What excites you?

Its a new year, its time to plan for your coming calendar year, to consider what kind of photographer or artist you want to be? What events do you want to catch? What do you want to be certain you got in? What just absolutely turns you on visually? Auditorially? In anyway? Don't be afraid to start thinking ahead, its not a bad thing to keep an eye on your end of year calendar of shots now while you have the chance to think about it. What do you want to shoot in the next weeks of this winter? What about spring? Summer? Fall? Was there something you missed that you have been kicking yourself over?

Ancil Hoffman Park

Spring in Ancil Hoffman Park

Is in danger of being closed forever. The local government did not see the value in allowing the park appropriate time to convert over to private funding, instead they were given three weeks. My photo meetup went out there last week. I truly hope that private companies step up. I did my part by making a small monetary donation and buying a tee shirt. Its a wonderful place and wild life refuge. There is also a wildlife rescue building that caters to avian residents. This owl is one of them.

She will be moved to a new home when the facility is shut down. They are already working with a skeleton crew which is primarily volunteer. These are professionals, they deserve to earn a living wage.

This is why I do it

Yesterday I spent the afternoon/early evening in Galt taking pictures with the Sacramento Digital Photo Meetup. We went to the Consumnes River Preserve. I met a lot of great people. I got to see people I had met before. The evening was supposed to be about cranes but what we got was a glorious sunset and Canadian geese. It was spectacluar. I highly recommend visiting the preserve, its a beautiful place. They have trails and lots of wild life. I got pictures of a bunny, he was a little bitty, soft, fuzzy, brown bunny hiding in the brush. I met a church group and a bird watching group. I thought the bird watchers were photographers! Fooled me from a distance because they have all of this gear on tripods but they are really just for watching not for taking pictures. The weather was perfect. The night before had been rainy and windy. I was worried we would not get to go because of the rain. But, it cleared up nicely and even warmed up. We could not have asked for better conditions. The only thing we didn't get were cranes. They decided not to show up.

Learning to see and penmanship

It is important for any photographer to learn to see both with and without the camera.  After all, don't you see what you want before you even put the camera up to your face?  I do.  I have learned a lot from my mother who is an artist.  She has taught me to see.  I have also learned a lot from taking drawing and painting classes. Both required me to see in a different way.  Photography requires me to imagine what the camera could do.  Painting requires me to readjust reality to suit the composition of the art not the other way around.  Both disciplines require different ways to see the world.  It is very helpful to start to realize that the world can be seen in more than one way.  Not all art is created through the same process.  I am currently working to improve how I see by practicing a little bit of penmanship.  I hope to improve my ability to create consistent and accurate shapes.  Drawing is another way to pop open the brain and to evoke creativity.  One of the ways my mother taught me to get to the ability to draw is to focus on simple shapes through penmanship.  Not just writing, but really trying to create good, consistent shapes.  I am retraining my brain to see the world through my hands.  

Kite Festival

What a fun day!  May I just say, it is so much fun to be at the kite festival in Berkeley.  It was awesome!  There were Japanese kite makers.  There was food including Ben & Jerry's, Vegan, barbecue chicken, hot dogs, pretzels, and kettle korn.  There were so many children!  Everywhere!  There were stroller backups!  I had a blast taking video and photographs of everything.  It was very windy, sunny, and cool.  I was very lucky, I got to park close and only had to pay 10$.  There were choreographed kite ballets.  This is very serious business.  This includes music.  There was a dj/emcee.  There were vendors with hats, tee shirts, and jewelry.  Be sure to bring a blanket to sit on, sunglasses, sunscreen and water.  I am sure that I got some footage to add to my portfolio, I certainly got some great practice in.  I noticed that I could have brought my tripod after all.  It would have been nice because it was so windy that I was getting buffeted around.  I think I will go back tomorrow.  I was focused today and I think that I liked it!