Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

344. JIM and VICTOR

JIM and VICTOR

343. YES WE CAN, YES WE WILL

YES WE CAN, YES WE WILL

342. INCLEMENT WEATHER

INCLEMENT WEATHER

fo' reals, the weather was pretty nasty.

341. MARCH FOR EQUAL RIGHTS

so let me just state, off the bat, i am not a protest kind of person. i think a lot of them are pretty counter productive, pretty unorganized, and (i swear, i used to be less cynical) i honestly think most people are there for the wrong reasons. almost like they want to protest so they can say they protested, instead of actually having strong feelings behind what they are protesting. i think that a lot of people, after they protest, go home and stop thinking about what it was they just did. and i think this is a fairly recent phenomenon, because i actually think at one point people were really passionate about issues, and when they protested, it didn't stop when they went home. they fully believed in making a change. i just don't think people today have that same passion. i think they feel that if they want something, they can get it just by being loud. and if the change is slow in coming, or doesn't quite fit what they wanted, they pout about it. but that is it.  

so, with that said, i went to the "national" protest against proposition 8 (and against it's passing in CA, along with the other ballot measures in other states that passed prohibiting a group of people from getting married or adopting children, which frankly, is the bigger injustice to me). as my friend keeps pointing out, the protest wasn't (or shouldn't have been) about not being able to get married, it was about equal rights, which i can get behind. to be honest, i would be happy if domestic partnerships or civil unions carried the same weight a marriage, in terms of rights and laws. i don't want to get caught up in the words, i think that is a mess that can be solved after the larger issue has been taken care of. 

so i dragged myself to the reflecting pool and stood with thousands of people (reports vary between 5000 and 6000, but i can't find solid numbers) and marched with them for miles (seriously, miles) through rain and wind. i will say, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. and as someone who has decided to become a student of humanity, someone who studies people and the things around us by using my lens, it was pretty cool to see the passion in some of the faces.

i would be lying if i said that i still think some people were there to socialize. and when the rain started, there were a lot of people that took off and went home (no real judgement, just observation and confirmation), but the majority of people stayed. the most impactful thing to me was the support of people in their cars, driving around the city, trying to get places. they weren't honking to get people out of their way, they were honking to show support and to give a thumbs up in solidarity. which is a change that i don't think people would have seen in the old days of protesting. so it isn't all bad. people actually do care about things, even if the like to do it from the dry interiors of their cars.

MARCH FOR EQUAL RIGHTS

340. HOUSE of SAND (no fog...)

HOUSE OF SAND

339. BRY POINTS

BRY POINTS

bryan's favorite thing in the world is the beach, so i think this is why this is one of my favorite pictures. (although i think bryan secretly wants to be a photogeek like me and marti, and he is probably telling us what we need to be taking a picture of...)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

331. THROUGH the PANE

THROUGH the PANE

330. PANE

PANE

329. ABANDONED HOUSE

this is the first of a bunch of pics i took at an abandoned house at the outer banks. i am sure i have mentioned this before, but i am FASCINATED with abandoned places. they are very creepy/cool. anyway, so we found one on our beach trip and i dragged my friend marti over the fence and into the house. she was TOTALLY FREAKED OUT, even though when we had talked about trying to find cool places to take pics, she was all balls out about going into abandoned houses. her true colors totally came through.

ABANDONED HOUSE

328. RUSTY BOLT

RUSTY BOLT

doesn't "rusty bolt" sound like it should be an actors name or something?

327. RUST

RUST

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Monday, November 3, 2008

324. DEER

DEER in the WOODS

DEER RUNNING AWAY

so i was about five feet away from this deer, after jumping out of the car and tiptoeing up to it, and another car came by and spooked it right as i started to shoot the close up pic...which still came out pretty cool!

323. FEATHER

FEATHER

this is one of those times that keeping my head down was a bonus.

322. CHIMNEY

CHIMNEY at the LIGHTHOUSE

Sunday, November 2, 2008

321. SEA OAT

SEA OAT

320. PATH to the LH

PATH

319. PATH to NOWHERE

PATH TO NOWHERE

318. the LH again

LIGHTHOUSE, AGAIN

i actually like this shot better then the other one i took, of the entire lighthouse. compositionally, i think it works better, and i also like that i was able to play around a bit in photoshop and get some nice colors and contrasts in there. the sky especially and i love the yellows that the grass contains.

317. MCC doin' her THANG

MCC 

so i will probably be in trouble for posting this shot, but this is my good friend who has become a CRAZY good photographer. it is awesome having someone to geek out with about photography, and it was VERY cool to have someone at the beach who wanted to go out and snap some cool shots with. so yay!

316. DETAIL on LH

DETAIL

Saturday, November 1, 2008

315. UNDER the LH

VIEW FROM BELOW

314. LH

LH


LH2

see, i like this second shot better then the first one, but i thought i would keep the first on in for a comparison.

313. the LIGHTHOUSE

lighthouses are always pretty creepy/cool to me, and the weather was a little overcast, which again...creepy/cool. which i love, of course.

LIGHTHOUSE

312. the BIRDS

we actually watched the birds at the beach this year, which is one of my all time favorite movies, because it is just so creepy to think that all these innocent looking creatures we see all the time could just go batshit crazy one day and try to eat us.

the BIRDS

anyway, as is the case every year, there were a lot of birds. i think they were sizing us up.


311. NO SWIMMING, NO SURFING, NO FISHING

NO SSF

310. RED SURFER, AGAIN

obviously, my friend and i were totally into watching this dude...

RED SURFER DUDE WALKING OUT OF THE WATER

309. CUTTING IT CLOSE

CUTTING IT CLOSE

it is amazing how big the waves get, and these guys catch them like 25 feet away from the shore. there were gaggles of surfers this year.

308. STARING AT HOME

MISSING THE WAVES ALREADY

so this was the dude with the board in the next picture. i dubbed him the aussie, cause he looked australian to me.

307. BOARD

BOARD

so i was sitting there taking pictures of surfers, as i often do while at the beach, and all of a sudden this board was right next to me. after a few minutes i got a little nervous cause no one was swimming in to get it and that stupid JAWS music started playing in my head. but finally, some dude came in and got it.