Ron’s Photo World

08-30-2009

We spent the afternoon at the California State Fair the other day – it has been several years since I’ve attended the state fair. It seemed a lot cleaner than I remembered it in the past. It was a great day to be there, and since it was a weekday it was a little less crowded. Several of the midway rides were not moving much, there were not a lot of riders.

One of the craziest attractions was the freestyle motocross jumping – these guys are insane.

There were three riders, one of them is 19 years old, and they did the most amazing stunts while flying from one ramp to the other. In a number of stunts, there was a point in time when they were not holding onto the motorcycle at all…they would just reach out, grab the seat and pull themselves back onto it before landing.

On a much calmer note, the midway games were pretty quiet.

This is Bert, he has been working for Butler Amusements for about 10 years and this was his first visit to CalExpo. He said that he had heard it would be really busy, but it was not busy at all. He was a very pleasant person to chat with, certainly not the stereotypical carnie.

All in all, it was a better than fair, it was a great day in paradise.

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08-28-2009

Somebody’s day is about to get ugly.

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08-27-2009

…this would be it. Since I look like this on most days, it would only make sense. Some people have make up tattoo’d on their faces; I can just have a facsimile of my bicycle chain grease put on my leg.

It does look like it’s time to clean my chain.

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08-26-2009

Some beers just call to me. In this case, Corona was very clearly calling, “Ron, Ron, Ron!” I could hear it from miles away. 

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08-11-2009

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up meat.

A new sandwich place, The Sandwich Spot, opened up this month; it is owned and operated by a neighborhood family. It’s nice to see new small businesses pop up in spite of the grim economic outlook.

They have designated Tuesdays as “Tri-Tip Tuesdays”. The entire area smells like barbequeing beef, because that is exactly what they do.  Fortunately, they also offer at least one vegetarian option.

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08-06-2009

I usually carry a camera with me whenever I leave the house. I mean, if a UFO landed in front of you and aliens walked out, what’s the one thing you’d wish you had with you?

Sometimes I don’t feel like I see anything worth capturing – and I realize it is more about my apathetic mood and dip in creativity than it is about the surroundings. I know another person would find (and make) some great images in the same setting.

I was sitting at my favorite coffee place and happened to look up – the second floor “balcony” was reflecting the morning light and the soft clouds were perfectly aligned behind it. Without thinking about it too much, I snapped this shot. I realize it’s a little hard to orient the image at first.

I remember some advice from a photographer named DeWitt Jones - he said when you think you’ve gotten the perfect shot, turn around; an even better shot may be lurking behind you. When I turned around, I was facing a pillar, so in this case, Looking Up was a better idea.

Thank goodness a pigeon wasn’t sitting on the rail.

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08-01-2009

Laura and I spent a week camping at Jackson Meadows Reservoir. It’s a beautiful area with an elevation of about 6,500 feet. 

A couple of bald eagles, a male and a female, were pretty active in the area. These birds are very graceful in flight and I was able to get close enough with a long lens to take a few photos.

On one of the days, a strong storm moved slowly through the area. At one point, it hailed constantly for about 30 minutes. The hailstones were the size of grapes and it was pretty impressive to see that much weather activity.

As if the hailstorm wasn’t wild enough, the most amazing moment came on the last morning – we were awakened by the sound of a gas-powered LEAF BLOWER. The camp host, of all people, was using it to blow the pine needles off the campground road. When I asked him to turn it off, he was shocked by my request. I told him that the leaf blower was an offensive noise and that pine needles and dirt were a normal part of a campground. This was the final straw after listening to his generator run most of every day we were there.  After I had calmed down, I realized I had missed my chance to take a short video of his efforts. It was the most unbelievable thing I had ever witnessed in a campground.

A few other images from the area:

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