Blog - Page 59

[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/eecue/161845490/ "Photo Sharing")

This weekend I went on one of my weekly urban photo safaris, this time I went through the lovely uninhabited city of Vernon. For those of you who don't know, there are no residences in Vernon at all, just factories, railways and warehouses, which recently has made for some interesting election disputes. I didn't get hasseled anywhere in Vernon by power hungry security guards, but when I first set up the Mamiya to shoot the Amtrak train washing station, I was accosted by a golf cart riding security guard who threatened to take away my equipment because I was trespassing. I understand that if I am trespassing I have to leave, no problem there, although the area wasn't clearly marked as private property, but threatening to take my camera is not cool. It turned out ok because he decided that I wasn't "one of those guys" which I will assume he meant terrorists, but he also added that you could never be too sure. He was nice enough to give me a ride in the golf cart to my car, but I think his motivation there was to get my license plate number. You can check out the rest of my series of HDR shots.

I have changed the design, but you will probably only notice it if you are running Windows Internet Explorer. This page should now render correctly in IE and it no longer has the javascript warning you that you are running an insecure browser. That was just plain annoying, and I apologize for it. I have also moved the blogad away from the right and column and into the left hand column below the google ads. In order to do so, I widened the left column by about 10 pixels. So basically it was a very small change, but once I launch the new version of this site will be a bigger change. I am going to get rid of the whole programmer / designer / admin / human thing as I no longer design, and instead mention something like programmer / photographer / human... or something to that extent.

For the last 6 months or so I've been using my trusty moleskine for taking notes, making checklists and other useful and not so useful tasks such as opening a beer bottle (which doesn't work due to the flexible nature of the moleskine's cover). Yesterday I picked up a new one as mine is almost full and when I got home did a little googling about moleskines. I found this cool site called Moleskinerie and decided to shoot them an email with some photos I had taken of my moleskine. The owner of the site recognized me from my protest photos and then posted what I sent him.

I just bought a complete Mamiya RB67 setup (in pieces) from ebay for my mom's birthday. She used to have the camera about 10 years ago, but sold it when she went digital. I took some photos to test it out this weekend and I am very happy with the result. This is not the final image, but once I get back the higher resolution scan I will replace it.

UPDATE I just got back the 39mb scan of the image from A&I and it looks great. I played with it a bit to bring the detail in the shadows up and also to remove some dust. I am looking forward to printing this. If it looks good @ 10x12 I may get a drum scan done so I can go even bigger.

I love flower macro photography. Desert flowers are my favorite, their tiny buds are so beautiful up close. There is something about a plant that only survives for a few weeks out of the year, yet opens its lovely petals to attract pollen transferring insects in order to sustain its life cycle, that is really amazing. Here is the full gallery of my flower macro photos from this weekend.

When I arrived at this location, I got a call from an old friend, letting me know this is step father had just passed away after a hard fight with cancer. His step father, Scott Brown, was a good friend of mine and I was looking forward to his presence at my wedding, which will now be in spiritual form as opposed to the physical form I was expecting.

After I finished shooting this series, I was approached by a Securitas guardsmen, who informed me that I wasn't allowed to take photos of factoriers, refineries or railroad tracks. He then wrote down my license plate number and asked me for my drivers license which he wrote down the number for. I didn't feel like arguing with him as he was just doing what he was told to do, but it was clearly a violation of my rights. The sky in LA was really beautiful so I wasn't mad and I know that Scott is in a better place now so that took the edge off my sorrow.

I love you, mom! Thanks for the greatest gift ever, life.

My lovely fiance, Penelope is taking part in the Revlon Run/Walk For Women this weekend and she needs your help in the form of sponsorship. She is trying to raise $1,000 for the cause and is walking in honor of my mother, a cancer survivor for 3 years now. Help her out by clicking here and donating. Here is what she is doing in her own words:

I decided last minute to dive into a neighborhood Revlon Walk/Run taking place next Saturday, May 13. Being a runner (although I will be walking this one) and a family member of a cancer survivor, motivated me to participate in this event and raise funds for research, patient/family support, and education of women’s cancers. I consider this my way of collectively raising awareness amongst family/closest friends/co-workers while supporting a notable cause.

Thank you for your support!

Penelope and I love going to the LA Zoo, but don't get to go as often as we would like. We made it out there this weekend on our Sunday together. Here are some of the photos I took:

Today I hit the streets again and took some photos, here are a few of the 40 I uploaded.