No fun

Poster identifying forbidden activities on Metro trains.

(Alas, cell phone usage still available.)

It's not rowing; it's paddling

Scenes from the 2007 ViewSonic Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival.

Gooder-night moon

Getting slightly better at setting the new camera to capture some detail on the over-half moon.
(Hey, I said "slightly.")

Cracked obsession

Yes, I went back two days later and took another shot of the crack in the glass ceiling of the Bonaventure lobby.

Sometimes inspiration defies all explanation.

Stay

Crack in the glass ceiling of the Bonaventure Hotel lobby.

Rotated and cropped, yes.

Twisty brighter

Remember this? Here it is closer, and taken with a better camera.

Yep, it's the moon

Um, you know, clouds

(I know this is not that great. Thanks for looking anyway.)

Burning for you

Beach bonfire on Dockweiler Beach State Park, El Segundo. (Yes, in the flight path of planes taking off from LAX.)

Tilt-a-whirl

Experimenting with the 'sports' (high-speed) mode with the swinging and spinning carnival ride at the OC Fair.

Yankovic, "Weird Al"

Free with fair admission: A concert by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

However, the free seats were in the back, so this became an opportunity to play with the 12x zoom and image stabilization on the S3. Of course, that distance was too far for the flash to be of any use, and the subject was almost constantly moving, so this proved more a test of my ability to hold still while shooting.

Here's a sampling of the ones that came out reasonably clear (all things considered), documenting only a few of the myriad costume changes that Al made throughout the two-hour show, including all the hits.

"Eat It"

"The Saga Begins"

(replete with stormtrooper chorus line)

"Smells Like Nirvana"

"Amish Paradise"

"Fat"

Back to the ubiquitous Hawaiian shirt for the encore.

Riding

At the OC Fair:

An unusual rider caught my eye...


He got to go around again. And again.

Suck(l)ing at the Fair

The Orange County Fair was the first real outing with the new S3, and thus the shots reflect more me trying to figure out how to use the camera than actually getting much that's usable.

Case in point: Here the autofocus got the wood chips in the background clear but the suckling piglets slightly blurry.

Eh, it's a journey.

Clucked up

A couple shots from the Orange County Fair.

(This first one was actually taken by my talented girlfriend.)

Goodnight moon

I include this shot of tonight's crescent moon not so much because it's all that great but as the first I post taken with my new Canon S3 IS. With my four-year old Canon D400, the moon would look like the indistinct white dot in this shot. Or this one. So while I still have a lot to learn about photographing our satellite, it is a vast improvement.

Also, in the unnecessary details category: For this shot I steadied the camera not with a tripod but by pressing it against a wall and pointing it toward the moon. Despite not lining it up, the moon ended up exactly centered vertically and horizontally in the shot. Which is why I cropped it centered for posting here.

Pink

Sunset over Glendale.

Twisty bright

Neon art along Olive St., just north of 4th St., in downtown L.A.

Drinkin'

End credit

Looking out over an empty theater.

This is the interior of the famous Grauman's Chinese
(yes, the one where the big premieres are held).

Despite the hoopla, it really is a good place to see a movie.
It's true that they don't make 'em like this any more.

Chalk update

For those who have been waiting to see if there would be more pictures from last month's Pasadena Chalk Festival, your patience has been rewarded. Click here to see all the new photos.

Moonlight over the valley

Full moon behind tree leaves with the lights of the San Fernando valley in the distance. Taken from a hillside in Sylmar.