Topical Tuesday (11)

When I write my blog entries, I almost always edit my photos first, often placing them on the entry in the order I want them, and then finally writing. With the old saying of a picture being worth a thousand words, sometimes I’m tempted to just publish them for a short amount of time, maybe an hour, before even writing anything, just letting the photos tell the story for me. It was really tempting to publish the photos on this entry without comments for quite a while.

As a teen, I really enjoyed writing, even winning a scholarship to attend the Center for Creative Youth, a summer program at Wesleyan University, an intensive program in which my concentration was creative writing. When I think back to the major essay I read at the audition process, a day in the life of a dog, I still cringe a bit, though somehow it worked.

I’ve sort of shied away from writing a bit since then, though working on my blogging 3xs a week goal, helps a lot.

As you may have noticed, I recently had some blog entries pre-written and posted as I’ve been in Florida to prepare for and run in the 17th annual Walt Disney World Marathon. In this Topical Tuesday I’ll be talking about some things that happened on the trip on the first few days, starting with my plane ride on American Airlines. (With the sole exception noted, all photos on this entry were taken with a friend’s Canon Elph camera, on loan to me while I try to decide on a compact camera suitable for runs and travel. I did miss my Leica on the trip very much).

Though I always take photos from my seat on my plane trips, I honestly think the photo above is one of the prettiest ones I’ve ever taken.

This next one was taken as we were flying over mountains in Colorado, a photo that would prove to be ironically funny later on after I landed in Florida and found out they were having one of the coldest January’s in recent memory

I don’t know what it is about airplane flying that gets to me, I’m just always in the mood to hear about the online food choices. Not that I always get them, I just find them a fun part of the journey. I know the prices are excessive (they have a captive audience the way movie theaters do), yet I absolutely had to find out how good (or not) a $3 cookie billed as gourmet was, so I ordered one and happily milk was still free.

To my delight (and somewhat to my surprise) the cookie was wonderful. In fact, the only way it could have been better has had they been able to serve it warm, which of course, would be a logistical nightmare in flight. The cookie was so good in fact that I also got one with milk on the return flight.

In addition to getting to run in a new state (that makes two out of the ten I need to complete to be a junior member of the 50 Staters Marathon running club), the visit gave me a chance to hang out with my mom and stepdad who live in a city that’s about an hour and a half away from Orlando. Knowing me as well as they do, the second night I was there they made sure to take me to Boston Lobster with an all you can eat buffet featuring sushi, crab legs, crab cakes, mussels, clams, oysters and whole lobsters. My mom took this photo of me:

and then I used my iPhone to take this one and post it immediately to Facebook with only the caption of “Dinner!”.

One of my main concerns about the trip, and one reason why my mom, stepdad and I were staying in Orlando days before the race, was how smoothly I could pick up my race packet and number. My mom thought the race expo was quite crowded, however, it was much less packed then I’ve seen others. Then again, about 75,000 people signed up for the half marathon and marathon events (with about 5000 of them signing up for both, the Goofy Challenge), and not everyone came out days early to beat the crowds. Here’s a shot looking down at the expo.

The hotel we stayed at is Shades of Green, for those in the military (including those who have retired) and their families. My stepdad is retired U.S. Navy with over two decades of active service. Shades of Green used to be called The Disney Inn, it’s still a Disney Resort, and there’s a Mickey Mouse in the lobby. Here’s another photo of me with Mickey from my mom (she’s camera shy, so she prefers taking photos of me).

It’s something of a tradition for me to take and later post a photo representative of where I slept the night before a big race. While the hotel room was nice, it was kind of nondescript, so for my pre-race hotel photo, I snapped a photo of the grotto the night before.

Topical Tuesday (10)

Welcome to my first Topical Tuesday of 2010! By coincidence I wrote 9 for 2009 (which lets me start 2010 with #10), there will be many more for this year as I will try to do one for every week.  Above is a random generated Blog Post Collage of my posts on Facebook.  Ironically it pulled entries about running, movies, the dog, music, yet not one photography related post.

Since many things that happened this week will be other blog posts, this week’s Topical Tuesday will focus a lot on my one day trip through Berkeley with my friend Gaius.  I haven’t been to Berkeley since I first bought my M8 years ago. It was great to get photos of other things with the M8, someday when I buy an M9, I’ll have to bring it to the city as well.

Unlike my first trip to Berkeley (photos of which I’ll have to post in another blog), we were more trying to hang out then go on a long photo walk. So the photos are more things we happened to see than things we sought out for colors, textures, leading lines, etc.

One of my favorite parts of the day was visiting a chocolate counter, getting some samples of very dark chocolate and seeing this display of all the ingredients.

We didn’t stop for coffee in the city (though we probably should have), I did notice this sign for both its message and the probably intentional gritty condition of the sign.

This double stacked bus (I’m not sure what to call it), was in part to raise awareness on conservation. Gaius and I were joking that if it really was used as a bus the extra weight would actually make it a fuel waster.

One of my late father’s favorite photography subjects was flowers, particularly a single flower. When I saw this flower, I’m not even sure what type, I was just struck by its beauty, I had to take it in his memory.

Being a large city, I of course found an example of graffiti that was quite beautiful, at a local junior high.

Which leads to a cute scene at Gaius’s apartment. He has a cat named Catullus (which means little cub in Latin). He told me he knew he’d name a cat that before he even had took in this beautiful creature who was once a lonely stray. He has photos all around the apartment of a tiger at Catullus’s eye level, so he can imagine that he is the tiger. It took quite a few shots to take this (especially as I took it with my iPhone), yet it came out well.

Colleen’s mom is a big believer in practical gifts. One Christmas gift I got from her was a gift card to McDonald’s. Since I don’t eat a lot of fast food I actually had to look up on my iPhone where there was one, and found one not too far from my home. When I went there I found a taxi cab in the parking lot and while it’s likely only the driver took the cab there, had fun imagining someone taking a cab to McDonald’s to get the limousine feel.

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.

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):

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.

Topical Tuesday (6)

Ask anyone who knows me well, and they’ll tell you that I love sushi and given a chance to pick a restaurant for group outtings will usually suggest raw fish for dinner. This week I found a coupon in The Metro for a Grand Opening Sale of a new place called Sushi Infinity, so I decided to check out their all you can eat meals.

Today’s Topical Tuesday will be a mixture of iPhone photos (black frames) and Leica M8 photos (purple and silver frames).

Above is three sushi pieces I usually get. Sushi Infinity lets you order 3 pieces at a time so I started with clam, flying fish roe, and a Spider roll (fried soft shell crab), three of my usual pieces to order anywhere.

The logo of the sign was really fun. One of the best parts of the place is that when the lot behind them is full (which it was as it is part of a strip mall), there is a another free parking lot behind them, which is where I needed to park.

I decided to get more adventurous and ordered some other things including the Phoenix roll (with smoked salmon) and a roll with spicy scallops. There is a lunch menu and a much more expansive dinner menu. Even though the dinner menu had a much larger selection, I decided to stick with the lunch menu for my first visit.

Even though the rolls were smaller than ones I am used to (which I think is a plus as it’s an all you can eat place that encouraged trying more things), I really enjoyed everything I had ordered. I found out during my meal that the place had been open for two months, still that’s plenty new enough to have a Grand Opening sale coupon.

I’m kind of a sushi snob teasing my friends Shauna and Colleen that California rolls aren’t really sushi (as they are cooked crab, and often imitation crab), yet I decided to try some rolls that don’t even meet my definition of real sushi for fun.

So my third and final round of eating, i had sushi including cooked beef, and a breakfast roll (crab, egg and bacon), and braved a cooked spicy crab roll.  The latter was so spicy I had to have my entire glass of water to finish it, wow that lived up to its name. The meal was really good and I’m glad I tried it, next time, I will try the dinner menu.

As usual, I went to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library at San Jose State University and took out a lot of books for the week. I thought I’d limit the number by only taking two bags in which to carry them, instead I took out 21 hardcover books in two filled bags and some in my arms. While there I noticed the flags of the world were back up on display (sometimes they are taken down for other displays). I made sure to grab a quick iPhone photo of the rainbow of symbols of all the different countries.

This year, I read about some of the pre parade festivities for the San Jose Holiday Parade. I first attended this parade two years ago, and had so much fun made sure to plan ahead to attend this year. (Due to a prior commitment I was unable to attend the 2008 parade).

The day before there is an Inflation Party in front of what will be the parade starting area, where three of the helium balloons are filled. (I told a few people I was attending the Inflation Party with no other explanation, and quickly found out they thought it had to do with the economy).  The process to fill them is a long one. First the balloons are laid out. Then the many strings associated with the balloon are untangled, and finally they start inflating the balloon section by section, tying off one section before moving onto the next.

While waiting for the strings to be untangled for the first balloon to be filled, I crossed the street to check out some newly finished trees at Christmas in the Park.

Daniela, part of  the Friends of the San Jose Mounted Unit, was putting the finishing touches on their tree.

From a distance, I thought this tree was simply stunning. Up close, I was amused by all the beautifully detailed ornaments showing all their limousines. LeGrande Affaire really outdid themselves with this one.

In one of my new favorite tree displays, Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and his dog, were captured in this large whimsical display.

On the community stage a dance troop from Ashley’s Art of Dance came out to entertain the growing audience. The crowd was told to cheer extra loud as this was only the dancer’s third performance ever.

Here are some of the youngest ones dancing to “Let it Snow”.

At the end everyone came out for a finale with Miss Ashley.

Topical Tuesday (5)

Today, December 1st, is Worlds Aids Day, a day of both remembrance and efforts to raise money to end this disease.  The Red Organization (Go Red and (Red) products) teams up with companies to allow a portion of purchases to go to the Global Fund which helps fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa.

Today Starbucks is giving 5 cents for every coffee purchased to Red. While I agree with many people who say Starbucks could and should easily give 50 cents a cup to this, I also think every cent helps. So even if you prefer mom and pop coffee shops, which I generally do, please consider going to Starbucks just today and helping the cause.

The photo above and the others in today’s Topical Tuesday are all from my iPhone.

This morning when I went to Starbucks, I tried their Creme Brulee Latte. Anyone who knows me well knows that Creme Brulee is one of my favorite desserts, so I almost always order it when its an option.

A few years ago my friend Veronica introduced me to Barefoot Coffee Roasters in Santa Clara. My favorite drink there is the Cafe Brulee which is even fun to see made. To finish it sugar granules are heated up on top with a mini propane torch (which reminds me of my lampworking class in collge). Another reason I like that cafe is that all sorts of people go there to hang out. When I went their last Friday I ran into a gentleman named John who shared his pet birds Alex, a parrot, and Rio, a green cheeked curro, with me as well.

The main reason I was out on Friday was that I had never experienced Black Friday at a mall before.  Colleen and I went to Westfield Valley Fair Mall to buy gifts and people watch. The traffic in the mall was as intense as I’d thought it would be even though we weren’t there that early for the super discount sales. There were police officers directing traffic, at one point an officer tried to direct us back into a parking structure even though we were trying to leave, luckily, we were able to get out when we wanted to.

It was at the mall, at Crate and Barrel (where Colleen got a nice present for someone though I won’t be specific on the off chance they are reading this) where I saw one of the best coordinated trees I have all season.

When I returned from the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving , I passed by a place I always meant to go to, yet have never had the time, The Vault Ultra Lounge.  Although, it was closed then as it was early in the day, not to mention a holiday, I thought it was ironic that I would not have been let in even if they had been as they have a strict dress code which prohibits: ” hats (baseball caps), tennis shoes (white), work boots (yellow, brown, black, or any style of boot), white T-shirts, sports wear, baggy attire (baggy jeans, baggy shirts) or flannels (short or long sleeved).”

I’m not sure how business has been lately,  as a sign on the window said they had recently had their liquor license suspended for five weeks. I will have to go back downtown sometime soon and check it out. In the meantime, closed or open, I can appreciate the beautiful architecture of the former bank turned club.

My friend Chris’s family breeds Pomeranians. One of their dogs, Sunni, goes with him on his trips across the country as a long distance truck driver. As Chris had a cargo to haul not to far from where I live, I was able to hang out with him at a truck stop for a few hours. I told Chris that he had  one job I would never want to have as I’d get bored with all the driving. However,  he told me music, books on tape, and Sunni’s company help make the drive enjoyable.

I wanted to get a nice photo of Sunni, however, he had a lot of energy after spending most of the morning inside the truck. With some effort and waiting I got this photo which really shows off the color in his fur.

Even though I like that photo a lot, my favorite is actually one that is more of an outtake. My first idea was to have Sunni jump up on my leg and look up at me. Chris told me Sunni would do this and pose for me, after all he is bred to be a show dog and can do commands, however, Sunni didn’t like the idea at all. In fact, in this shot, one of the only split seconds in which he would be on my leg at all, he appears to be giving a rather human reaction to having his portrait taken.

Since I have my next marathon, The Walt Disney World Marathon coming up on January 10th, I needed to get in at least one, preferably several very long runs before then.  On Saturday, even though I’d already walked for 5 miles and ran for 6 in the turkey trot, I decided to run 26 and get the longest run over with.

While I know it’s smarter to run with a group or at least a running buddy, I was running in an area where I could find all the necessities including water, bathrooms and access to people in case of an emergency, the Cisco campus and the Guadalupe Park levee. I must have run the levee loop at least a dozen times.

Running alone is a great time to think and listen to music (perhaps I get in a similar zone as Chris does when he’s driving), and gave me a chance to really notice nature including some of the beautiful colored foliage.  This photo is SOCC: straight out of (iPhone) camera for color (some minimal sharpening and resizing0, and was framed to show our more typical green trees contrasting with the amazing oranges and yellows.

Lastly, this final photo is about natural beauty mixing with manmade structures. While rainbows can be found outside, when sunlight hits glass you can sometimes find them inside as well for a fleeting moment in time. Yesterday I noticed glass doors letting in enough sun to make this beautiful rainbow inside. This is SOOC for color (minimal sharpening and resizing).

Topical Tuesday (3)

Welcome to my third Topical Tuesday. As you may have guessed already, I’m making some changes to how I’m working with my photos that I post here. I was talking to my good friend Rachel about how to make the photos on my blog stand out and look more professional while still using this current template platform (changes on that coming in January). I came up with a way to frame my photos (literally) along with a quick reference on how to tell which ones were taken with my main cameras, and which were taken with others (i.e. my iPhone or a point and shoot).

So from now on any photos taken with a main camera with have this lavender and silver triple frame along with NSSL letters, (Not So Still Life Photography) as a signature on the bottom (and a simpler frame for other photos, to be shown at the end of this entry).

I debated going back and using this frame method on all the photos I’ve posted so far, then decided not to. This blog is a work in progress and this entry, along with others shows improvements as I’m going along. Thanks to my readers for being on this journey with me.

The photo subject for today’s entry is 300, a bowling alley in San Jose. Though I had seen it from the outside previously, I had never gone in until this weekend. At my last Silicon Valley NACE (National Association of Catering Executives) meeting, I met Suzanne Frazier, who is the Sales Manager of Group Events who told me what a great place this was to have a party. Since I had my Sweet 16 party in a bowling alley, and Suzanne told me this would be like any alley I’ve been to before, I had to visit it when I was on that side of town.

I was given permission to take photos there with the caveat that I would not have people in them so as to respect the privacy of the guests. I counted several parties going on that day, mostly for young children.

It’s a very dark alley, with a music video playing on every screen above each lane.

Even the bar and lounge area are quite dark, yet inviting and beautiful at the same time. I especially liked the rainbow of all the literally glowing bottles of alcohol.

This sign got my attention. I’m familiar with a Back 9 in golf (the last set of holes), yet not in bowling. So, not even seeing a sign on the door saying it was closed for a private party, I went in.

Inside were nine bowling lanes (hence the name) that were currently not lit and ready to go and this cozy little bar. When some staff members came out to set up for the party (from the sign I missed), I quickly and quietly left.

This morning I woke up an hour early accidentally. I think my body wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the special Fitness Scavenger Hunt at Community Bootcamp. While some of the items we had to find were easy (paper clip, candy or food wrapper), some were downright hard, like the pine cone. I never did find one, though neither did a lot of others. I did get a lot of exercise in running from building to building, doing the exercises after finding each item (i.e. push ups, step ups, lunges, etc.). My Garmin watch clocked 1.33 miles for the activity, however, as it depends on satellites and I was indoors a bit looking for the items, it was probably more like 1.5 miles. It was a great workout, and I’m always glad to try new workouts.

I’ve been on the fence about the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot. This morning brought a San Jose Groupon offer to my email box, and so I was able to register for only $25 instead of $40 in person (or $35 online). Groupon works by offering great coupons you can purchase (i.e. 40% off something local, but only if a set number of people sign up and prepay). At first I didn’t think we’d get 25 people to buy the offer and lock in the price, then it tipped over (reached 25) at 10:35 a.m. The power of the Internet continues to amaze me daily.

Yesterday was the first day that I’ve had this blog that I didn’t blog. I’m OK with that. I could have squeaked out an entry late last night, yet I realized blogging 3 times a week minimum is probably more realistic (and I may still do more depending on the weeks). I’m going to definitely keep Tuesdays going and probably do Thursdays and Sundays as well.

For photos taken with my iPhone (a term WordPress still thinks is spelled incorrectly as it even apparently does WordPress which is even funnier according to the dotted red line I see when typing either) or other non professional cameras, I’ll just use a simple black frame as I did for this closeup of a Lego car I photographed. Be on the lookout for an entry with many such frames soon.

Topical Tuesday (2)

Last night driving home, I took two a few photos with my iPhone.  The one on the left I’d thought about taking for a while, playing up the irony that you can’t legally text and drive (“Please don’t text and drive” from Verizon, yet you can use your phone to take a photo (not that that is that much safer mind you.)

After seeing the sign a few times, I decided I was probably going to take the photo at some point.  Last week driving by it I gave my phone to a completely unsuspecting Colleen and since it was night and I was driving, the shot didn’t come out.

Yesterday I took two shots, one at a complete stop further back, and one while driving at a very low speed. This one is closer, and blurrier due to motion, yet it I hope makes the ironic statement, so I’ll stick with that one as my final shot.

Years ago while a photojournalism student at San Jose State University, I took a professor’s advice to heart and had a camera with me every waking moment.  I happened to have my camera, then a Canon 10D, right next to me in the passenger seat as I passed  a car fire. While driving I shot a few photos including this one,  in part as I needed a photo for the Spot News section of our portfolio.

The other shot is all about timing. As I was driving home I noticed the most beautiful colors and images in the clouds. Though I like the color range I obtained, and the little light at the bottom, I was trying to get as much pink as I could, by driving to a safe place to get the shot. Unfortunately the color faded fast and by the time I was at a red light (this one was at a complete stop I promise), this was all the pink left in my visible frame.

As is usual for me, I’ve been doing a lot of reading (thank goodness for libraries or I’d spend a fortune buying way too many books).  One book that really caught my attention was Lisa Unger’s “Die for You”.  I literally could not put down the book’s tale of a scorned wife’s search for her missing husband despite all the clues she uncovers that she really didn’t know him at all.

Today’s Community Bootcamp class involved running to three different buildings. As I got a late start (getting things ready for a meeting tonight), I ended up actually getting a ride from one building to another even though the distance was one I could easily run in order to catch up with the group. I remember thinking, wow, this is silly, I can cover a marathon distance at a run-walk-run pace.

Then ironically, the group had problems getting in to the first building at first (mix up with access), so I could have ran after all. Today was a great and beautiful day to work out outside, I really enjoyed our stairs and outside weight lifting program.

My business goals include going to more networking events. Since I’ve found NACE and enjoyed their meetings and plan on attending more, I just need to find a few more to go to regularly as well. Tonight is my first meeting with The South Bay Masters of Networking at Taqueria La Bamba in Mountain View. Assuming photos are permitted (and as the things I were getting ready were all photography related it would be great if it was), I’ll post some pics of the group tomorrow.

Is it possible to blog every day? Since i started this blog, I’ve been doing it, though some days have been harder to find topics than others. I’ve even been reading articles on how to promote blogs, customize blogs and never run out of topics. If you’d like to help by suggesting a topic feel free to comment on this or any other entry, or email me directly at Danielle@notsostilllife.com

Around this time last year I had the opportunity to photograph Anna who was preparing for a role in “The Nutcracker” with The Western Ballet Company.

I have a history taking dance myself. As a girl growing up in Connecticut I took ballet and tap as two other children on my block did, and I wanted to join the crowd (though it didn’t occur to me at the time that as they were more advanced than me having started earlier, I’d never be in their classes). I progressed into jazz and took it for many years.

My dance teacher, Miss Evelyn (who has since retired) told us how she would take a select group of girls to New York City, where they’d eat at Mama Leone’s (which closed down before I ever got a chance to go there), and have them audition for professionals with special routines designed to make them look amazing. Though I didn’t continue with my dancing, I still appreciate the dedication to the art and countless hours of practice those like Anna go through to be onstage. If I can come across some photos of myself from my dance classes I’ll post one at a later time, in the meantime here is a photo of Anna looking amazingly graceful.

Topical Tuesday (2)

Two weeks ago, I attended my first meeting of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE).  The group holds monthly meetings on various topics in a new location each month. The above photo and this next one were taken by photographer Richard Mayer.

Since it was my first meeting, I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of bringing my own camera so I didn’t. Tonight’s meeting at The Capital Club in San Jose  is a series of booths created by NACE members to present to executives in the industry and will be quite visual, so I made sure to get permission to take photos, which I’ll be displaying in an entry soon on this blog.

While visiting a photography shop lately I saw one of Gary Fong’s products, in this case a Lightsphere:

I like how though Gary isn’t literally the product, it is branded as if he is, very bold, recognizable, eye catching, etc.

It’s funny as just last week I downloaded his book in Kindle form for my iPhone, “The Accidental Millionaire”. The book is hysterical, especially parts of his early life.  Some of my favorite moments in his life include him deciding to become his own parent in principal, practicing being homeless when he thinks it is inevitable for his family (though only sticking it out one of the three planned nights), shooting a wedding at which an extra bride shows up (and the clever way the wedding party deals with the situation), and his unusual adventures with online dating (before he met his beautiful wife, Melissa).

I really love how I can search Google for archived things. Today I was looking for some older work, and it was simpler to look through email sent via Gmail then through hard drives.  Some of the interesting things I found included some of my early music photography work, here’s a photo of the lead singer of the band, Crisis, Karyn Crisis,  it kind of reminds me of the painting “The Scream”:

Last week for various reasons I missed two sessions of Bootcamp. I realized that my day seemed really off-kilter when I don’t exercise as planned. I have two exercise programs on DVD at home that I have yet to try out, “The Lazy Man’s Workout Series (4 minute workouts)” and “P90X”. With some more free time approaching as the holiday season gets nearer, I hope to try them and report back here on them.

I want the Yankees to win the World Series. I’m not a bandwagon fan, I’ve been a fan since childhood, which with a family made up of Yankees, Mets and Giants fans made for some interesting seasons. I heard on the radio today that a Philadelphia paper printed a one page ad congratulating the Philies on their victory, even though the series isn’t over yet.  I’m hoping they won’t’ have cause to re-run it.  I’m really curious as to who checked over the paper that day as editor, s/he must not be a baseball fan, or else perhaps they are a rabid fan hoping to psych out the Yankees.