, inventors and tinkerers, and tourists from around the world. He worked at the business six days a week until his illness forced him to slow down in late 2008. He never stopped thinking about the business despite his physical absence from it.

Ed refused to abandon The Black Hole during the forced evacuation of Los Alamos in 2000 when the government-set fire devastated the mountain landscape and burned more than 400 residences. The fire burned up to the foundation of the Black Hole, but Ed's vigilance kept the fire from consuming it. He was arrested after the fire passed and was sentenced to community service for "refusing to obey a police order." He had predicted such a disastrous immolation and had encouraged the County to build a perimeter road as a fire barrier. He strongly fought the use of salt on snowy streets because of its killing effect on trees and the subsequent erosion of soil and further environmental degradation.

Grothus was most known for his antiwar and antinuclear activism. He was a frequent writer of "Letters to the Editor" and in 1966 wrote "An Ode to a Leader, Misleading," dedicated to President Johnson. In it he wrote "... search and destroy, ignoble duty..." His motto became "Semper Fabricate, Numquam Consumite" or "Always Build, Never Destroy." As an early Obama supporter, Ed was pleased to note in his inaugural address that President Obama said, "... people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." Despite his antiwar and antinuclear stance, he never called for the closure of the Laboratory. He said the Lab should stop making things useful only for killing, but he supported a mission for scientists to more efficiently harvest the energy of the sun, the infinite power source.

Grothus designed and commissioned two granite obelisks to mark the explosion of the first atomic bomb. The obelisks were quarried and carved in China, then shipped to Los Alamos in December 2007. The obelisks are white granite and are designed to sit on black bases, "doomsday stones," engraved with text in 15 languages that describe the "most significant man-made event in human history." Important to him among the messages engraved in the stone was, "No one is secure unless everyone is secure." When erected, each monument will weigh over 39 tons and stand nearly 40 feet tall. At the time of his death, Grothus remained optimistic that the obelisks would find a home.

He was featured in numerous international magazine and newspaper articles and stories on national radio and television. He has appeared in various historical books, as a character in novels and, thanks to a variety of international artists, in theaters, galleries and music productions. He also has a significant presence on the internet. He was the subject of two documentaries including "Atomic Ed and the Black Hole," by filmmaker, Ellen Spiro, broadcast on HBO. He was also the subject of investigations by the FBI and Secret Service on several occasions.

In 2006 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Indigenous World Uranium Summit for his work to promote a Nuclear-Free Future. In 2007, he was humbled to be the first non-Native American to receive the prestigious Alan Houser Memorial Award from the Houser family at the annual Governor's Awards in the Arts for the State of New Mexico.

He was proud of his family with whom he enjoyed traveling, working, exchanging thoughts and opinions and sharing challenges and successes. Ed's deafness, "my only problem," was a cruel burden, not just for him. A voracious reader and life-long learner, his intellectual curiosity and interest in ideas, "things" and world events remained strong even as cancer consumed all his energy. "Dying," he said, "is not very exciting."

The eldest of eight, he was predeceased by his parents, Edward Theodore Grothus and Regina Hebinck Grothus, his son Theodore, his grandson Preston Edward Burns, and his brother Joseph Grothus. He is survived by Margaret, his wife of 57 years, his children Barbara Grothus of Albuquerque, NM; Tom Grothus (Wendy Slotboom) of Seattle, WA; Susan Burns of Albuquerque, NM; and Mike Grothus (Heidi) and their children, Casey and Michelle Grothus of Niwot, CO. He is also survived by three sisters, three brothers, and their extended families. Loved and admired by many, despised by a few, he will not soon be forgotten.

UPDATE 3:A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM in the Duane W Smith Auditorium at the Los Alamos High School.  

Last month, my all time favorite photography magazine, Shutterbug, reviewed my photography portfolio website.

Shutterbug is an excellent magazine aimed at photographers in the serious amateur to professional range. Their pages are filled with great reviews, photographer profiles and advanced technique how-to articles. Every month a section of their magazine is devoted to reviews of various photographer's websites.

Last year after updating my website, I submitted it for review. I was excited to find that Joe Farace had chosen my site to be included in the Web Profiles section of the magazine.

Below is the review in its entirety. I especially love the praise he gave to my mother, R.G. Bullock and her wonderful website.

After having learned to develop film in his mom's darkroom when he was in grade school, Dave Bullock was bitten by the photography bug. The straightforward site design shows off Bullock's colorful images in an equally straightforward style. Big thumbnails. You click 'em, they get bigger. Big enough to enjoy the depth and nuance of images in his "Projects" collection, and showcased in his "Industrial Landscapes" section that is yet another answer to the bored photographer's oft-voiced cliché that "there's nothing to photograph." His photographs of bridges, rail yards, and urban waterways transcend their subject matter because of the same impeccable craftsmanship that large format landscape photographers lavish on their images. Here Bullock finds "beauty in odd places," revealing unseen aspects of the world that we really live in, not the California Carleton Watkins photographed 100 years ago.

In his "Photojournalism" collection Bullock explores the beauty of science, two words seldom used in the same sentence. His images of NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Network facility combine gritty yet stylish editorial images inside the facility and Star Trek-like images of sweep and majesty outside. Don't miss the studio and environmental photographs of people in the "Movers and Shakers" and "Artists" sections (in the "Portraits" collection) for another, more sensitive side of Bullock's work. His mom is Rhoda Gordon Bullock, an accomplished photographer, proving that sometimes talent is genetic. I urge you to also visit her website (http://rgbullock.com/home) to view her fine art images.

Shutterbug really is a great magazine, and I'm not just saying that because of the great review they gave me. I've been a subscriber since April of 2006 and it is currently the only photography magazine I subscribe to. If you're a photographer you really should subscribe to Shutterbug. It rocks! 

I will be showing my Los Angeles HDR photography for the first time in print form during the Downtown Art Walk next week at Niche LA Gallery.

I have had two public showings in the past, but this will be the first show of my Los Angeles HDR work. If you've been following my blog you've likely seen these photos (shown below). To really get the full experience of this work you have to see it large. The amount of detail is really quite stunning.

Depending on how the clouds look in the next few days I may also be showing some brand-new work. No promises on that, but it is a possibility. Either way please come down and check out my work.

Niche.LA is located in the Spring Arts Tower at:
453 S. Spring St. #443
Los Angeles, CA 90013
February 12th & March 12th, 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Here are some of the photos I will be showing:

Los Angeles and 6th Street Bridge

Los Angeles River and Downtown

Blue Gravel Factor for Scott Brown

Griffith Park Fire and Downtown Los Angeles from 7th Street Bridge

You can see more of my photography on my portfolio website. 

Members of the Skid Row Photography Club will be having their third show next week during the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday.

The show will be held at Russel Brown's gallery/community space: The Exchange (114 W 5th Street). We will have an opening during Art Walk starting around 6pm at which we will be serving wine and snacks.

Along with the framed and unframed prints for sale we will be exhibiting videos and slideshows from our members. The work is really amazing and the slideshows will permit the public to see much more than what had previously been shown.

Please come down and support the show and the Skid Row Photo Club members.

• Downtown News: A New Focus on Skid Row
• Wired: Skid Row Photography Club Uses Donated Cameras to Make Street Art
• BoingBoing: Donate Your Used Digital Camera to LA's Skid Row Photo Club

• Skid Row Photo Club at Old Bank Holiday Art Bazaar
• Skid Row Photo Club's First Show: The Beauty of the Street
• Skid Row Photography Club

• Graffletopia
  This is an awesome collection of templates for the great OS X Visio replacement Omnigraffle.
  (tags: omnigraffle osx apple graphing visio templates programming)