A red green adventure

Although I have my own version of the story of how I came to shoot all of these photos on a walk in December, I'd rather not tell it. Instead, I like this story much better with these photographic details as inspiration to fill in the rest on your own.....

Ciclavia 12/7/14 - South LA Holga #2

Second set from the South LA Ciclavia, shot with my 35mm Holga and, with more people!! I think this might finally be the last set, but the mysterious world of my cameras has surprises for me sometimes....

I love this one! It makes me want to yell "Yay, Ciclavia!!!"



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....and about 16 hours after I posted this, I was screaming "Yay, Ciclavia!!!!" (and possibly scaring people around me with my excitement) when I found out the next Ciclavia is around my birthday and THE ROUTE IS RIGHT OUTSIDE MY HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! This will be the first San Fernando Valley route and goes through North Hollywood and Studio City and passes by the Red Line NoHo and Studio City/Universal City stations and the end of the Orange Line. There's also a few bike lanes that lead directly to the route (Orange Line path/Chandler, Vineland, Tujunga and I'm sure I am missing more.) I'm seriously thinking of doing a small birthday celebration outside in the street for my friends and whoever else wants to stop by. I have SO MANY ideas, way too many for a single day of things that could be done, but I also just want to ride the route and experience the streets I bike and walk all the time in a new way. This has been a dream of mine to have Ciclavia right outside my home because it's my favorite thing in Los Angeles and people are happy and people get to experience and explore the city and it's awesome for photography and gets people outside and biking and exercising and interacting with their friends and people they don't know at all, and and and and and!!!!!!!! It's so wonderful and I hope one day there is a Ciclavia every week in Los Angeles!! I'm so excited to talk with people in my neighborhood that say "it's scary to ride on the streets" and hope they can come out. SO EXCITED!

White Sands Life

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, September 2012 shot with Yashica Mat 124 g

If you look closely in the foreground you can see footprints from some of the little animals living in the area as well as black seeds from the yucca.

San Gabriel Mountain Mood

San Gabriel Mountains from Pasadena in December some time around some rain. Shot with Holga 35mm

Ciclavia 12/7/14 - South LA Holga

I picked up my Holga 135 the weekend of the December 2014 Ciclavia in South LA... to be truthful, part of the reason I decided to finally bite the bullet & buy one was because of Ciclavia. So these are the first pictures I shot with the Holga 35mm! Unfortunately I had some confusion about advancing (I didn't realize I would feel a locking of the advancing knob when I reached the next frame so I kinda stopped when I thought the number reflected a new frame.), but overall, I really like how they turned out. The camera  operation was relatively easily to pick up, especially after using the Holga 120. Yay! Ciclavia! Photos! Biking!

USC

this was supposed to be parrots... you can still kinda spot some especially on the left/non double exposed side

more of playing the "spot the parrot" game!

orange blooming

some agave/aloe/succulent type plant with a close-up filter on the 35mm Holga

Pasadena to Studio City, part 2

crossing the Arroyo from Pasadena to Highland Park & passing the first set of stables for the ride

Hansammul church

looking north along the LA River bike path...

Alex Baum Bike Bridge between Los Feliz & Atwater Village

Sunset, White Sands National Monument

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, September 2012.

Shot with Yashica Mat 124G.

Pasadena to Studio City, Part 1

I've been living in Studio City for a while and working in Pasadena for just as long. In that time I've gone from driving to work every day to pretty much not driving to work for the last 9 years. By that I don't mean I get to work from home (ha! what a nice dream....), but instead I've used countless other ways besides driving alone to get between home and work - carpooling, Metro trains, combination of Metro trains & buses, walking and bus, bike & bus... you get the idea. One thing I hadn't done though was bike all the way between my home and work. While you can drive fairly directly between my 2 destinations using freeways, biking requires some more indirect routes because of the freeways, mountains and other steep hills, so the distance between is ~20 miles, depending on your exact route. While I've biked over 30 miles on my hybrid bike in a single go, it wasn't the most comfortable experience in the world, & once I got my road bike last summer, I realized that it would probably be a great bike to use for this ride. I built myself up to riding longer distances on the road bike by going out for longer rides on the weekend. I explored and biked in some of the areas I knew I would have to use in getting between the 2 destinations including going on the LA River Bike path and biking around in North Glendale. Then I set the goal of biking home on a day that I got out of work early (for me, this means the days before holidays.) I had hoped to do this in July, but unfortunately I came down with a pretty intense case of the flu a couple days beforehand. For Labor Day I was at Burning Man, so the next possible option was before Thanksgiving. So, that's what I did!

The first time I rode it was little intense since we had 90+ degree temps that day. Between the unexpected heat and not knowing the areas or route I decided to take, I felt a little beat once I got home (I literally just barely took enough water in my camelbak along), but I made it home! It was awesome! I ended up biking west across Pasadena and crossed over the Arroyo to Highland Park. Then I went across Highland Park using the bike lane on York, through Gassell Park and then Atwater Village before hopping on the LA River bike path and riding that to Riverside drive and then home! I loved the LA river bike path, although the I-5 right next to it sucked, but I kinda already covered some of that last time I wrote about the LA River bike path. One thing I forgot though was a camera! Ack! So then I decided I would do the ride again, this time the day before Christmas Eve! This time unfortunately I was getting over a cold (hmm.. see a theme here?), so I wasn't sure if I wanted to bike all the way home or just hop on the train in Highland Park. When I was near the train I realized I wasn't ready to stop riding, so I biked the rest of the way home, but this time with my Holga still in hand.

biking down El Molino

Knowing better where I was going this time, I took this ride between Pasadena and Studio City a little more casually, stopping to explore and take photos with my Holga 35mm along the way. This first set is through Pasadena, where I stopped to explore an awesome little garden park called Arlington Park. The park doesn't look like much from the street where I approached, but once I got inside I enjoyed walking through the 3 acres of land, discovering all sorts of awesome things like the last orange grove in Pasadena (where you could pick 1 orange per a visit and the rest left in the late winter go towards marmalade that's sold to keep the park up!), a labyrinth and tons of little quiet garden rooms nestled within a variety of plant life with chairs, benches & tables for quiet relaxation. It was seriously one of the best little free parks I've ever been to. If I worked or lived closer, I would be there all of the time and volunteering. I would love to make a park like this where I live and I have so many ideas of things you could use the space for including classes for art like drawing, painting or photography & so many other things. WHY don't these exist everyplace?! Spaces like this are desperately missing from a city like Los Angeles with so many apartment/condo dwellers with no outside space of their own.

looking towards Pasadena Ave from Arlington Park.
The orange grove begins on the left of the path

labyrinth in Arlington Park

"I wish for passion to always preface work. Love Caitlin" A remnant from a wedding held in the park...

looking down the sidewalk on Orange Grove in Pasadena

Holga pre-Christmas biking, part 2

A continuation of photos from the pre-Christmas bike ride in this post, still with my Holga 35mm in the Toluca Lake/Studio City area.

This guy lives in a giant wooden box in a driveway during the year. The box says something to the effect of  "Tonight Show Jay Leno Santa on the Moon".

and the next day, it was gone.

Holga colored!!!!

In my last photo post I mentioned my frustrations with getting my film developed. Well, this week that was resolved! It felt a little ridiculous - the process for getting all color rolls developed included 3 people: my boyfriend picking up an envelope & dropping it off the next morning and then me going during a late lunch during the workday to pick up the developed film from the shop with a friend, but in the end film was developed and negatives obtained, thanks to Rocket Photo Lab & the help of a couple people! I do wish the photo shop was open just a couple hours on the weekend to help make it easier for people like me that live nearby, but work all week, to use their services. I ended up with 14 rolls - both 35mm and medium format - processed, some going back a few years, all developed within a couple hours for a little over $50. 3 rolls were mostly blank (only 1 from the Holga, which I was sad about because they were from my work Holiday Party, but I think I used an old roll of film for that) & the ones that turned out were from Holga 35mm, the first roll (& only color) roll I shot with my Diana+ 120 about 2 years ago and a few rolls from my Yashica Mat, including a bunch from our trip to New Mexico in 2012! Joy! There's also a couple mystery ones that I have to scan to look at more closely as I only have a vague guess about what they are from. I'm currently in the process of scanning the film, so I have many photos to post!

These first few are from a roll that I had in my Holga 35mm right before and through Christmas last week. These specifically were shot while I was biking around my neighborhood a couple weekends ago. I'm really liking the color in the Holga 35mm!

Election Propaganda: B.S. 2014

Collages! I haven't made any collages for a while, but this first was sitting un-glued for a while. And so today I sat down to glue it and the other 2 came together pretty soon afterward. All are made from various election mailers from the 2014 elections. I heard a story on the radio earlier this year that mentioned that mailers are still one of the "best" ways for candidates to spend money. Between the cost of things like tv/newspaper/online, etc. ads and how the resulting audiences include so many non-target viewers, including people that aren't even registered to vote, mailers are still most reliable. With all the information about you available for purchase, including whether or not you're registered comes many mailers. Many, many mailers.....

Babby Shriver

 Bibby S River

Booby Shiver

Sidewalking - Holga 35

More from my first roll developed from my Holga. Unfortunately my attempts at trying to get the color rolls I finished developed would be comical if I didn't want to get the film developed so badly. I suppose it's an exercise in proving my determination. Many "neighborhood" spots for film development no longer provide the negatives after the film is developed and my at home scans are much better than what they provide in return. This has lead to more intense searches for more small business type places where getting my negatives back isn't a problem. Unfortunately, with extremely restrictive/weekday only hours and closures for the holidays, I've walked away from a couple spots that seemed promising, but not within the immediate future. Onward I shoot. This set is a result of walking around my neighborhood.

Ciclavia 10/5/14 - Diana cityspots

A continuation of these photos from the Ciclavia on 10/5/14 through the downtown LA area and over to Boyle Heights and a perfect demonstration of why I love Ciclavia: exploring new parts of LA and being able to stop in the middle of the street to shoot photos without getting run over.

I looked at this entire roll and thought ".. and that's why I love the Diana 120 and film."

these are all over small clothing shops in downtown LA and other area and they are creepy/weird to me, but I'm so drawn to them...