Hospital Views, UCLA

I already had the camera out, taking photos of the new family member and all, and then these views got my attention.

Day 5

He's in the House

ohntitle

Mr. Narrator

this is Bob Dylan to me

New Work, Old Stairway

Thee Orpheum

This picture is a scan from a 4x5 Polaroid. I wish I could remember the year I shot this. Maybe 2001? I do remember that I shot it using a cheap Cambo studio camera and my one lens at the time, a Schneider 90mm f8. I had set this shot up one time prior, and after paying for parking and getting everything on my camera in order, bubble levels leveled, Polaroids and film holders carefully arrayed, a FedEx truck parked dead center in my shot. And then it began to rain.

Rivers and Such

A friend just showed me a supremely worthwhile book on the L.A. River: The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River. I only saw this book briefly, but it seems to transcend visually.
So much photography has been made focusing on the river, most of it dull. And repetitive.
For years I worked on a project of photos of La Ballona Creek. Most of the work is, well, also dull. But I think the important work is the work. And so the mistakes and crap have their own value. Here's one of the stronger images I shot, excerpted from an overall weak collection.
At least I put the hours and thought and effort in. I'm proud of that, if not so much the resulting pictures.
The bike path on La Ballona is the reason I spent a l0t of time out there. And the herons. It's well worth a visit.

Naturally

NHM dot ORG

A Few Berries Left

When the berries are gone, so are the cedar waxwings. Enjoying the show while we can.

Celebrated Summer

Cedar Waxwings: red in, red out

Poop's red, too. Car wash time.

And cont'd.

A snapshot of the view from our bedroom window.

Cedar Waxwings, cont'd.

Return of the Cedar Waxwings

They're back!

It's been two years since they last turned the trees in front of our home into their temporary mess hall. They have a way of dropping-diving-gliding that's mesmerizingly graceful, and they're a lot more cautious and quick than the rowdy house sparrows that live all around us. More welcome, too.

Kid Projects 101

What to do with old crayons:
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf666289.tip.html

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Backyard Biodiversity

The term backyard biodiversity came up in a conversation recently, and it made me think of all of the life (much of it not welcome, but all the same) that our small raised-bed garden attracts in the heart of this megalopolis: enormous beetle larvae, cabbage moths, earwigs, pillbugs, ladybugs, mantises, cutworms, aphids, squirrels, a nocturnal raccoon now and then, cats, rodents I'd prefer to leave unnamed, crows, hummingbirds, phoebes, an occasional hawk, jays, and a raucous, destructive troupe of house sparrows that mowed down every new seedling I planted before the bird netting went up.

Then there's this little bird in the photo. (Bad photo, I realize, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice my gear in the rain.) This is a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, as far as I can tell. She only visits us during the rain. I've never, ever, seen her on sunny days. The aforementioned gang of delinquent sparrows who live nearby make a shrill racket on a typical day, but disappear entirely when the rain starts falling. I don't know where they go, but I wish they'd stay there.

I also don't know what this little warbler scavenges among the straw in our soaked yard, but it's always a pleasure to see her, the only bird who visits on rainy days like today.

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My weeks also have seven days in them, but I have an overabundance of tree photos now, and this seems like a good place to put them.

I hadn't shot any photos of ficus trees for a few years, until just a couple of weeks ago. Then I started, and now it's hard to stop. Once you start seeing something you had previously failed to notice, you really see it. These trees are everywhere in the L.A. area. So, Ficus Week is over, but I'll post some more pictures of these goofy trees as work and baking permit.

Re-enactment

With the little baking I do, I so enjoy the whole process. There's a reason Play-Doh is so popular with the kids. I do, though, have a favorite moment: It's pulling the Dutch oven out of the oven oven (not a typo), and marveling at the newly baked loaf, listening to it crackle and pop before pulling it out and setting it down on a rack to cool. The black cast iron perfectly frames the fresh loaf, makes it look so much warmer, breadier. This is sort of what that moment looks like, but not what it sounds like. Or smells like.

Golf

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It's Ficus Week!

In celebration of nothing in particular, this photo blog will be hosting a week's worth of pictures of ficus trees, L.A.'s favorite underappreciated, unheralded, unfavorite curbside flora. I have no real love for these trees, per se, no sentimental attachment. They just express form and mass and scale and human intervention in a way that I enjoy, like nothing else in the urban landscape as I encounter it.
If you haven't already seen the B&W ficus photos I made a few years ago, visit my Etsy shop for a look. Check back here tomorrow for more.

Ficus

Demo

Self-Propelled

My Camera

isn't equipped to capture smells. Yet.

New Year's Harvest

Compost Lesson #11

Gingerbread houses are, of course, compostable. And so it all comes full circle, almost like a Hendrik Hertzberg essay, but messier. Happy Holidays!

The Banality of Banality

Gingerbread Rad, contd.

Gingerbread Rad

Go, B!

I Need a

Like the pak choi in the previous post, the vegetables pictured on this photo blog are what we grow in our backyard. These beets are an exception. They just looked too good not to photograph.

Pak Choi

"Formula for an Interesting Life:

Acquire skills and use them. The more skills, the more interesting."
-Stewart Brand
The Next Whole Earth Catalog, Second Edition

No Knead Bread How-to Video with Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey.

Artifact #2, Though Not Chronologically

LolaGrover.
[I hate to distract from pictures with words, particularly in what I had hoped would be a wordless series, but I feel this editorial aside is necessary in order to note that Grover was called Lola long before the Kid discovered Charlie and Lola. So, the Lola in this photo was named Lola and unnamed Grover without consideration for Lola of Charlie and Lola. I probably should have just left that alone, but wanted to make sure it was understood that Grover became Lola just because a two-year decided it should be that way—for no discernible reason apparent to her adult handlers—and not because this then two-year-old was referencing Charlie's kid sister Lola. Clear?]

Artifact

Lola and Charlie.

Compost Lesson #10

Strange life forms under the surface.

Luv 2 Nap

Every day I pass witty vanity plates and think Wouldn't that make a funny photo? No. I've spared you more times than I could count.
Napping, however, is my special talent. It's something I'm really good at.
So I share this with you.