Motion Life Triptych 2

My other triptych is my newly acquired firebellied toad, Bartholomew.  I wanted to show him jumping and was inspired by Joel Sartore's book Rare.

Motion Life Triptych 1

Now that we've returned from sunny California its back to the grind. Our first couple shoots were 4x5 film and I have not scanned them in, so I will start with shoot 3, our first experience with studio flash. We needed to make a triptych demonstrating the strobes ability to stop motion. This is the first of my two triptychs.

I went with two people heading soccer balls and then the soccer balls meeting in the center frame. The flour enhances the sense of motion and the arrangement of the triptych draws you eyes toward the center image instead of having no central point or off to the right as in a sequence.

Last Views of California...

So this is it, packing up the car and heading out of California. At 6:00 am on our last day the mood was not one to be messed with. We hit the road to the airport and before we knew it we were back in Rochester, refreshed but not necessarily ready for a new quarter...I think some of us are still in California.



You can see the full album here

Sledding...California Style.

Here it is, the most epic part of our California adventure. Even though they may not have snow way out west, they can still slide down a hill in fashion. It's called Ice Blocking, you go pick up a block of ice grab, a couple towels and find the nearest grassy hill. Place the towel on the ice block take a seat and slide away.





After we were done we destroyed the evidence.

Beachfire!!!!

After out tasty but not super filling meal at The Charthouse we picked up some marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate for s'mores. Some of us grabbed a bite at Rico's and we were off to the beach. We got a fire going and chilled with some real live Californians! Anna had invited a couple of her friends and we talked and ate some tasty s'mores. I also got a couple great shots of the beach at night and our nice little fire.




But, there was still one more adventure for the night, and possibly the most epic part of the trip...

Night Out

After the beach we headed home to get ready for dinner. We decided to get a little dressed up and go to a fancier place. We got there just as the sunset was ending, which didn't really matter because we sat away from the window in the bar area and got appetizers during happy hour anyways. But I snuck outside and shot some photos of the sunset while I could. Here is one frame I particularly enjoy.

The colors on the rocks are from the restaurant and the valet parking someone's car. (The restaurant has to be fancy if they have valet parking.) This was just the beginning to a crazy last night in California...

Last Day on the Beach (cont...)

Lowly Seagull sitting on the beach


is being stalked by a ruthless predator


He moves in for the kill


but is overcome with disappointment and embarrassment realizing he has been duped by a seagull

Last Day

Our last full day in California was spent on the beach in Oceanside. And there were many, many squirrels chilling in the rocks by the beach. Here is their king...

Climbing a Freaking Mountain

After spending another day at the beach (I got to body board, epic) we returned to Anna's house and got ready for a hike. But this wasn't just a hike in the woods, it was three miles, up a mountain, in the dark. I knew I had to shoot this so I lugged both cameras, a flash, light meter, a bunch of other accessories and my tripod. I got some cool landscape and cityscape pictures on the way up.


When we reached the top, besides it being pitch black, the fog gave us a view of about 5 feet away. But we stayed up long enough for the fog to clear for a few moments and I got a couple great pictures of the cities below.


We headed back down the mountain and I got a couple more photos because of all the light pollution.

After getting home Anna's mom made us some amazing enchiladas and we headed to sleep.

We Have Fun Now?

Disney. After a long day stressful traffic we head over to the happiest place on earth to spend the night riding rides and dodging toddlers. We had participated in Disney's Give a Day. Get a Day. program and all received free passes to one of Disney's parks. We arrive at the park around 5 assuming the park closes around midnight like usual. Not quite, their off-season hours were in effect and the park closes at 8. We had three hours to get as much happiness as we could. Luckily we had Disney expert Anna Hood to guide around the park at lightning speed.

Traveling at lightning speed through OUTER SPACE.

After racing to Space Mountain we hit the rest of the major rides with just enough time to get in a second run on the intergalactic adventure.

Waiting in line at Space Mountain

We left feeling fairly satisfied with our speed run of the park and headed to In-N-Out burger for the best fast food burger's, fries, and shakes in history.

Happy Times!

You're at the happiest place on earth...YOU WILL HAVE FUN.

"Hey Rob!"

~"yeah?"

"We're at Disney!"



"You know what else?"

~"What?"

"It closes at 8 and we only have three hours..."



--more on our Disney adventures tomorrow

Apparently I'm on TV

So while getting rapped at next to the Chinese Theater some lady calls all of us over. She's with some important looking dude, a guy with a camera, and two people dressed up like Na'vi from Avatar. She asks us if we want to be on TV. Well yeah! so she tells us what we need to do, run up next to the Na'vi and pose with them like we're taking a picture, then they hiss at us and we run away.

(I actually shot a picture on the first take)

That's it, we sign the model releases and get shooting. After three takes they get one that works and then "interview" Alanna and Chelsea.

Apparently we were on TV Guide's Countdown to the Oscars, I haven't been able to find the video anywhere, but my mother claims to have seen it. So, if you saw it or know where to see it, let me know!

Hollywood!

Day 4 we headed out early for a Day in LA and Disney. After navigating to the least sketchy free parking we could find (if there were a Stumble Upon for real life, that's how we would've gotten there). We then walked around for a bit and decided to find the Walk of Fame. Adventure time! If there's anyone out there that like driving in LA traffic, you really should have been with us. We eventually found it and parked at a nearby Wendy's. A few people got some food to make our parking totally legit, but the rest of us wanted food that wasn't in Rochester. So, we stopped in at Mel's Drive-In. The food was good but the lighting was better, snapped this pic while waiting for our food.

After lunch we walked down the street looking at all the stars and such, I wished I had my skateboard because that marble is sooo smooth. Though I did find one star worth using a bit of film for.

We arrived at the Kodak Theater to see lots of fences and rails up in preparation for the Oscars that weekend. So we wound through the fences to get to the Chinese Theater and see all of the handprints. While those interested some from the group, I was more intrigued by the people.

This guy was selling mixtapes trying to make it in the Hip Hop industry, I did buy one, and it is quite good. His name is Black Nate Debiase and you can get to his website here.

There was another character on the street, but in order to get his picture I had to do a bit of participation. This DJ (I forgot his name, link will be up tomorrow, you'll want to come back, he's a goon) would call you over and rap about you. I being from Wisconsin automatically got associated with cheese. Here's a picture of me with him.

There is one other part of our time in LA that will be continued tomorrow...

Sunny San Diego

The next day we had a bit of a late start because we couldn't decide exactly what to do. We ended up going to a little park type thing near San Diego. It had shops and food spots but all in all was kinda touristy, so we just walked around near the water for a while. We got some food at a sandwich place.

As you can see I am in this picture which means I did not take it. The look on my face also shows that I am not incredibly comfortable with the person taking the picture. It's okay though, I still love you Chelsea.

After we grew tired of walking around we decided to do something else. What else? good question. We pretty much drove around San Diego looking for this one place but never quite getting there. We then came across a pack of wild segwayers stalking two young pedestrians...

from the safe vantage point of the minivan we witnessed a brutal take down of the two juveniles. After our stomachs had settled we decided to get nothing other than sushi! But first, we had to find sushi! We found sushi! Sushi doesn't start serving for another hour. We drove away from sushi to get the other car we left near San Diego to save gas. We then drove back to sushi and had some of the best sushi ever.

And it came in a boat!

Drive-In Affair

After spending the day on the beach we decided to go see a movie, but we didn't go to a regular theater, we went to the Santee Drive-In. It is the second Drive-In I've been too after the Skyway Drive-In back home. There are no audio posts, but the whole thing is concrete with bumps to angle your car upward toward the screen.


(sorry about the quality, I didn't have my tripod that night)

We saw Valentine's Day and Cop Out, the first significantly better than the second. During the second movie someone noticed a moon ring, a phenomenon caused by ice crystals high in the atmosphere refracting the moonlight. While not an incredibly rare effect it is still very cool to witness.

You Haven't Had Mexican Food...

Sunday morning came with all its sunshiney glory and a few of us woke up and went to church. After a nice service and seeing the coolest youth group room ever we headed back to the house to gather everyone up. We then headed to Rico's Taco Shop.

My California Burrito (carne asada, cheese, sour cream and French fries rolled into a flour tortilla with guacamole or sour cream) was probably the best burrito I have ever had.

Not Rico, but the Rico's guy

After eating three days worth of calories in one meal we headed to the beach to work it all off playing beach volleyball and strolling along the shore. We were advised to not go in the water until three days after a rain due to the bacteria and such in the runoff.
Taking a nice walk down the beach.

Epic Night

Telephone Pictionary may be the most epic boardgame-esque game ever. It similar to regular telephone, you know, whisper a phrase to the person next to you and repeat, until the end where the phrase is completely different. Well this is similar but instead of talking you either write down a phrase describing the picture that was passed to you or draw a picture of the phrase you received. You pass your paper around the table until it returns you to you and everyone reveals their original phrase and the ridiculous pictures and phrases that followed. For example, the first card was, "What came first? the chicken or the egg?" The final phrase for that card was "Two cliffs and a spider," don't ask.

Here are a few pictures of the cards laid out after the game.



then being turned into a new version of 52-card pickup...

First day in sunny California...not so sunny...

What were our plans for the first day in California? Beach, of course! Wait, nope, rain. It was raining when we woke up our first morning in California.
After breakfast at home, our gracious host took her two daughters to the spa for a girls day out, the rest of us got dropped off at the mall. We shopped for awhile but soon grew hungry and took shelter just before the skies opened up and dumped a small lake on us.

When our fish tacos (Which are not, in fact, shaped like fish) were devoured we decided to have some fun.

Rob and Meg modeling their fabulous new sun hats.

We met back up with the ladies from the spa made a stop at Costco (Which is an adventure in itself) and headed home for dinner and games...more on the games later

We May Begin

I started of our trip a couple days ago by complaining about all of the flight complications. But how we managed to keep our spirits high throughout the day. Here are a few airport shots showing what we did to keep morale high...

Whether it was chatting on the phone, writing letters, playing Uke, or whatever James is doing... we stayed entertained

Rob attempted to nap...


We finally get on the plane, and guess who's sitting all alone...