These frogs looked fake. They didn't move at all, and their skin was smooth like freshly sculpted clay. They were in the Staff Favorites section of the new Cal Academy of Sciences.
I went twice within the last few days. Opening day was just over a week ago, and the museums, a triple dosage of Planetarium, Aquarium and Natural History Museum all under one roof, were still dealing with crowd control issues. Despite the masses of people (what were all these kids doing there on a school day? School's started, and they're not on field trips - they can't all be home schooled?), I still enjoyed myself thoroughly on both days.

During rush hours (say, 11 - 2), there are lines for the two main domes: Planetarium and Rainforest, and a line to get passes for the Planetarium (before getting in line to go in to the Planetarium), as well as the two places you can get food as well as the main bathrooms. If museums are trying to be more amusement park-like these days, to compete with video games etc, well the lines certainly make me feel like I'm at an amusement park. Huge strollers also accounted for much of the traffic.

















The evolution and climate change areas had great interactive exhibits. Above, we see a visitor using different beak shapes to try to crack seeds, fish insects out from between branches, or dig for grubs in a hole. It becomes very apparent that certain beak shapes are better adapted for certain food-acquiring situations.

Things that I make for craft fairs are often things that I want for myself. It so happens that I wanted cuff bracelets. It was just a matter of finding inspiring fabric.
On a recommendation, I went to SCRAP (Scrounger's Center for Reusable Art Parts - I think that's the right acronym). It is a artsy-crafty person's heaven. 3 aisles of rolls of fabric left overs and samples, a grocery bag's worth for $7. I was particularly pleased to find a box of light pants cloth samples - corduroys, tweeds, herringbones, plaids, in colors perfect for Autumn.

I already had yards of dark purple felt, which I used for the backmost flower layer. I bought some buttons, and voila, punched out a bunch of these, which will be sold at my next craft fair.

Speaking of which, is the Mission Indie Mart - October 12th from 12 to 6pm, at 17th and Wisconsin.

My first photo gig in SF! I'd photographed a Sassy Chicks event in San Diego, though not for Sassy Chicks. I found the organizers so friendly that I contacted them and asked if they'd like to have a photographer at their SF event. They said yes, and so off I went yesterday; hopped on a bus to Cathedral Hill Hotel on Van Ness and Geary.
Sassy Chicks is a shopping event; up and coming designers and boutiques have a little stall and sell vastly discounted stuff. There are also free salon services to sample. Here, a stylist prepares a model for the wedding look.
From my observations of shoppers, there is a much greater range of what is fashionable in SF than San Diego. Well, maybe not range, but a more even distribution along the range of classic business-look to boho artist made-this-myself look. I saw a lot of interesting accessories and tops, usually reserved for the minority artsy in SD. I suppose that isn't a big surprise.

The idea was to pose the tote on the green background of the sofa, but as soon as Charlotte saw sofa activity, she took the spot where the tote would have sat. Thus, the tote was placed on Charlotte, and she heaved a withering sigh, but was cooperative.

The fabric is none other than Ikea fabric! They sell by the yard, this one was $5.99 per yard. Nice bold colors on canvas like fabrics, good for screen printing and making bags. I tried making a slightly nicer than usual tote, with a pocket on the inside, substantial handles, and a lining around the rim of the bag to help keep its rectangle shape. This prototype took about, oh, 2.5 hours to make. Now I have a better idea of fabric piece sizes and how to sew it up more efficiently.

I didn't intend for this to be Halloweeny, but it turned out to be Halloweeny colors. Well, it's the right time of year.

Another long delay between posts, but rest assured, I should be getting back into the swing of posting, as I've moved, unpacked (though not re-organized), and I have an internet connection.

These photos were taken in late August. Unfortunately the tide pool side was in the extreme shade, and there wasn't much room for the camera to back into, so the result is a not-so brightly colored, wide-angle distorted image. The van had been brought in to show off to the donors, even though it had not been completely outfitted with the sea life support systems yet.

A few days after I arrived in SF, I received an email from the van coordinator person. Apparently, the donor's name was spelled wrong; "Glen" instead of "Glenn". That part is on the underside of the leopard shark, on the kelp forest side. The prelim designs went through several rounds of of reviews, but no-one caught it. Alas. I think they're going to print a sticker to place over it?

I managed to squeeze in two more baby photo sessions, 2 days before moving to the Bay Area. Here's a nine month old, the oldest baby I've photographed so far. He was much more active than other babies, crawling exuberantly, with a great range of facial expressions. This living room seemed bright enough, but when I inspected my photos at home, I saw that many were slightly out of focus, due to low light. As small photos, no-one would notice, but blown up, the edges were fuzzy. This one turned out crisp to the eyelashes though. Well, now I know better.

After a post-Thread power nap, I photographed Dot. She was a sleepy baby, but she decided to grant me a half hour of awake time for photos. Having now photographed 4 babies, I know that one of the tricky things is getting them to look at the camera. Dot however, looked at the camera quite often.

This was the first photo I took at Thread, and as it turns out, is one of my best pics. She was standing in front of a painted backdrop, which helped the photo a lot. There was a bit of natural light, supplemented by my flash with Gary Fong diffuser.
I'd photographed 3 Threads in the past, for a certain online magazine. They didn't need me this time, so I contacted the organizer of Thread, and asked him if he was interested in having 2 hours worth of event photography. The deal was made, and so I went. It was in a large tent by the Sheraton at the airport, instead of at the usual Air & Space Museum. It felt more trade-showy as a result, as the museum provided character and a lot more natural light. But it was a lot less crowded. The only item I bought was a purse from www.amykathryn.com, who uses faux leather and faux printed suedes. She recognized me from the previous Thread. Always nice to see familiar faces.

As time tumbles towards extremely busy wedding and moving events, I find I go days without producing any art. Over the weekend I was in the Bay Area for apartment research, so my mind wasn't focused on photography at all. I had dragged my large 40D out there, and hardly took any photos. But here's one of them - the view from the north end of Ocean Beach, towards Marin county. It was a blustery, moody day - in the 50s, in August!

Isn't she a good looking dog? I took her to Big Bear, her first overnight trip out of town. I think she enjoyed the great outdoors - the lizard pouncing, squirrel spying, and all the new aromas to sniff. Here we're resting in the shade. There was an orange backpack in the bottom right corner of this picture. Fortunately the background to the backpack was white (over exposure of parking lot not in shade turned out white) so I just whited out the backpack, as well as a car in the background near the trees, for a nice unencumbered dog portrait.

Sassy Chicks is a shopping event. Designer clothes are sold for a fraction of their retail value. Women dress up and line up around the block for events like this. It's hard to get candid shots, because most often, women are standing in tight circles facing each other, or in a line, facing a table/ clothes rack. Candid shots too often are of backs. But in this case, there was an upper tier to the venue, and I squeezed behind the racks where the vendors stored their boxes, to overlook a jewelry stall. As always, I was torn between shopping and photographing.

My earliest memory of Cow Parade is from 1999 in Chicago. I'd moved there for a summer to do an internship at the Brookfield Zoo (back in my biology days, and pre-digital camera days, I otherwise would've posted a pic of a Chicago cow). It was my first trip to Chicago, as well as the first time I tried living on my own, and the first time I'd done any extensive exploration of a city on my own. The fiberglass cow sculptures, decorated and painted by local artists, stand out in my memory. They were scattered around the city, and there was an easter egg-like surprise to come across one. Since then, I've seen fiberglass angels in LA and fiberglass horses (think: racing)in Hong Kong. And by chance, while internet browsing, I came across the next city to boast fiberglass creatures - San Diego!

Applications for a cow design are due by Sept 1, with rolling admissions. You'd think I'd be tired of marine themed art by now. But I couldn't resist applying the kelp forest design to a cow. If I won a cow, the design would be painted on, not wrapped a la van method. It would be quite different. I am taking a break (procrastinating) from writing the 100 word artist's statement. I threw in stuff about how SD is inextricably tied to the ocean, kelp forest represents a local marine habitat, etc. Hmm, a tide pool themed cow would be cool too - covered in anemones, barnacles, crabs, hermit crabs, sponges, algae, limpets, snails, tiny fish, hiding octopus... perhaps I should apply to do a tide pool one too?

Monday morning, and I trudged up to the back gate entrance of the aquarium in a half awake fog of wedding planning concerns. And then I saw the van - wait, that looks just like the illustration that I'd been working on for weeks on end, except bigger. Then - Wow! I forgot everything and inspected the design, feeling the smooth surface, noting tiny mistakes (I doubt anyone else will notice). Ahh. I used the Exhibits camera for this photo, but I'll have to bring my own camera in for a proper photo shoot.

The Birch Aquarium Outreach Van should by now be entirely wrapped in my artwork. I visited the van wrap company last week, and they were in the midst of printing out the giant stickers.

I envisioned a circular band of giant sticker, somehow shrink wrapped onto the van. I leaned however that van wrapping isn't as dramatic as all that. In fact, it's a very tedious process of lining up huge sticker sheets and fitting them on to the van piece by piece, making sure the edges of the sticker match up, wrapping edges around the curves, cutting the sticker to fit exactly. They said that the wrapping would take at least 8 hours.

I've yet to see the final project. The van has gone back to be fitted for aquarium machinery that will allow it to cart marine animals in salt water around.

Baby E's parents did a terrific job of getting her to smile. I have not made much progress in the art of entertaining babies, and there's especially little I can do while holding a camera using both hands. I tried auditory stimuli, making weird sounds that usually get the attention of my dog, but this didn't work on the baby. Baby E's Mom stood at my shoulder making silly faces, and I snapped away.

Baby E's Dad was wearing a nice periwinkle blue shirt that made for a nice backdrop to many of the photos. I should remember to suggest a pastel-colored t-shirt to other parents with babies I may someday photograph. We sat under a shady tree, which allowed spots of sun to come through, so I used my flash on reduced power (-2/3) with diffuser, and that made for pleasant, natural lighting. All in all, a fun shoot because it's hard not to smile when a baby is smiling, and this one was particularly cheery!

The Birch Aquarium Volunteer Party with 50s theme was graced by none other than Marilyn and Elvis. They arrived in a white corvette with red leather interior. Poodle skirts, saddle shoes, slicked back hair, pony-tails, ribbons, neck scarves, cat eye glasses, chunky plastic bead necklaces, aprons, candy cigarettes, rolled sleeve t-shirts, leather jackets, cardigans, bowling shirts and roller skates galore! I even had my first malt, which was delicious. I photographed in skates, which turned out fine. I'm pretty sure most people (including me!) were expecting a loss of skating control, but there was no falling on my part. I did enjoy the extra 3 inches the skates gave me - a greater range of photographic vantage points.

Announcing the largest print run of any of my art work ever. 30,000 copies of Asia Media are out there, free for grabs! Go get one!

Some of my models turned up at the Hillcrest Farmer's market, where my friend and I had a craft stall, to pick up their reserved copy. They look so professional! Compare and contrast the lawyer look with the Sunday-farmer's-market look.

As for the craft fair, we had a stall off the main drag, so we didn't get that much traffic. Not sure if farmer's markets are the best place for selling crafts - I don't think people go with craft shopping in mind. Unlike actual craft fairs. Most people who bought stuff were spur of the moment shoppers. But it was nice to spread out under a 10 x 10 canopy, instead of being crammed on a 6 x 3 table.

By Far, the longest parade I have ever witnessed was the Gay Pride Parade in San Diego, which happened today. 2 hours (TWO HOURS) worth of participants walked, danced, rolled, twirled their way down University, down a mile long stretch, lined with 8-person thick crowds on either side. Some 150 groups were represented I think. The most uplifting were those couples that announced their recent or upcoming wedding.

I arrived early to stake out a good photography spot. I noticed some camera women had parked themselves alongside to a radio station tent, which jutted into the road. This allowed an almost front view of the oncoming parade. I joined them. A group of people including 4 rambunctious kids gathered at my left side. The group spoke little English, but the kids enthusiastically threw their arms around any parader that neared the edge of the road, and scurried into the street to accept handouts like stickers, beach balls, t-shirts, lip balm, mints (all advertising various parade float sponsors). This made it difficult to photograph as they were constantly in the way and jostling me, but for me, that's just a part of the challenge of event photography.

















The other photographers grew extremely annoyed however, and one of them poked a woman standing to the right of me and said: "Can you please tell your children not to get in the way of our cameras?" The woman next to me, like the kid-laden group next to me, looked ethnically South East Asian. She didn't seem to speak any English either, and she sort of shrugged and murmured an apology. The kids continued to block the cameras, and the same camera woman poked the woman to the right of me again: "Your kids are still getting in our way!" The woman looked blank. Camera woman: "Are those your kids?" She shook her head No. Mmph. Just because we look the same?!? I kept my mouth shut however, which I now realize was the fulfillment of an Asian American stereotype.

A the Del Mar Races Opening Day Hat Contest, she was the only contestant to arrive with her hat on a cart. And what a glorious hat it was! Hers was my favorite. The entire pegasus was covered in gold leaves, and she'd used some sort of straw for the tail and mane. The autumn color scheme was in contrast the summer brights that everyone else sported. There is a fringe of beads and dozens of carefully arranged flowers. And a golden cherub! Such attention to detail. I don't know if she won any of the categories, but she has my vote! In an interview, I overheard her say that the hat weighted 35 lb! Wait... there are more hats to come...

For a fleeting moment, the group of large-hatted ladies parted to reveal a jockey waiting for his horse. The gap closed seconds later, and I was kicking myself for not getting the tops of the ladies' hats in the photo. Had I had a wide angle lens on... alas! But, this is still one of my favorite photos from the first day of the Del Mar races, 2008.

It was luxurious, sporting a media pass. There was a gated off area right next to the track, so I waved at a security guard and smiled sweetly while he pondered my plastic media ID card and he finally decided it would be OK to let me in. So I got to stand right against the railing, with my toes in the track dirt. Right next to where the horse handlers brought out the race horses, and hung out before doing their warm up jogs. The security guard presented some carrots to a few horses, and they all jostled to receive one. Here they are looking hopeful for more carrots.


















And I've not even posted about the amazing hats that turned up for the hat contest! That warrants a whole different post. Stay tuned.