i have some photos from being in Edmonton for the wedding and from our honeymoon that either need to be developed or scanned, so i'll be posting them sometime soon. however, i took a lot of digital photos as well, and i've spent the evening processing some of them, so here they are, along with the usual self-indulgent ramblings.
all taken on my T2i with a Canon 17-40 L 1:4.
in and around SoMa & downtown San Francisco:
we got up really early on the first day in town and ended up wandering around waiting for stuff to open. it was a beautiful, though. got a glimpse of alleyway cafés and authentic SF construction workers. eventually we went to the MoMA which had a badass Cindy Sherman exhibit. she is an inspiration.
later we went to Mission to get a burrito. i was pleased to see some tags (not pictured) there from my homeboy Yea Boy who hails from this part of the world. it made me feel welcome. Sonic here is another example of Mission's aesthetic, at home within the dense Victorian architecture.
at the aquarium:
i really love taking photos at aquariums (aquaria?). everything is lit beautifully and sea life is more often than not breathtaking and colourful. all i gotta do is shoot and it tends to look good. the hard part is that shutter speeds are low (i was as low as 1/15, but usually around 1/250 if i could get away with it) so it can be hard to get a sharp photo of creatures that, by nature, are generally always moving. it's so rewarding when it works out, though...
at the Musée Mécanique:
Alec and i are big geeks, and antiques, film history and video game nostalgia happen to be specialties of ours. as a result this museum of arcade treasures was heaven to us. zoetropes ate up a lot of our quarters, since they are not only beautiful machines but also kind of magical to use, like stepping into a time machine. and amongst the beautiful, ancient handcrafted pieces from the late 1800s and early 20th century, there was also Ms. Pac-Man and Robotron: 2084, a game from the 80s with crude, colourful graphics and a plot that is the stuff of adolescent dreams. all this right by the water and a stunning view of San Francisco Bay.
(Alec took the first arcade picture here of my fist clenched in determination)
at the California Academy of Sciences:
what can i say? this place is amazing, awe-inspiring and also completely insane on an august weekend. kids were everywhere going crazy and there were big lines for many of the attractions, but Al and i still had an adventure here. we visited another aquarium (yay) along with a rainforest-type habitat with many different animals to peer at and a "canopy" with butterflies so close that i got some shots that my bug-hunter dad will envy. it makes me sad to see gigantic fish in tanks that are clearly too small for them, like the giant sea bass both here and at the aquarium of the bay, but there are many other displays of happy fish where Al has said he could just sit and watch them all day. my highlights: the splitfin flashlight fish and the nautiluses... nautili, both of which i couldn't photograph.
ok, now fast forward to our drive home! we camped out at a hostel in Eugene, OR, which is a town like no other, truly. Alec said, "I never felt judged in Eugene."
that may be true, but a place with high-speed, thundering trains rolling through a few times per hour with enough force to turn you into ink ribbon, a place like that has tension built right into its narrative.
Alec and I did some photo experiments before bed:
Unfortunately, these have led me to discover something called "hot pixels." I knew of dead pixels on a sensor before but I didn't know that every Canon DSLR has a bunch of photo-insensitive pixels to start with! I really wanted to take some dope star photos, but since it wasn't really dark enough within the city for the stars to pop against the light pollution, and since I now have to figure out what to do about these hot pixels, I'll have to put that off for now...
That being said, long exposure night photography is a good time.
Now, of that tension I spoke of...
While we were in our tent, trying to sleep in spite of a trespassing earwig, a couple in the tent next to us was in the midst of a breakup.
Alec had been in Eugene before, and on that trip the punk rock lifestyle and heartbreak were no stranger to him. So as we lay there, overhearing them, i know that he must have been writing a song in his head because the patterns and structure were already there. and we looked at each other and i smiled because it was uncomfortable being so close to that energy when we were so warm and happy and secure in our new marriage. that kind of vulnerability is so alien to me now.
marriage isn't for everyone, but i gotta say it's nice to feel the ground under my feet, finally.
No comments:
Post a Comment