Shake

I was in Austin last week, and we took a trip to the Austin Flea Market. There, I saw this monkey.

Disco Fever

I was downtown on Halloween, and noticed that the local Irish pub had a disco ball and floor set up. I don't quite understand why that is, but the photo nearly shot itself.

Midnight Snack

Snapped this on a trip to New Orleans -- dark street, light convenience store. :)

Pit Stop

Shot from the sidelines of the Folsom Street Fair this year.

Throw Baby from the (Cal)train

I've been terrible about keeping up with my blog lately (perhaps as my own standards have become more critical), but maybe I can work on that.

On Saturday, I went up to the city -- with the idea of either seeing Fleet Week, or the last day of the Cindy Sherman exhibit at SF Moma. Photography won; planes lost. But I did manage to catch this as I disembarked from a super-packed Caltrain on the way home.

Skyscraper

Every year, I try to photograph the San Francisco Pride Parade. There's huge, monster turnout, as a happy city turns out for what is effectively an all-day celebration of some of the best things about San Francisco. You get these great characters who are literally on parade, and the result is a wonderful chance to take some pictures.

This shot was driven by two things: Last year, I got this shot of one of those SF cheerleading groups tossing people in the air. I wanted to get more of that action -- I love seeing people take flight! The other is the Airship Ventures zeppelin, which has been everywhere lately. I'd seen it in the sky all morning, and I'd been looking to include it in a composition. This is the result -- tough exposure, but one of my favorite shots from this year.

Colored Folks

This is the other shot I got from last Saturday that really had me looking at colors working together in a scene. That same direct, late afternoon light is at work just like my previous image -- and the angular shadows make this slightly weird image work for me.

An Arm and a Leg

Summer is here in San Francisco, which means a preponderance of largely cloudless days in many of the areas I shoot. One of the fun things about cities is that by afternoon, you get like peaking around buildings but still being very direct, which leads a lot of the colors to really pop.

Color isn't normally my thing, but I've been sitting here with Eggleston on my desk for a few months, so I'm hoping it starts to rub off. ;)

"His Best Foot Forward"

I've been bad about updating my blog in the last few months; been pretty busy with traveling, work, and (lately) the perils of mattress shopping. The net result is I'm months behind in processing, which I strongly persist until I drop dead (hopefully later rather than sooner; but that means the processing debt will be that much greater).

This shot is from Caltrain, and once again reminds me why the iPhone 4s is just a remarkable tool for street photography -- I'm actually vaguely worried that if the iPhone 5 or whatever is giant, it will become more noticeable and it won't be as good at what it does.

Then again, I guess this could change street photography forever if Google [disclaimer: my employer -- but I have nothing to do with this project] gets it right.

Denouement

I was down in New Orleans again for Mardi Gras and to see Betsy, and I went to a ton of parades -- more than when I went to see in college, even.

In case you don't know the score, Mardi Gras kind of works like this: A club of people (called a 'krewe') get dressed up in masks and fancy costumes, and then get a big parade together (and by 'big', I mean 20-40 floats + zillions of marching bands), and then roll through the streets of New Orleans.

The scene on the street is somewhere between a block party and a bacchanalia, depending on what part of the city you're in. People drink, chat, grill things, and then generally get quite drunk. Then the parades show up, and they start throwing things. Primarily plastic beads, but also schwag -- cups, neon lights, bags, tomahawks, and even (for one famous parade) coconuts. People got nuts for the stuff -- jumping up in the air, shouting, even baring their breasts -- all for cheap beads that you could buy anywhere else for pennies.

Behavioral economists must have a field day with Mardi Gras.

I got a lot of photos at the parades that caught my fancy, but I think my strongest image came afterwards. The aftermath of a day of five of these giant parades is staggering -- the amount of trash generated is epic. Equally epic is the cleaning crew that goes along the main thoroughfares of the city, pushing up big mounds of trash with bulldozers.

I was struck by how terrifying the waste is in Mardi Gras. It's something I didn't think of when I lived in the city back in college, but... well,  I'm sure one day some 51st century archaeologist will be sifting through the ruins of Old Earth, and wondering why the hell we have 37 kilotons of plastic beads in a giant pit somewhere.

Sit for a Spell

Shot this on Market Street -- liked the lines.

The Tip of the Iceberg

My sister lives in Puerto Rico (she's stationed in the coast guard there), and my family all decided to visit her for Christmas. Following that, B & I took off for St. Thomas for a lazy few days on the beach.

Yesterday I took a snorkel tour off the coast, and brought my little SD-10 with me (Canon's underwater P&S). Lots of pictures of fish and turtles which frankly were super boring to me. Shot this one as our guide was delivering a lecture, and I instantly liked it.
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