I was watching the news this evening at dinner and saw that here in Long Beach there was going to be a memorial vigil honoring the 399 teenage soldiers who have died serving their country since 9-11.  The service was supposed to happen just minutes away, so I grabbed my camera and headed over to where everything was happening.

The first thing that hit me when I got there was the string of crosses and stars of David that lined Ocean Blvd all the way from Redondo Avenue to the Long Beach Art Museum.  Each symbol had its own sandbag ready to be lit at sunset along with the photograph and name of the service person being honored.  It caught my breath because looking at these guys and girls, they were about the same age as my dad when he went into the service during World War II.  I immediately felt a wave of gratitude that my dad made it through WWII and the Korean War when he was called back to serve.  These soldiers weren't so lucky.

I met a number of wonderful, warm people at this memorial  -- just regular people who had family serving our country.  I'm glad I took the time to show up.

I've been working with a local church group that goes downtown L.A. to Skid Row and feeds and clothes the homeless.  They're called Dare to Care for the Homeless.  They want to reach out to other organizations to help with money, food, clothing or people to volunteer.  The people who do this work have the biggest hearts, and it's so inspiring being able to help them in any way I can.

This last weekend, while I was with them photographing what was going on, I had the chance to talk to a number of different homeless people and spend a few minutes with them.  I wanted to share a few of the wonderful people that I met.

            J.R. and Yolanda.  Just a couple kids trying to take care of each other.

                                                            Leroy.

Bob.

Lou.

Joe

I never tire of working with Joe as a model.  After all these years together and with all the changes we've both gone through, I love to see him in new ways, and my photography has allowed me to keep exploring him.

One of the things I love about photography is how I can explore different ideas and thoughts and create them in a visual way.  With this self-portrait, I am remembering that throughout my life, I have spent so much time watching the world go by looking from the wrong side of the window, but how I'm coming to realize how wonderful it is to open my doors and walk in the parade.

I've had the great pleasure to take a Photography on Location class with Tom Paiva, an architectural photographer with many, many years of experience.  His website and blog is located at tompaiva.com.  Please check out his site and see the incredible work he does. 

One of the assignments was to shoot at night in an industrial area looking for mixes of lighting of different color temperatures.  You can see this when one light appears to be white while another one may show up as a yellow light or a range of other colors.  I went one night down to the industrial area in Long Beach near the refineries and railroads with a friend.  If you want to try this, I strongly suggest going with one or more people, because these areas are dark and dangerous.  I was nervous as heck, but I was able to capture several images I was happy with.

Because it was so dark, the exposure times on these images were from approximately 30 seconds up to one minute for the bottom image where I had to boost up the ISO to 1000 because it almost pitch black.  This has been such an eye-opening experience into all sorts of photography that I'd only seen but never knew how to create!

I just went on a road trip to the Salton Sea along with fellow photographers and spent an interesting time learning new techniques and great hints on working with the environment by Tom Paiva, the instructor for this Photography on Location class.  His website and blog at tompaiva.com is a real inspiration.  

I used this opportunity to also shoot a couple friends in some wonderful indirect light.



Lumen Prints.

One form of alternative photographic process is called the lumen print.  This consists of taking a sheet of regular black&white photographic paper out of its light-sealed envelope, placing it in direct sunlight, placing different vegetation on top of the paper and letting it "cook" for a couple hours with a quick fix at the end.  I love the images that can be made using this method, but it goes against everything I was taught in my b&w class about never exposing your paper to light.  I still cringe whenever I bring new sheets out.

While experimenting with this technique, I thought about how to combine this with photographic imagery.  I printed out digital negatives of an image on transparency paper and then placed that transparency on top of the plant material and let it sit.  The almost ghostly qualities of the final prints make me want to explore this whole art form further.  The nice part is it only takes a few minutes (once you've printed your transparencies) to do your setup and then walk away for a couple hours to let it process.  This gives me plenty of time to work on other ideas.

These are two images of my favorite model Rachel.  This idea stemmed from an assignment on a Photography on Location class I'm involved in which has led me to consider expanding this into a series.  I already have several other concepts in mind.  I really like this image; however, in doing the shoot and looking at the final images, I want to try this image again but slightly differently to add yet another layer to it.  My model is willing to go again, so we'll see what happens.

My dad just passed away.  During his life Dad loved music; and throughout his life he played the piano, the violin and the viola until his hands wouldn't work any longer.  In the last years of his life dementia slowly took his memories until he forgot about his music too.  The day before he died, I brought my camera to the nursing home where he was being taken care of, and I dealt with things the way I know how to -- by taking pictures. 

When I was in his room looking out the window, I saw this small woods right next to the building, and all the trees were bare.  In looking through the trees into the sun, this reminded me of the journey Dad was on:  working on his way through the brush into the light.  Looking at the two images, I felt compelled to combine them into one photograph.

After the funeral, and after the reception afterwards and everyone was gone, we were all tired, and I was taken with how wearing the day had been on my mom and sister.

I recently spent three evenings down at the Huntington Beach pier.  I was very curious about long exposure images of the ocean.  I've seen them many times, but this was the first time I actually had a chance to experiment with different exposure times.

The pier is a magnet spot for photographers, and each evening there were six or seven photographers waiting for the sunset.  The view of the sunset from that spot on the beach is AMAZING!  But I was the last photographer there each evening.  I guess I was the only one interested in the longer shutter speeds. 

My exposure speeds were from 15 seconds to two minutes at f22.  I was so amazed on how dark it actually was when I was able to get shots at two minutes. 

This definitely is an area I enjoyed playing with, and I'm going to explore the ocean more.

Carver

Joe, 68, my partner.  To me he hasn't changed since we first got together 35 years ago.

Well, it's the new year, and it's great to be taking photos again.  During the holidays I couldn't seem to pick up my camera.  It's good to be out shooting; I always feel better with camera in hand.

I've always been fascinated by public transportation and the microcosm of life that exists on each platform at any time of the day or night.  Each person is in the middle of their lives, and everything gets put on pause while they wait for the next train.  So many stories on one small platform.

Tom, 67.  Part of my lgbtSr. project.  Tom has always been very active, though it has taken different avenues over his life.  When he was 30, Tom was shot in the head and left to die.  He survived but was left paralyzed over most of his body.  He still has his right arm and hand mobile which helps him to manuever where he needs to go, and he can motorize around faster than I can keep up.  While we were doing the shoot, he tapped on his head and said, "See this area right here?  I still have the hole in my head.  They never covered it with a plate.  When I tap it like this, I can feel my brain."  Tom was a pure pleasure to photograph.  He has a great wit, and the time we spent together was unforgettable.