Your Daily Five Photos (There's One in Every Crowd Edition)

Been awhile, just haven't been shutterbuggery* lately. Wandered downtown to see the scene at this year's GLOW.

The art was crap, but there were people out and about, so decided to take my camera and take some snaps. Wanted to have reasonable shutter speeds, so went with high ISO (1600), shots are a bit 'noisy', but that doesn't effect the composition, or overall feel. The biggest problem was shooting with only those ghastly sodium street lamps for lighting.

The reason I call this set, "There's One in Every Crowd", is simple, seems like in every shot there is one person, and only one person, looking straight at the camera. Strange how that works, my favorite is the guy waving in the shot taken of the pier.


*note (if homosexuality had been more socially permissible during the early 1900s, I think SHUTTERBUGGERY would have been an awesome choice for the name of a gay lifestyle/photo enthusiast monthly magazine)

Your Daily Five Photos (Great Views Edition)

Your definition of "great" may differ from that of our fine city government...

Your Daily Five Photos (Give the Drummer Some Edition)

More shots from the salsa thing Saturday, this time focusing on the drummer. Had a good vantage point from which to take his picture, hard to capture a good shot though. Surprised he was drumming in work boots, seems like an odd footwear choice to me. When I play Rockband I rock out with my socks on (and nothing else..., on my feet), but maybe that's just me.

Your Daily Five Photos (Pico Blvd Edition)

Pico is one of the main east/west surface streets from downtown all the way to the beach. Through much of that course, the businesses tend to run from dilapidated, to ramshackle, to downright Third World. Doesn't mean they lack charm, though, just means keep your head up. I was sorely tempted to hit up Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, but having had half a large pizza for lunch, topping of the evening with the artery clogging delights served there seemed imprudent. Good eats, though, and usually an entertaining crowd at the Pico location.

Your Daily Five Photos (DANCE, DANCE, DANCE Edition)

Salsa music, makes you want to move. Well, it makes some people want to move. The percentage of people who listened without moving was vastly greater than the people who listened and moved, but that might have more to do with self consciousness, lack of partners, and wanting not to give up a good seat, rather than lack of desire to do some tail feather shaking.

The music was a surprise, forgot that they've been doing a Latin Sounds series all summer at LACMA on Saturdays. The last one is this Saturday if you're in the area.

Tried to take some video, but the mic on the Nikon D5000 is terrible for this sort of thing, and the 5 min limit per clip meant that none of the songs were captured in their entirety, so nothing came out worth uploading.

Have to mic stuff separately, and sync in post if I ever want to use that camera for that purpose.

Had this camera for over a year, still haven't found many good use cases for video, lack of autofocus, the rolling shutter distortions, poor mic, and limited recording time per take all conspire to make this camera a poor choice for event video.

In a studio set up, controlling for variables, you can capture some great looking stuff given the choice of lenses, but so far, I haven't had the need for that sort of thing. For shooting stills, though, this camera has amazing versatility. You can control just about every variable as carefully as you'd desire, or you can put it on auto mode and turn it into a bulky point and shoot, and the lenses available for Nikon cameras take amazing images.

Easy enough to keep a Flip Video or Kodak Zi8 type pocketcam tucked away in my camera bag, as well as my 'real' camera, though, if video was important to me, personally, for whatever reason, I've gravitated more towards stills, and haven't figured out compelling uses for video.

Your Daily Five Photos (Spider Enjoying a Meal, Edition)

Mmmm, moth.

Your Daily Five Photos (LACMA Edition)

Five shots, taken today at LACMA, enjoy.

(warning, there may be some spam, sorry)

(but there are definitely no pipes)

Your Daily Five Photos (Let's Have Some Words Edition)

Words, can't get away from them, at least in a densely populated urban/suburban setting.

Your Daily Five Photos (Somewhat Cliched, but Still Pleasing to Gaze Upon Setting Sun Snaps Edition)

What can I say, I guess I'm a fan of the classics.

Speaking of classics, one of these shots put me in mind of this song...

You can not resist the adorableness that was a teenage Clare Grogan, it's physically impossible...

Your Daily Five Photos (Yet Again, Santa Monica Edition)

In today's edition, I present to you a very red truck, a rather blue bus, a somewhat judgemental crow, a place experiencing an existential crisis, and a bunch of shabbily displayed Old Glories.

Enjoy.

(if you click through to Flickr, you'll see some commentary on each photo)

(I'm not saying the commentary is helpful, or insightful, but it's there for your entertainment pleasure)

Your Daily Five Photos (Santa Monica Edition)

Hello Bloglandia! It's been awhile, other than playing whackamole with Chinese spammers, there hasn't been much activity hereabouts for the past couple of months. That changes today. I'm going to post five photos each day to Flickr, either taken that day, or the day previous, and post them as a slide show here. Rather than posting everything I shoot at Flickr, I'm going to pick out shots that seem interesting to me.

Also, with the NFL season approaching, I will do my usual shockingly inaccurate season preview, but rather than trying to pick the whole season, I'm going to pick against the over/under lines for season wins for each team. I'll do a post for each division, all to be posted the day after Labor Day.

Below, today's furious five photos. Taken earlier at the recently refurbished and upscale-ified Santa Monica Place. They tore the roof off the sucka! (literally). Seems like it has succeeded as a draw to the area, but the shops themselves aren't getting much in the way of customers. I think they were hoping that RECOVERY SUMMER 2010! would have been a bit more recovered by now. Most of the stores here have other branches in other close by upscale shopping districts, I just don't see the marketplace supporting them over the long run, but time will tell. The roof off gives a nice updated look, gives a better pedestrian flow to the rest of the area, and the new restaurants seem worth checking out (if a bit on the pricey side).