Your Daily Photo (Giving the People What They Want Edition)

For some unknown reason, there was a big spike in traffic to my Flickr photos taken at the LA Auto Show these past few years. Probably just some bot hitting the all of flickr, but here's a Honda P-NUT for you, anwyay.

Your Daily Photo (I Blame Gizmodo Edition)

So, over at Gizmodo, they have an interesting Shooting Challenge this week. Above, a bull stares at the awesomeness of a velvet paisley jacket while a broken cigarette lighter mutely reflects (and refracts) by the light of a single stinky (cherry and mulberry scented, as bad as it sounds) candle. Below, that shot along with 53 others all lit by a single candle (except for the first two, where I forgot I had my TV on in the room) in a Flickr slideshow for your perusal. I've got till 6pm Sunday to pick one to submit as an entry into this week's challenge. Vote in the comments, or if you prefer, silently judge my efforts without giving me any feedback, the choice is yours.

Your Daily Photo (Frontyard Flora Edition)

A slideshow of the whole (small) set:

Your Daily Photo (Saint Monica Statue Edition)

Here's the slideshow of the whole set of shots taken Friday, a few of the shots are pretty good.

Your Daily Photo (Dude, I Guess We'll Have to Agree to Disagree Edition)

Comment received at Flickr for the above photo

pjrzt says:
Belle photo de paysage
Tres agréable à regarder
Belle couleurs
Félicitations…

Really? That shot? Of all the shots I've snapped that might be called, "Tres agréable à regarder Belle couleurs" this shot would not have been in the top two thirds. But different folks, different strokes, I guess.

Finished editing and uploading all the shots I snapped (and didn't delete) from yesterday, below is the slideshow.

Your Daily Photo (Some of These Shots Aren't Half Bad Edition)

Finished tweaking the rest of the shots I snapped on Tuesday, below's a slideshow of the whole flickr set.

Your Daily Photo (I've Got Your Background Right Here Gizmodites Edition)

The folks at Gizmodo posed the question, what's your background?

I uploaded a flickr set of the 12 pics I'm using currently.

Windows 7 has a background slideshow built in (all but the Starter edition, anyway), some of these shots are in other sets, some weren't uploaded otherwise, all have been cropped to 16x9 to match my TV's aspect ratio (my desktop's 16x10, but the autocrop works better going from 16x9 to 16x10 than the other way around, I find).

Here's a slideshow of the 12, just because...

Your Daily Photo (And If You Stare At This for 15 Minutes a Day for a Month, You Too Will Be Famous Edition)

Noticed you can embed slideshows, so thought I'd give it a try, don't know if that will bring load times to a screeching halt, hopefully not, I haven't noticed any problems even with all the large pictures I tend to post lately. Seems to work fine on all my computers at home, even the older ones. Regarding the photo above, given the placement of the Warhol Marilyn poster, it's obviously supposed to be Warhol depicted on the left, but to me it looks more like a white haired Shemp Howard.

Your Daily Photo (Any Day is a Good Day for a Picture of a Rose Edition)

Your Daily Photo (Just Cause Althouse Posts Pictures with a Particular Color Scheme Doesn't Mean I'll Always Do the Same Edition)

I'm not a copycat, I'm more of an homage-ist. Plus, I took these photos first (from the Getty Villa set back in late May, so really, she's copying me...)

Shots presented as originally posted at Flickr, don't think too much retouching was done on any of these.

Should she and Meade find themselves out this way later this summer, Getty Villa should definitely be a place high on their lists to visit, if only as a place to snap some pictures.

Speaking of Green and Purple, Voices Green and Purple, by The Bees...

Your Daily Photo (Long May She Wave Edition)

It's Independence Day. A day to commemorate a rebellious reaction against unreasonable tyranny.

I've uploaded the rest of the snaps taken while ascending Mt Rubidoux (it's more rock, than peak, and the ascent is paved, mostly, so not exactly tough going, but an ascent is an ascent).

I also visited Exposition Park, so for all you hortporn enthusiasts there are a few shots that should please (taken at the semi-famous Rose Garden, there, which was no small feat on my part given that I find roses' odor overpowering, at times). If hortporn isn't your thing, maybe close-ups of an SR-71 are more your style?

And I also snapped a few shots inside the Natural History Museum there,

very tempted to do an LOL style caption on these dinosaur bones, but I'll leave that for some other time.

Even the Most Boring Video Becomes Absurdly Dramatic When Set to a Ennio Morricone Score . . .

(Flickr set of stills, here)

Your Daily Photo (Just In Case You Weren't Sure Where I Was Shooting From, This Photo Is Conveniently Labeled Edition)

The rest of the set of shots taken yesterday afternoon around Yahoo Center can be found here.

Your Daily Photo (I Don't Get Out Much Edition)

More backyard jungle shots, taken today (flickr set, here). Hibiscus, aloe vera, and an old lemon tree featured prominently.

Your Daily Photo (Hope and Change Sold a LOT Better Back Before Obama Had to Actually Govern Edition)

Hope and Change, for sale, but looks like there aren't as many takers as a few months back (and the overexposed nature of the snap is obviously a sly attempt on my part to use a 'mistake' in my photography settings to further comment upon the intrinsic overexposed-ness of President Obama and his disgustingly cosy relationship with legacy media, that or I was shooting with manual settings and forgot to adjust the aperture). Also see some vandals have defaced a few places with the "DISOBEY" stickers below, it seems to be the work of the Stimulator (aka Franklin Lopez) at Submedia.tv, which judging from their rhetoric are your usual group of anarcho-anti-capitalist posers, defacing other folks property is soooo edgy. It seems to also be guerrilla marketing for his HOPIUM tour (darn, just missed his LA appearance)

I used to attend shows like that HOPIUM hokum back in my 20s, not cause I agreed with the politics, or even found the art compelling, generally. Nope, I just used to have a weakness for art school chicks, and events like this tend to draw surprisingly attractive (physically, anyway) chicas.

And if you want to peruse the rest of the Flickr set I shot on Tuesday, it's all here.

Your Daily Photo (Yet More Fauna Edition)

Two turtles, one fish, murky water, and some really negative negative space thrown in. Why must you be so negative all the time, space?

(shot at Greystone Mansion (Flickr set, here), which you've seen a gazillion times in a bunch of crap, it's up high in the Hills of Beverly)

Also, if you are taking snaps with anything that looks more professional than a point and shoot, expect a park ranger to come up and politely remind you that no commercial photography is allowed on park grounds without a really expensive permit.The friendly ranger I spoke with debated the fine points of creative commons licenses with me, I asserted that posting these shots to Flickr don't constitute 'commercial use' if I'm posting them with the non-commercial use license, the ranger implied that the Beverly Hills D.A.s office might beg to differ. Either way, he didn't prevent me from taking pictures, and just told me to tell anyone else who asks that these snaps were for 'personal use' only. Well, for me, uploading my photos publicly on Flickr is part of 'personal use', so go ahead and send me a take down notice, I'd love to challenge your rules in court with regards to what constitutes 'personal use' and 'commercial'.

Your Daily Photo (Oozing Muck, or Maybe Mucking Ooze Edition)

Another shot from the Hancock Park set, this is tar oozing up from the ground just outside of the main tar pit. Lovely in a strange way, bet you wish this photo was scratch and sniff.


UPDATE: And I call myself a NOMEANSNO fan, how could I have captioned this picture as I did and not link the song below?



Situation rectified.

Your Daily Photo (It's Just Like at the Gym Locker Room, Come Around a Corner and Suddenly You're Staring at Bare Man Ass Edition)

Here's a flickr set shot yesterday at Hancock Park (aka La Brea Tar Pits, aka LACMA, the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden re-opened recently, some nice Rodins and Bourdelles on display)

(I didn't take snaps of Franz West's sculptures on display, I would have called those two "floaters" instead)

Your Daily Photo (This Is Why I Drink Coca Cola Edition)

I'm not the first person to notice the nauseatingly Obama-centric ad campaign pooped out by Pepsi. Here's a photo with a shot of one of their damn billboards. I've always preferred Coke, anyway (the drinking kind, not the snorting stuff). Being an overcast night I think helped these photos, not sure, though, still don't know what I'm doing behind a lens, just goofing around.

And here's a whole flickr set of me fooling around with long exposures, some of them even look kind of interesting (the original for this photo is there too, before cropping and a bit of color tweaking)

Your Daily Photo (Smoke on the Water Edition)

The smoke from the fires in Santa Barbara has drifted this way, would have waited for more spectacular shots closer to sunset, but the Lakers were about to start, so priorities folks, priorities (more pictures at flickr, also the view from almost the same spot on January 17th)

Hope they get control of those fires soon, conditions are in favor of destruction, unfortunately.

And yeah, here's some Deep Purple for you.

UPDATE: When did Pau Gasol sing with Deep Purple? (alternately, was Mrs. Gasol a big Deep Purple groupie?)