In search of the seriously beautiful…
The sky was amazing today! Cirrus clouds from horizon to horizon.
That’s the balcony off my bedroom – and the view from Elder Street.
I could look at these clouds all day. Every way you turned, it was like an abstract painting in the sky. Just beautiful!
The last three images were shot at the gas station as I was filling up my tank – and paying $4.09 a gallon. First time ever I’ve paid over four dollars. Thank heaven for a beautiful sky to distract me…
Every Friday morning, on the corner of Main and Alvarado, in the Village Square, the farmers in town take over! You can get locally grown produce and flowers AND locally grown and packaged products like honey and gourmet kumquat sauces.
In 2005 I shot the Fallbrook Farmers Market for Fallbrook.org, and then on March 21, 2008 I shot it again for Fallbrook Sourcebook. If you want to see my earlier images, go to http://www.fallbrook.org/tourism/farmers-markets.asp
Last month I spent a week shooting all over town – I shot at Palomares House, Dinwiddie Preserve, the Farmer’s Market, Los Jilgueros Preserve, and in all sorts of hidden out of the way places that only long-time Brooktown residents know about. It was great! And now those images are in the 2008 Fallbrook Sourcebook – it’s the only glossy magazine dedicated solely to the Fallbrook/Bonsall area – and it comes out once a year – today!
The cover features six of my images – the only one I didn’t shoot is the food – the rest are my work. I also shot the cover in 2005 – that year it was one image of an artist painting in a garden – so typical Fallbrook stuff!
I also have quite a few images inside the magazine, and now I can blog some of those images. So more tomorrow!
And finally, here’s my ad that appears inside – I’m really happy with the way it turned out!
We’re in the middle of a heat wave – and I love it! It feels like summer… So I went for a walk along Pico Promenade today, and shot all the flowers in bloom along Fallbrook Stream, in Fallbrook California.
This last image may be my favorite of the day – it’s my favorite fence in front of the old Packing Plant – again!
Have you ever had a thought or feeling or dream or wish that rattled around in your head, and wouldn’t leave you alone?
One of my favorite quotes ever is pictured above, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” How can you not love that? Missed opportunities can drive you crazy if you let them, but the thing is, more opportunities open up every day. You can miss eighty in a row, but there will be another one coming along today, so hop on and ride it hard!
So I love the quote, and a couple of years ago I was in my Mom and Grandma’s gift/home decor shop, and they had just gotten in a new shipment of little signs for the garden – and one had George Elliot’s words on it. I had to have it! And when I moved here, I put it up on my deck, between my two big rattan arm chairs. It looked lovely and I was happy to have a place for it. End of story! Or not.
I started to hear this rattling in the walls – especially at night – and usually in the bathroom. Was it the pipes? It’s an old house, could be. Was it an animal? I’ve had a couple of raccoons way up on my second story deck and a bird’s nest on my light fixture – so that could be it too. Could it be a ghost? I kind of liked that possibility! I finally figured out it was the wind causing the sign to rattle against the house. I am on the second story in the tallest building downtown, so I get better breezes here – but also stronger wind. So I took the sign down, a little regretfully, and everything was quiet.
But you know what? I didn’t like the quiet. I realized that I liked the rattle – so the sign went back up. It’s an aural reminder to grab those slippery opportunities. It’s so easy to just exist and live day to day, and rarely move out of your comfort zone – but if you have a dream, a vision of what you’d like be, and do, and see, and accomplish, then you have to grab those opportunities. Who wants to think about what might have been? Bottom line, it’s never too late. So I’m embracing the rattle in my walls – and in my head!
Exactly eleven days after the last post, this is what that same tree looks like. Just amazing. I really do prefer the first image – but I can’t get over the opulence of the second image. Spring is on a rampage!
And catch the orange California Poppies below – our state flower, and one of my all-time favorites!
According to National Geographic, Spring officially arrives on the vernal equinox, which this year occurred today at 1:48 am Eastern time. I am soooo ready for it this year! Longer days, more sunshine, warm soft breezes… It’s my second favorite time of year, right behind summer.
I shot a special project today – I can’t talk about it yet, but soon! The image above may be a little hint…
I’m still working my way through all the images I shot in Chicago – two concerts and one portrait session, and four more mini-portrait sessions – it’s a lot. But yesterday I got a series posted of Bobby Kourelis at Hammerfest. Seeing the images all together in one spot, you really get just how passionately he plays – he’s something else! I also have some engagement shots to post tomorrow that I shot on Monday here in California – beautiful, beautiful couple!
Oh, and I met a photographer in Chicago – totally random – you just never know who you’ll bump into! I checked out his portfolio today and he’s good – his work is really modern and clean. If you need a headshot in Chicago, he’s definitely worth checking out! Hans Rosemond at hansrosemond.com.
Isn’t Spring just the best?
Bobby Kourelis of the Lovehammers, at Hammefest 2008, at the House of Blues in Chicago, Illinois.
Dino and Bobby Kourelis, at Hammerfest, 2008.
When I interviewed the Lovehammers back in early 2006, I remember being impressed by the way they talked about their fans and the huge shows they put on in their hometown of Chicago. And I sort of decided then that if I ever got the chance to shoot one of those big shows, I’d take it! I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago…
The opportunity came last weekend – two years after that interview – some things are worth waiting for! Hammerfest is a big deal and this year it was at the House of Blues in downtown Chicago. Great venue! All brick, two balconies that circle around the floor, and it feels small and intimate yet holds a LOT of people. I went with five friends – two who live in Chicago, and three others that flew in for the weekend. We spent the whole weekend together, but they were good sports when I abandoned them during the show.
Shooting any show is always intense – but the Lovehammers multiply that intensity by ten. Their shows are incredibly passionate and vital, and there’s movement and color and action everywhere. It’s an amazing thing to see live – and capturing some of that magic in a still photograph is one of the most satisfying things I can think of to do. They create magic onstage, and I tired to tap into that vein, and mine some of their magic in my images. It was a blast!
This image is one of my favorites because of the orange and violet lighting – the colors of RockBandLounge – and to see Marty Casey, our RBL Ultimate Rock Star bathed in those colors was great fun!
To see more images from the show, go to:
http://rockbandlounge.com/news/2008-03-lovehammers.asp
One big benefit to all the rain we got in January and February, is the wildflowers in March! I was out in the desert today – out by Palm Springs – and everywhere you looked there were wildflowers in full bloom. It was a gorgeous day too – warm and sunny with a big beautiful blue sky.
For some reason I can’t really explain, I really like this tiny little house. Maybe it’s the colorful window coverings? Maybe it was the quiet? The only sounds were some chickens clucking in the distance. Maybe it was because it was smack in the middle of the best field of wildflowers I found? Yeah, that’s probably it.
When I got out of my car, a jackrabbit came crashing out of the brush only a few feet away from me. I love jackrabbits! They’re like mini kangaroos with massive hind legs and they soar when they jump. He wasn’t too afraid of me, he only went a couple of dozen feet away, and then sat and watched me as I worked. I kept expecting him to hop away, when I turned my back, but every time I looked over, he was still there, sitting totally erect, with one eye on me.
Can you find the jackrabbit? It’s tough. If you look at the two brown cactus in the center of the photo, he’s sitting right in front of the base of the cactus on the left, and he’s in profile.
I also saw a few healthy bees. Lately all I’ve seen have been dying bees, on the ground, walking in circles. It’s a real crisis, so I was happy to see some bees doing what bees are meant to do – hopping from flower to flower and helping to pollinate the world. We need the bee!
And I saw lots of wildflowers and cactus and brush – really pretty stuff!
