aki

Fish.

I got the day off from work.
Instead of sleeping in and lazing around in my underwear, I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the first time.


I got a lot of use out of all three of my main lenses.
Go go macro!


cutie pie.

( +4 )

The rest are here.

Extra special thanks to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for an amazing day... I'm a member now, so I'll be back. And to the Blue Moon Restaurant for beachfront dining decadence. No thanks to FedEx.

I took a photo walk today.

It was the clouds that did it. The view, from the Bay Bridge, of the city enshrouded in fast-moving fog. I need to take my camera to Treasure Island one of these days to get a better shot.

On Monday, our petroglyph guide recommended we hike to the lava flows in late afternoon, arriving around sunset so we could see the lava glowing orange, then hiking back in the dark. That sounded perfect to me.

On Wednesday, we made the drive around to the other side of the island to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

I ended up hiking most of the way alone, since my brother and mother had stayed at the hotel due to exhaustion and my father wasn't up for the treacherous terrain so soon after chemo. In a way, I was glad he decided to turn around, since I was worried for him, his balance, his general energy level.

It was three, three and a half miles one way. The first leg was paved, then reflective markers every few feet across large lava rocks. Then the markers stopped and we were guided by six plastic posts with blinking lights, spaced a third of a mile apart. These often disappeared from view until I made my way back to high ground and stopped to scan the horizon.

I tried not to think too much about how lava caves formed and how the tops of seemingly solid lava rocks would sometimes collapse.

I made my way to the rope barrier with time to kill before sunset. I ate my onigiri, took some photos, and waited. As more and more people arrived and ignored the rope barrier, and as I noted how my view was nowhere near as good as it could be, I, too, decided to disregard the "The rocks beyond this point could slide into the ocean without warning at any point" signs and made my way past the rope for a better view. We watched lava hit the water: huge clouds of steam; sometimes lava would spray high in the air as a particularly big wave hit.

This was one of the two times I wished for a stronger zoom in Hawai'i, but for the most part I'm in love with my new lens.

The hike back was difficult. My mind was no longer on collapsing rock; I was just concentrating on not tripping, not stepping into a crevasse. And yet I figure this wasn't the most dangerous photo walk I've taken ;-)

more here.

I went to see The Fountain last night.

Trailers: Curse of the Golden Flower (the new Zhang Yimou flick) and Pan's Labyrinth have my attention. Perfume could be really good or really disappointing. I'll go see it.

(Hostel II: I'm not a fan of Eli Roth's at all, but I may end up watching this in the theaters anyway =P ... The fact that Letters From Iwo Jima was filmed back-to-back with Flags of Our Fathers makes both of them more interesting to me. Not sure if/when I'll watch though.)

[the rain starts falling harder outside and my mind sidesteps for a moment as i marvel at my capacity for being self-absorbed. meta-self-absorbed, even. i'd consider it a failing if it weren't such a defining part of me (..., i think to myself, pondering the inner workings of my self-absorption).]

[[if a sponge were self-absorbent, would it only absorb itself, or would it absorb other sponges? would it grow larger and take on the memories and abilities of the sponges it absorbed? would it be a cannibal sponge or a highlander sponge? would we end up with a huge there-can-be-only-one sponge that can both clean your kitchen and act as a contraceptive? and would that sponge be my father? (never!!!)]]

Evidently my mind has snapped somewhere. Perhaps while viewing The Fountain and its interweaving, era-spanning storylines. Though I have my theories about that.

Did I mention it was very good? Beautiful. Parts of it seemed more like a dance than a movie. Or a play. Or a visual piece of music, but that all got woven back into the story. A scene close to the end got a little "Oh no, this is getting a little too 2001" but I think it recovered.

on the way home.
blurry b/c i hadn't stepped up to iso 1600 yet, but i like this.

( +4 )

I went on another photo walk today. Rather unsuccessful.

I kept finding good vantage points for photographs, but they tend to be in the middle of streets and on freeways. I need a crane or a helicopter. I need to take photos from the rooftops or hills. Otherwise I can't really get a photo of the greater picture, as it were. Just individual buildings that don't necessarily capture the feel of an entire neighborhood.

I also drove west in the hope of seeing the bay from a new vantage point. The army base kind of prevents that. Suck.

Perhaps the scope of this project is a bit large, and I should focus on familiar parts of the city or specific buildings. Perhaps the scope of this project is a bit limited, and I should include my haunts in Emeryville and Berkeley, and branch out.

(Also, it's Easter and the streets and shops were abnormally quiet. And it was raining and I ended up driving more and walking/photographing much less. I think I took a grand total of three pictures today.)

But I still have oodles of pictures from yesterday. Here are some from Jack London Square.

I've missed the salt water air and the glint of sun over the bay. I should visit more often.
The cranes in the upper right inspired George Lucas' AT-ATs.

( +11 pics of Jack London Square )