Malibu Pier

Malibu Pier, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

After hearing about a high surf advisory in Malibu last Friday, I called my friend who was already planning to join me for dinner and told him to bring along his camera. After dinner, we drove up the PCH looking for some interesting rocks to shoot but settled on the Malibu pier. I wanted to experiment with long exposures and the conditions seemed almost perfect.

I haven't had a chance to post much here recently, mainly due to preparations for my trip. For those of you who haven't heard yet, I am planning to leave LA and travel around the world for about a year. I was originally supposed to leave December 15th, but due to some unexpected changes with my job, I delayed till April.

So, here's the rough plan:

Singapore
April 1, 2010 – April 3, 2010
Thailand
April 4, 2010 – April 18, 2010
Laos
April 19, 2010 – April 25, 2010
Cambodia
April 26, 2010 – May 9, 2010
Vietnam
May 10, 2010 – May 24, 2010
Hong Kong
May 25, 2010 – May 30, 2010
China
May 30, 2010 – July 8, 2010
Mongolia
July 9, 2010 – July 23, 2010
Russia
July 23, 2010 – August 31, 2010
Europe
September 1, 2010 – December 5, 2010

Huntington Library

A few months back, I heard that the 50th annual Orchid Show would be held in Los Angeles instead of Santa Barbara and today was the day. I arrived around 1 and had a few hours to visit the orchid show as well as the rest of the park.

Having purchased some new equipment and a new camera bag, I decided to bring everything with me. The bag turned out to be quite heavy and the hot weather in the upper 80s didn't help. Despite the discomforts, I had a blast shooting the orchids and the park. This is one of the shots that I got while dragging my feet and dreading having to get back out in the sun :)

Odd tree in Venice

Odd tree in Venice, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

After walking around at a festival in Venice, I decided to head over to the beach. I thought that I knew the general direction and didn't need to check the map. After wandering around for an hour, I realized that maybe I should have checked the map after all. Turned out that it was the diagonal streets that confused me. During that hour, I ran acorss these odd looking trees.

Funny animals in Venice

Grumpy dog, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

I was wandering around at the Abbot Kinney Festival last week looking for interesting subjects to shoot. I spotted this dog and couldn't resist snapping a picture of him. Every time I'd point my camera at him, he'd turn his head away. Finally, after several attempts I snapped a shot. I think he was embarrassed of his under bite.

Alpaca, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

Later that day, cutting through the festival on my way back to the car, I saw a petting zoo. This alpaca reminded me of the dog. LOL

The Station fire flames and smoke

When the fire started, I saw a mushroom shaped cloud of smoke in the distance, north off the 101. I drove to the highest point I could find near my apartment, but the cloud didn't look the same. The following day, my co-workers were disappointed that I had no pictures to show. I decided that my best bet was to head towards the fire instead of away this time. Unfortunately, my first attempt was a failure, but I returned again the following day, this time with a friend. I wanted to get some shots of the residential areas near the fire so, when cruising through a hillside neighborhood and spotting a man in his backyard, I jumped out of the car and approached him. He seemed very worried and cautious when I got close. I introduced myself and asked him if I could possibly use his back yard to shoot the smoke. After negotiations, my "assistant" and I were allowed to photograph for about 5 minutes. This was my best shot from the back yard in La Cañada.

Red Rock Canyon at night

I shot this image on the same night as the Milky Way photo. It was a moonless night and we wanted to get more than just a silhouetted mountain, so we needed a light source. First, we tried to paint the canyon with a 2 million candlepower flashlight, but that was providing far too concentrated light. Covering the flashlight with a white t-shirt and diffusing the light did the trick.

Haleakalā ("house of the sun")

When my brother visits the US with his family, the first destination is usually Hawaii. This time around, I decided to join his vacation on the island of Maui. We took a day trip to the Haleakala volcano. After a 2 hour drive through fog and clouds, we reached the 10,023 ft (3,055 m) peak. Luckily, there was a break in the clouds over the volcano and I got the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Milky Way from the Red Rock Canyon State Park

I randomly decided that I wanted to go photograph the ghost town of Bodie, CA. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to go that far this weekend. Instead, we decided to explore a ghost town in Southern California which turned out to be a few destroyed structures far from being spectacular. I scanned the map to see if there was anything in the vicinity that would be worth visiting and found this small state park. Something about it gave me hope that we'd be able to make the 120 mile trek worthwhile. When we arrived, the sun was setting, so we only got a few shots. We decided to get some dinner and return to the canyon after dark and experiment with some night photography. I was amazed at the fact that we could actually see the milky way. After about 3 hours, here's what I came up with.

It's a big World

It appears that I've only covered 6% of the world. Looking at all the green, it feels like it should be more :-/

Ocotillo

The ocotillo plant can be found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico. It looks like a bunch of prickly dry sticks, but when examined closely, it appears to be quite green. Some uses of the plant are for live fences, walking sticks and even fencing. The last one seems odd :-/

Kiss

I took an amphibious bus tour in Santa Barbara. It was fun watching our bus drive right into the water and sail off shore. We sailed for a bit until we came across a buoy with some sea lions on it. I'm not quite sure if these two were fighting or kissing, but it was fun to watch their interactions :)

Sugar Refinery

The Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar refinery, one of the two refineries left in Hawaii is located in Puunene, Maui. It has been functioning since 1882. Would love to have done a tour of it, but unfortunately, none are available.

Maui coastline

The Maui coastline varies every mile. I tried to capture the nice contrast between the ocean blues and the soil reds.

While exploring around the Salton sea, I ran across this chair out in the middle of nowhere. It was sitting deep in mud and has taken the color of it surroundings.