Wishing 2009 Goodbye, Things I Learned in 2009

This time of year is one of reflection, and often promises to make something new or different occur in the next year. Less than three months ago, I started blogging again after having taken a break due to some issues with my former blogging platform (the photo above was from one of my first entries) and have been doing it steadily. Along the way I’ve learned some photography things and so I’ll be using my blog entries from this year to help me outline Things I’ve Learned in 2009.

I learned I can start a blog simply with not a lot of ideas in which direction to go, and still be blogging a few months later. I’ve also learned that 3xs a week is good number of times for me to blog.

I’ve learned that weddings performed by a monk in a Buddhist Temple can be very similar in many ways to the Christian weddings I am more familiar with.

I’ve learned even when your plans get rearranged in a major way, for example, losing electricity for your entire party, you can still have a wonderful time.

I’ve learned some children get in planes and become almost instinctive co-pilots, and that by helping volunteer to photograph them in these planes, I can make help them preserve in an instant a memory for a lifetime.

I’ve learned I have some talented and funny amateur comedians as friends, and that it is joy to photograph them. Some images of Raf on stage, crack me up just looking at them, even weeks later.

I’ve learned some images are worth risking finding out what happens if you go beyond a No Tresspassing sign with a group of other camera carrying adventurers.

I’ve learned even if you have a seat facing the back of the stage area at the San Jose Holiday Parade, you can still get some great images if you’re ready for them.

Finally I’ve learned taking the wrong turn can sometimes lead to a great location you didn’t anticipate for a unique background for your photos.

And with that I’d like to acknowledge 2009, on its way out. So with that in mind, my last photo for the year is of a Beanie Baby (Ty named it Loosy, even if it’s supposed to sound phoenetically like Lucy, that’s a weird name) that was put in a box to preserve it. Somehow the goose ended up in a position that looks like it’s trying to salute, so I’ll have her salute 2009, and look forward to welcoming in the new year.

Topical Tuesday (9)

It’s amazing what we remember from childhood. I was telling Colleen that I thought we should go to a street nicknamed Candy Lane to check out the lights on Christmas Eve, and she instead persuasively argued we should visit a street nicknamed Christmas Tree Lane as it was closer to our location. She remembered visiting it for several years, and that her mom had told her that whenever anyone moved into a house on that street, Fulton Ave in Palo Alto, then even had to sign as part of their contract a statement that they would decorate their yard for Christmas and that the display would be over the top.

There were many beautiful houses on Fulton Lane. Though not every was decorated in a true over the top fashion, there were many interesting and unusual ideas from religious to whimsical. It was a hard subject for me to shoot, both as we were in a moving car (a special thank you to Colleen for driving slow even with an occassional honk of frustration from those behind us) and often there were pedestrians who seemed to be walking and stopping in front of just the house I wanted to photograph the most at the same speed as we were traveling. Still, I had fun and especially enjoyed the original Smurfs display and this house whose simple lights really transformed their house into a gothic ,almost mansion like setting.

Now on to the typical rest of the week through the iPhone lens.

Starting with Christmas displays in the daytime. I’m a huge fan of Christmas displays at night, and an even bigger fan of displays that also look great in the day time. As my running group often runs the same route up to (or past depending on the week and desired goal) Campbell Park, we often saw the same houses over the over again.

One house that caught my eye was decorated on all three visible sides. I wondered if they would keep it up past Christmas, and while I don’t know if it is still up, here it is the next day.

One of the best parts of the display was a little box saying how many days and hours it was till Christmas. As it was the next day at this point, I was able to see that it now reads “Ho ho ho” in the small boxes. I really like the oversize Christmas lights, I don’t think I saw them before this year.

I noticed this sign that while unfortunately it had been knocked to the ground, still conveyed a good message. On second thought, perhaps it is now more effective as people will notice the odd angle it is at and read it.

I remember in high school college my classmates saying they would never want a particular car as it was too boxy. On the ride home I noticed a car that seemed to embrace it’s outer cubeness to the point where the car was named The Cube. So while stopped at a red light, I took a quick photo to share.

Lastly this month is a special anniversary for me, as it marks the 12th year I’ve been in California. While I’ve loved this state from the moment I got here, a few things were especially memorable: the palm trees, all the one way streets (running in opposite directions parallely for many streets in downtown San Jose), and the restaurants. Seeing this sign this week really brought it all home for me. It is I representative of my first fast food meal here which was in a Green Burrito merged with a Carl’s Jr. I remember the first time I went to a Carl’s Jr. that was not so linked and wondering where all my favorite selections were until my friend, a California native after figuring it out and laughing a bit at my expense, explained that very few of them were housed at the same location. Oh well, I’ve since gone to Carl’s Jr. a few times, and The Green Burrito, not as many. I guess I like mom and pop restaurants over fast food regardless of what coast I’m living on.

Christmas Services through the years

For many reasons, Christmas is my favorite holidays of the year. One of those reasons is the beautiful pageantry of the Christmas (or now more commonly just prior to Christmas) worship services. Most of those I remember growing up involved candles, a lot of singing and often children acting out the story of the birth of Jesus in a manger. While I don’t unfortunately have any photos of those services from when I lived back East (most likely it didn’t even occur to me to try and take photos then), I have enjoyed capturing the services at Menlo Park Presbyterian several times now.

The photo above and just below are from the Christmas Eve service in 2004, and were shot with my film Leica M7. While I wish I had easy access to the negatives, they are in storage, however, the scanned images come across almost as well. The pictures make me miss the colors of film, yet it’s helpful now to see images as I’m shooting them in very low light situations, like all of those during these services.

This was the last year that Pastor Doug, with the candle below, was one of my pastors, before he took an assignment in Tennesee. This occassion was one of the first times I brought my Leica to church (though I’d shot in the church before with the camera I used more then, the Canon 10D. At the time I’d brought it both to test it out fully, as I had just bought it a month previously I was still learning how most effectively to use it, and to be somewhat stealthy. However, just prior to the service Pastor Doug saw me, I did have a very good seat about 6 rows back, and thanked me for taking photos for them, so I had to concentrate on making them especially good even though I had no idea what the service would entail (every year they change it).

Although I attended the Christmas services between 2005 and 2008, it wasn’t until last year’s services that I returned with camera in hand to take the photos. This time I had my new Leica M8 (which had debuted in 2007, I just took a little longer to adopt it into my camera bag), and had the pleasure of my friend Colleen’s company. We sat roughly in the middle (the best seats we could get for the service) and I shot more with the 90 mm then I had the previous year with film.

That year, having seen several services simliar in their lighting (though not all of their content), I really appreciated the subtle moods created by the lighting and effects.

The finale that year, with the children’s choir joining the adult singers and worship leaders onstage was my favorite of all of theirs. Since we were sitting in the middle I had to dodge standing proud parents in my frame, so the framing of this one isn’t perfect, yet it’s among my favorites for capturing the action and enthusiasm onstage.

This year when Colleen and I planned to return to the service we discussed in advance which one we should go to and decided to go to the earliest service, that at 5:00 p.m. and to get their very early to get good parking and a good seat. While we got an amazing parking spot, even though we were in the church an hour and a half early, all of the seats near the center of the church, in fact most of the seats in general were taken or being saved (in some cases someone was saving all of a row for their friends and family. At first we tried to sit in the middle, several rows back from where we had been last year. Since we had plenty of free time I decided to shoot some detail shots.

For this one I briefly went up on the main stage. The only person to ask for permission was a musician, and while he gave it he probably wasn’t the right person to ask. Still I took this and quickly went back to my seat before anyone could object.

Colleen who knows me very well knew I didn’t think I’d get the type of shots I wanted from our seat, so she asked if I wanted to sit in the balcony. I liked the idea and went to scout us seats and we finally sat there. While waiting for the service to start I asked the soundman who I was sitting right next to what cute things the service would have this year. He told me there would not be an elaborate candle lighting service, nor a children’s choir. There would however fog produced during the song “The Darkest Night of the Year”.

With our seats up high I certainly got a different perspective than I have in years past. In some ways perhaps a ground seat may have been better for capturing this, though I may have had many people in my frame as it was so crowded.

Amanda and Sercan Engagement Session

Meet Amanda and Sercan. When they arrived for their session I really liked the unique outfits they chose. I even told Amanda she looked like an international spy, which inspired in part the turning of several of their final images into black and white.

Prior to their session Amanda and I had many discussions about the look of their session. She wanted them to be unique and capture them having fun. Additionally she wanted them in non-typical locations for an engagement session. Outside of the HP Pavilion we found a cute wooded area, these two are part of my favorite series from there.

Soon everyone was ready to go to our main location, the train station in San Jose. In a moment that turned out to be serendipitous, at first we couldn’t get parking anywhere near the station, so we found street parking quite a hike away. On our way to the train station I found an area I couldn’t resist having them incorporate into their session.

I really like how not only is there a Rail Road crossing sign, there is even a sign which at that moment instructs people to look both ways, one of which is the direction where our happy couple is enjoying the moment. At first after a few photos, Amanda wanted Sercan to take his sunglasses off, instead I encouraged Amanda to put hers on to match him, and I really liked the result.

I really didn’t know how much time I’d be able to spend photographing in the train station. I had thought maybe I’d be asked to stop, yet even after firing off a few frames, an adding a flash, no one seemed to care that I was using the station as a backdrop. Amanda thought it would be cute to steal her fiance’s hat, though he saw the humor, he really wanted to keep it on for the photos. I love how Amanda and Sercan are having so much fun with this, especially as at first they’d been nervous it would be hard to relax in front of the camera.

After having some fun inside, it was time to shoot outside. Though we’d planned to visit the train station, we hadn’t made a thorough study of the arrival and departure times of the trains. We were happy to see a train outside and used it to take many shots, then caught some great moments as it was departing. I really like the emotions in this shot as the train goes by, especially in classic black and white.

We all noticed a train coming in the general direction of the station at the same time. Had it gone down one side of tracks we would have taken a different series of photos then we did. Just when we thought it would go away from us, the tracks switched and it came in our direction. This is another of my favorites of the day. Sercan had the last word on the session, remaking that having the two trains in the photos added a little extra coolness to them, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Topical Tuesday (8)

I don’t take my main camera, the Leica M8 used to shoot the engagement session, everywhere with me, though sometimes I feel that I should. Other times, I have it available, yet choose due to circumstance to use my iPhone instead. Now I don’t think that the iPhone’s camera in any way takes photos as good as even a low end point and shoot on a good day, there are times when discretion is a good idea, like in the next two photos.

This first photo was taken outdoors, however, to get the angle I did, I decided to park, quite illegally, literally right under a No Parking sign to get the shot. My camera wasn’t that far away from me, it was in the trunk, yet, I figured I wanted to get the shot of this building all lit up for the holidays and leave before someone showed up to tell me to leave or worse write a ticket. I literally only took the one and didn’t even stick around to see if it turned out well. I’m pleased with the efforts.

On Wednesday I found a group volunteering at the Santa Clara Valley Center for the Blind through bingo games. At first I thought the people we would be assisting were blind (and was curious about and looking forward to helping the blind play bingo), yet it turned out it was sighted players whose game fees would benefit the blind. As I was working there for the night and did not know what my job would be, having a camera would be awkward in terms of movement and respecting privacy (I hadn’t asked to take photos in advance). I did want a photo of the event, so I took one of the bingo cards I spent the night selling next to some colorful bingo markers.

My job for the night involved selling these cards called Cherry Bells or Cherries. The work simliar to a slot machine, match three of a kind and get a prize. Instead of using a coin to scratch off squares, players peel off the paper on the back. This way the whole card can be recycled, and additionally its faster to find out if you won (typical prize $1, $5, etc. though I did have a few $20 winners), and winnings can be paid out in cash or other tickets. Some players bought a lot of cards, and this is in addition to any bingo cards for games they were playing. There were also other similar cards which paid out other bigger possible prizes during in conjunction with the bingo games. I had a fun time volunteering, meeting people and even had a nice dinner (cheesesteak and fries) as thanks for volunteering, I plan to go back soon.

I’ve enjoyed seeing the city of Willow Glen decked out for Christmas for a few weeks now. Last Saturday before my run as I was very early I finally slowed down, despite the fog, to take a few photos of the pretty decorations.

This display caught my eye as I’ve always been a fan of blue as a Christmas color even though its not as popular as red and green for the holiday.

Some old fashioned snowmen help sell some antique treasures.

Even our running home base at Athletic Performance got into the spirit. I didn’t realize until I was editing this photo for the blog just how well the running gear matched the typical Christmas colors and decorations they had put up.

Then after my run, I spied something metal and yellow. One of my favorite brands of all time, and the first yellow Harley Davidson I’ve ever seen. It was amazing.

While I would have taken more creative angles if there hadn’t been any other cars around, I still found a few fun product shot like angles to take.

I’ll leave you this entry with a bumper sticker I found quite amusing (this is funniest if you are a Douglas Adams fan):

Kwanza Celebration in History Park

On Sunday I attended the first Kwanzaa Celebration at the Zanker African American History House at the San Jose History Park. The celebration included a first floor tour of Zanker House, which is believed to be a house of a Buffalo Soldier (an African American soldier during the Civil War period). 

In the first room of the tour a table was set up with items representing Kwanzaa, a non-religious African American holiday celebrated over 7 days which help children learn about seven principles: unity, self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economy, purpose, creativity and faith. 

Kwanzaa celebrations include gathering corn, fruit, books (representing education) and lighting the seven candles representing the seven principles (one on each day).

Ellen Rollins served as the main tour guide and I learned much about about Kwanzaa and post Civil War African American History (including those in California) in less than an hour. It was a great experience and I had to photograph her in front of the Kwanzaa table.

At one p.m. the Kwanzaa inspired parade started. Many of the groups were filled with young children dancing in colorful outfits.

One young boy had the honor of carrying the Kwanzaa candle holder, which he did with a solemn expression. Behind him were children carrying the principles. I don’t know if they were able to indicate which ones they wanted to carry, so I don’t know if this was cooincidental, how focussed and determined the young girl looks who was carrying the self determination place card. 

The mime group stopped to perform along the street. 

The parade ended with Santa Claus and two of his elves being escorted to the Children’s Area where they would hear last minute Christmas requests.

NACE Holiday Casual Networking

On Tuesday, I went to the San Jose Hilton for a casual holiday networking party with the Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE) meeting. When I first entered the room I was struck by how beautiful and dark it was. While I took many shots using flash to modify the room and human subjects later, at first I tried to capture the room just as it was.

The photos, which show the beauty of the green and pink adding to the holiday tone, have more grain then I’m used to having in my photos. Still, they have interesting glow and mood in them.

Having more of a light source, the beautiful candles, this one had a bit less grain.

So after the tone shots were done, it was time to put the flash to work to capture some other colors including skin tones.

Robbie Schlosser of The Magnolia Jazz Band and Mel Gilman of Mel’s Catering By George!, started the evening off right by toasting the soon to be arriving new year with white wine.

The cocktail food was just incredible. I liked how the cheese platter with its purple orchids almost matched my frame/business color.

My mother, who has baked some great Christmas cookies over the years, would call these almost too pretty to eat. Almost is right, they were delicious.

Virginia Santa Ines, Director of Catering, at the San Jose Hilton, and Greg Casella, a national NACE Officer and Owner of Catered Too, enjoyed an animated conversation.

I’m not sure what the joke was, yet Greg and Patrick Duffek of Headliner Promotions, were laughing quite a bit in the corner.

Leslie Butlar enjoyed sitting down with Patrick to look through his portfolio book of satisfied customers.

The end of the evening was my favorite part. Eventually everyone crowded in to one big table and shared favorite stories of clients with lots of good cheer going around. It was a pleasure to see Tony White, of the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, again, his hilarious stories were one of the big hits of the evening.

Topical Tuesday (7)

Last weekend I was in Mountain View to meet up with some friends and decided to get dinner there beforehand. I went to what was formerly Colonel Lee’s Mongolian BBQ to find out that they had completely redone the place with very beautiful and intricate display pieces on the walls, and even renamed the place New Mongolian BBQ.

I like the name new to reflect the changes, though, I do wonder if they will re-rename it after it has been there for a long time under the same name or if they will just keep it even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore, like when products in the grocery store such as detergents keep “New and Improved” labels for years.

I decided to buy a new card reader to have one with me on the go and found myself contemplating a lot of choices. I saw for the first time the Ecotrends card reader which claims to read 50 digital card types. I can’t even name 10 digital types, yet I was intrigued by the claim, reasonable price and the fact that it was eco-friendly with very little packaging to waste. It worked well for both my SD cards and my Compact Flash cards, yet I found out if you tried to read both at once it would give you an error message. Still it’s a great device to have on the go and will even let me read/connect to friend’s cards if they happen to have a need for it.

I’ve always appreciated the art in the bathroom of Barefoot Coffee Roasters. They have both bare feet painted on the ceiling and addition to ever changing art painted on the walls. I liked how the current artwork was a contrast of both a beautiful and a sinister face.

I found myself at San Jose’s City Hall walking around Sunday as I was waiting for the Martin Luther King Library to open (they were testing fire safety equipment and could not open till it was finished). The hazy rainy day made for a very dark and ominous background for a different perspective. I really like the open and clear dome so it was a fun contrast as well.

When the library opened I made sure to try photographing the flags of the world again from different angles and even floors.

Additionally the moving words electronic piece caught my attention.

Coyote Creek Trail – A New Course for The Athletic Performance Group

When I started my endurance training program, a little over a year ago now, the group was very different from how it appears now. At that time the group was organized as a Jeff Galloway Group, and our leader Jenny, had everyone winding down for a season and gearing up for the next season. In each season, roughly six months, groups would start anew welcoming in new runners and everyone who wished to follow the program would start with a 2.62 mile run (1/10 of a marathon distance) and gradually build up to 26.2 miles (with maintenance runs of distances of 6 miles or less included), with one half marathon and one full marathon outlined to be run as a group by season’s end.

About six months ago our group moved to a less formal structure by which we didn’t have a formal leader and the group wasn’t actively training together to run specific races together. As someone motivated by mementos of my accomplishments, such as race T shirts, medals, etc., as well as the fun end of season banquets with food, raffle prizes, and medals. The sayings on the GSJ (Galloway San Jose) cake were even in-joke compliments we would trade on long runs.

I wondered if I would keep going to the group with the formal structure, and some of the planned fun moments going away. For now I will be keeping with the group, though I do hope to also join a more challenging running group in the future to help work on speed work, it would be great to run a marathon in about 5 hours sometime in 2010. The group is now evolving into The Athletic Performance Group, named after the running store where we meet every Saturday morning in Willow Glen.

I was recently given a race duck, in part to remind me that its not just the fleeing moment of getting a medal, shirt, etc., it’s also the entire journey of every training moment that makes up the total training experience. By definition ordinary moments can be over in the blink of an eye, so it pays to be ready to experience them, and if you can to save them as photos as well. Each photo today, with the exception of my duck below, was captured with my iPhone.

Saturday’s run through Coyote Creek Trail was made up of many great moments. As our group has often picked Campbell Park as our maintenance run, any chance we get to go somewhere else feels sort of like a field trip from grade school. The trail was pretty as described, and we even saw some turkeys at the beginning, a runner joked they were doing their own turkey trot. Later runners said they had seen a bobcat and a coyote, however, these were the only animals the group I was with doing a 2:1 run-walk saw.

Every so often I would stop and take another photo of the animals, the colors and even Laura at the half way mark. In spite of having to get up extra early to get there, and the fog making it difficult to see the road signs on the way there, everyone agreed it was an amazing run. There wasn’t a shirt, or medal at the end (though we did enjoy a pre-holiday party afterwards at Bernadette and Alan’s house). Still, I think it’s very likely we will return there to have more such moments as these in my best of the Coyote Creek Trail run moment collage, in the future.

San Jose Holiday Parade 2009

It’s unusual for me to be on the other side of the camera, yet on Sunday morning a television camera was pointed at me, and the panned to others in the front section waiting for the San Jose Holiday Parade to begin.

I was sitting shoulder to shoulder with others who had been waiting since 5 a.m. or earlier to get a seat right near where the main stage was, where acts would perform before and in between the paraders. Since I was not one of the lucky VIP ticket holders (who can be seen in the bleachers in the next photo), for a lot of the time the performers had their backs to me (so as also to have the right angles for television capture), however, it was a great show through and through.

When I last attended the parade, two years ago, I’d missed seeing Circ de Soleil. I had thought that they would travel along the parade route, yet apparently they, and other acts only perform on the stage. This year, having asked the right questions at the balloon Inflation party, I knew where to be so I saw it. Every year they bring a different act, this years was one with different poses with yo-yos.

Though Garfield was one of the balloons that was filled with helium at the Inflation Party, I was not able to stick around to see him inflated. On the day of the parade he, along with other balloons including a Jack in the Box, Oscar the Grouch and others, tended to twist and sink in the wind. When this happens the volunteer balloon escorts have to run around in a circle and right the balloon.

Sometimes even ecological messages find their way into the parade:

When I first saw this “Bring Back (Plastic) Bags” float, at first I was confused. I was racking my brain trying to remember if San Jose had banned plastic bags being given out in grocery stores the way San Francisco did. After a few moments I realized instead they were trying to get people to bring their plastic bags back in when they shop, which is a great idea. When I grocery shop I use cloth bags, which in my opinion are much stronger, anyway.

I remember asking where the Imperial Storm Troopers were as I had seen them two years ago in the parade. They did show up, with one wearing a Santa hat as usual. This year they also brought Darth Vader in a tank, and a Darth Vader balloon with a light saber that apparently had not fully inflated.

Many of the acts were floats with dancers including Harley Davidson’s Toys for Big Boys float and the United States Marine Corp’s Toys for Tots float.

One of the best parts about being so close to the stage was that the performers often came up close to us.  I especially enjoyed seeing Sharkie come riding out with the special Fire Department / San Jose Sharks Fire Engine.

There was also singing and dancing for a finale that involved dancers from six different groups. All the acts had had some confetti on them when they finished. The confetti just kept raining down at the end and these young ladies kept dancing through it all. What a great performance and parade it was.