These aren’t in any kind of ranked order. They’re actually in the order I took them throughout the year. Most of the titles come from song lyrics. Extra points if you can identify them.

1. Never – Niland, CA

If you’ve never heard of the Salton Sea or Salvation Mountain in particular, you should google it sometime. Watch some youtube footage. Really fascinating place.



2. Doomed to crumble unless we grow – Valley of Fire, NV

One of my favorite places on earth.

3. Life is Beautiful – Hollywood, CA

I took this without looking through the viewfinder, so I was happy that it came out so well. These “Life is Beautiful” stencils were popping up all over LA. You can read more about the graffiti artist, Mr. Brainwash, here, and see more of his art here.

4. She’s calling you – Somewhere near Death Valley, CA

I took this from the back seat of a minivan that was going about 60 mph. The strange color tone is the result of shooting through tinted windows. Total fluke that it came out at all.

5. I’ll take a vodka float – Westminster, CA

When I moved to California I expected there to be health food stores on every corner. Instead, there’s liquor stores and donut stores on every corner. And I’m not exaggerating. Some intersections near where I live have two liquor stores. This shot is a Polaroid. And yes, this liquor store sells ice cream.

6. I seem to think I don’t belong here – Los Angeles Public Library, downtown Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles Public Library is a special place. Kind of hard to describe. But a cool place to hang out and explore.

7. Living close to your fears – Downtown Los Angeles, CA

This was taken on the sidewalk near the library. Some equipment for a film shoot—they were filming an Audi commercial. These are lights.

8. love bible love – Niland, CA

Another shot from Salvation Mountain, this may be my fave shot of the year.

9. Goodbye is just what you do – Los Angeles Public Library, downtown Los Angeles, CA

I think a lot of homeless people spend their days at the library downtown. Not that this guy is homeless. But I saw something on TV once about it. There was an interview with a teenage girl who had to move to a homeless shelter near Skid Row with her mother, and the library was her refuge.

10. An outlaw or a leader – Downtown Huntington Beach, CA

I saw the graphic on this shop door and told one of the teenagers I was with to go stand there facing the wall. My son’s friend knew immediately what I was after and jumped over and posed for me. What I love about this shot is the two drinks on the garbage can. He set his drink there, and there was already one there.

11. Bursting at the seams – Downtown Huntington Beach, CA

Gotta love lens flare on the Vivitar Ultrawide and Slim. Nothing else like it.

12. Leaving - Downtown Los Angeles, CA

I didn’t intend for this weird light leak/lens flare to happen on this shot, but I’m really happy that it did.

13. Footsteps – Huntington Beach, CA

This was taken at the swap meet down the road from where I live. Every time I go, I look around at all the Asians and Latinos and think, These are my people.

14. If I could open my arms – San Pedro, CA

This is the Korean Friendship Bell in San Pedro. It stands on a hill overlooking the ocean—that’s water you can see beyond the grass on the right. Worth looking at large, because the thing I love most about it is the way the woman is standing.

15. I don’t recall a single care – Costa Mesa, CA

Nothing as fun as a county fair at the end of summer.

16. Grieving for the loss of heaven – Huntington Beach, CA

My other fave shot of the year. My youngest son and I were riding bikes down to a photo lab, so I could pick up some film, and I spotted this flower on the sidewalk on the way there. I noted where it was so I could get a picture of it on the way back. On the way home, I purposely stopped my bike in a place that I thought would prevent my son from coming along behind me and running over the flower. He managed to do it anyway.

But he only hit one petal, so no harm done.

17. You should be in my space – Westminster, CA

This was taken with a Holga, which is a plastic toy camera with a very inaccurate viewfinder. I aimed the viewfinder exactly above the sign, so all I saw was blank sky in the frame. Pure guesswork, but it came out perfect.

If you’re wondering, the rest of the sign says “Sunny Tires Club.” It’s an auto repair place.

18. It’s just you, me and this wire – Westminster, CA

I wish I could remember exactly where I took this, because I want to go back and take pictures of these wires with different cameras. Sometimes I think all of southern California can be summed up in two words—wires and concrete.

19. It’s all over now – Westminster, CA

In case you were wondering where they got to. The caskets are over that way.

20. Was this your celebrated summer? – Newport Beach, CA

The Balboa Pier. Funny how deserted the beach can be in the winter.

21. Everything sleeps beneath – Huntington Beach, CA

One of my first experiments with double exposures. The graves at this pet cemetery were decorated for Halloween.

22. I flew beyond the sun before it was time – Huntington Beach, CA

I made my son model for me on this one. There’s a block of concrete in a deserted spot that the local kids decorate with graffiti. Deserted spots are hard to come by around here. Well, it’s actually not deserted—it’s in a big field next to a park. But the city doesn’t maintain it. People use the field to ride their horses and horse buggies—it’s right next to a horse stabling place.

23. What’s the point with a love that makes you hate and kill for. – Yermo, CA

These creatures are part of a truck stop roadside attraction in Yermo, CA. King Kong and a diner-saur.

24. Sit back and breathe – Santa Ana, CA

I discovered this empty lot in a nearby town covered in graffiti. You will only spot it if you go down a small alley. I took my husband there this day and there was a person listening to headphones and reading a newspaper, relaxing. It was the day after Thanksgiving. Take a better look.

25. Let the broken sky break above our heads – Downtown Los Angeles, CA

The heap on the left is a homeless person and his shopping cart. He was sleeping next to a library on Los Angeles St. near the Toy District of downtown. (This area is actually Little Tokyo, I think. Whichever, it’s pretty close to Skid Row.) In the background on the right is a church.

26. Window shopping – Beverly Hills, CA

This is a shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, CA. There are plexiglass windows on the floor with mannequin displays in them.

The young girl on the right was checking them out. Her and her father were wearing the nicest clothes I’ve ever seen. I’m thinking her outfit probably cost more than I usually have in the bank.

I took this the same day I took the shot above of the homeless person.

27. May grief fall away like leaves from the trees – Rialto, CA

Leaves on a sidewalk (top frame) and on a lawn (bottom frame). A rainy day in Rialto.

28. When death sleeps, it dreams of you – Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery, Colton, CA

I came across this old pioneer cemetery one day while exploring in San Bernadino County. Just about all of the graves that had these above-ground concrete things (what do you call them?) had been broken like this. Like someone had hit them with a sledgehammer. Inside all you could see was dirt. Animals have dug holes all over this graveyard, many right in front of headstones. Really creepy.

29. I love to feel the rain on my face – Rialto, CA

It kind of cracks me up when people in southern Cali see leaves on the ground and say, "See! California has fall!" (The season.) I took this picture in December.

Steve said I should plug it here, but I don’t know what to say about it other than I have a new boyfriend. And he’s spectacular!

http://flatliberace.strangepulse.com

So come check out the adventures of Flat Liberace, if you like. And watch for some special appearances by Flat Fergie eventually, too.

Part II: Cool Stuff w/Shutter Speed
There are two things that control how film is exposed in a camera. One is the shutter, and one is the lens aperture. The shutter is the thing that opens and closes, exposing the film to light. The aperture is an opening that controls how much light is let in when the shutter opens and closes. The aperture lets you do cool things like blur out the foreground or background of a photo. But what’s so great about shutter speed?

It’s pretty basic.
A fast shutter speed lets you freeze action in your photo. So if you’re shooting something that’s moving quickly, a fast shutter speed will capture it in stillness. A slow shutter speed will show it moving—it’ll be blurred.

Fast shutter speed:

Slow shutter speed:

When to use which.
Generally, a fast shutter speed can be used anytime, as long as there is enough light, or you have a good enough flash. The first photo above, with the dreadlocked singer, was taken in low light conditions with a fast shutter speed and a flash. The second photo above, with the blurred bassist, was taken in low light conditions with a slow shutter speed and a flash.

If you’re shooting in low light conditions and you don’t have or want to use a flash, then you’re going to have to use a slow shutter speed to allow enough light in to capture an image. This will mean anything moving in the picture will be blurred. And you must hold your camera very still (or use a tripod) or the movement of your camera will blur everything.

Below is a picture I took at dusk with a slow shutter speed.

A flash would not have worked in this setting. I braced the camera (or my arm holding it) against the railing of the pier and used a slow shutter speed. It gives the image an almost haunting, ghostlike feel, partly because the person walking on the left is blurry.

A common sort of picture to take with a slow shutter speed is a freeway or city scene at night. Here’s a picture I took of the 405 the other night:

The shutter was open for about 8-10 seconds for that shot.

Another common thing to do is to take a picture of something that is moving and pan your camera along with it, so the object that is moving is mostly in focus, and the background is blurred. Here’s one of my son riding his bike:

It can be hard to get the subject in focus. You have to time your panning of the camera right. The easiest way to do it is to start panning with the moving object before you release the shutter. So I aimed at my son before he was where I wanted him to be in the picture and followed him with the camera as he went by, only depressing the shutter about midway through my panning motion. I think the shutter speed was about 25 for that shot.

If you have a zoom lens (one you zoom manually by twisting the lens), you can create a cool effect using a slow shutter speed by zooming in or out while you are taking the picture. Here’s an example I took at a show (using a borrowed camera):

Fun at night with shutter speed.
If you have a tripod or something solid to set your camera on, and a small object that lights up, you can have a lot of fun at night with a slow shutter speed. These pictures were taken with my camera on a small tripod and the shutter speed at 15 seconds (the shutter stayed open for a full 15 seconds). My kids or I were “drawing” in the air by waving around a Nano iPod.

In the photo above, my daughter stood very still for the full 15 seconds, while I went behind her and drew the angel wings and halo with an iPod. The slight blur you see behind her is me moving around. I drew the wings as quickly as I could and then hopped out of frame so that I wouldn’t be seen in the final image.

In this next photo, I simply hid behind her, so you can see my arm and leg.

There are a lot of cool things you can do with a slow shutter speed, I’ve only posted a few ideas. Think about fire. Carnival rides at night. Flowing water. If you have any examples, feel free to post them in the comments.

So, how to set the shutter speed?
Some point and shoots don’t have shutter speed settings. But many do. If there is a setting on your camera labeled “S,” that stands for shutter speed. If you use that setting, the camera will place emphasis on your shutter speed setting (over the aperture setting).

Shutter speeds usually range from full seconds to fractions of a second. If your camera has a shutter speed of 1000 or 10000, that means 1/1000th or 1/10000th of a second. That’s fast. If you go down into the lower numbers, those are slower speeds. 250 would be 1/250th of a second. 2 would be 1/2 a second. On my camera, full seconds are indicated with a hash mark: 3″ means 3 full seconds.

Many cameras have a “B” setting, which stands for “Bulb,” and it means that as long as you have the button depressed on your camera, the shutter will stay open. (The term “bulb” is a legacy from the early days of photography, when you’d open the shutter, manually fire a flashbulb, and then allow the shutter to close.)

To capture the blur of movement, you will probably need to use a shutter speed of at least 15 or slower. (1/15th of a second.) The blurred bassist I posted above was probably shot with a shutter speed of about 8. (1/8th of a second.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Tying shutter speed and aperture together.
Something to be aware of is that shutter speed and aperture affect each other. If you have a big wide aperture, you’re letting a lot of light in, which means in sunny conditions, the shutter speed will need to be fast, or the photo will be over-exposed. If you want to use a slow shutter speed in well-lit conditions, you’ll need a narrow aperture.

when shooting in dark conditions, chances are you’ll need both a wide aperture and a slow shutter speed. As you experiment with both settings, eventually you’ll be able to use a completely manual setting, where you set both the aperture and shutter speed yourself. Most cameras these days will tell you even on a manual setting if you’re over- or under-exposing a shot.

Helpful link:
This blog post has some great tips on holding your camera steady to reduce blur caused by camera movement when using a slow shutter speed.

Links to previous posts in this series:

Composition

Apeture and Depth of Field

Next up: Macro shots.

Part II: Aperture and Depth of Field

There are two things that control how film is exposed in a camera. One is the shutter, and one is the lens aperture. The shutter is the thing that opens and closes, exposing the film to light. The aperture is an opening that controls how much light is let in when the shutter opens and closes. Here’s a picture of an aperture (this is an old Russian film camera):

The aperture consists of the metal blades you can see inside the glass of the lens. In the photo above, the aperture is narrow. In the pic below, it’s open wider:

So that’s what the aperture is. But what does it do besides control how much light hits the film when the shutter opens?

Depth of Field
The aperture controls something called the depth of field. Depth of field refers to how much of a photo is in focus.

In the photo above, there is only a small strip of sand that is in focus. This is a rather narrow depth of field. In this next photo below, everything is in focus, from the ground in front to the mountains way far away—this is a wide depth of field.

Depth of field is fun to play with. It lets you highlight your subjects in different ways. It’s probably most commonly used to make the background of a photo blurry. Below is a photo of a leaf hanging on a tree, with another leaf and another tree in the background:

If I hadn’t blurred out the background, the leaf would have been in competition with both the other leaf and the tree in the background for the viewer’s attention. But with the background blurred, the leaf stands out and the background shapes almost look like its shadow.

You can do more than blur out the background, though. You can blur out the foreground. Below is a photo of an abandoned gas station, with the fence in front blurred out.

You can also blur both the foreground and the background, as in the photo of sand I posted. Here’s another example, this time with not such a narrow depth of field:

So, how to achieve this blurriness?
It depends on what kind of camera you have.

Some point and shoots don’t have aperture settings. But many do. If there is a setting on your camera labeled “A,” that stands for aperture. If you use that setting, the camera will place emphasis on your aperture setting (over the shutter speed setting).

Bigger = smaller.
Here’s where it gets a little confusing. The aperture settings are actually fractions. So the bigger the number, the smaller the aperture. Most cameras have aperture settings ranging from about 2 to 16. So setting your aperture to 16 would mean it is very small. Setting it to 2 would mean it’s open all the way.

Sidenote: Some lenses are better than others. A good lens will remain sharp with the aperture all the way open. A poor lens will get soft or blurry with it all the way open. (Although some people prefer soft lenses, just depends on what you’re going for!)

Now the stuff you care about.
To make the background behind your subject blurry, you want the aperture open as far as you can, which means the lowest number: 2, or 2.8, whatever your camera has as the lowest. And you want some distance between your subject and whatever is in the background. That’s important—the greater the distance between your subject and the background, the greater the blur.

To have the middle of your range in focus and the front and background blurred, use a middle aperture setting. Which is usually 5.6. This is a fun setting to mess around with. Try it out on rows of things. Chairs, people, whatever. Line them up in a row going away from you and try this setting.

To have everything in focus, use the smallest aperture setting, which remember, is the highest number.

Next up: Fun with shutter speeds. Action shots, low light shots, etc. Good stuff!

To read Part I of this series, “Composition,” click here.

Part 1: Composition

Tip 1: Rule of Thirds

Composition refers to how you frame the subject of your photograph. The general rule that’s used is called the rule of thirds. This means rather than centering the subject of your photograph, you want to divide your picture up into thirds, and have your subject somewhere along those lines. Many digital cameras have rule-of-third guidelines you can turn on and off. They look like a tic tac toe board:

If your camera has those lines, they aren’t there for you to be sure you’ve got your subject centered. They are there to help you get your subject off-center.

Here’s a picture of a bird at a fountain:

I swear he stood there posing for me for quite awhile. Yet somehow, I only managed to snap him dead center in the frame. It may have had to do with the sun glaring in my eyes and I couldn’t see very well, I don’t remember. Here’s the same photo, cropped so that the bird is off center, following the rule of thirds:

See how much more interesting it is?

Above is my daughter when she was small. (Don’t ask me what she’s doing with the pan lids, my kids have always been weird.) See on the right, how her face is smack dab in the top left intersection of the lines? That’s the sort of thing you’re going for.

So, what if your camera will only focus on what’s in the center of the frame? Most cameras actually allow you to focus on something when you push down the button halfway, and then hold that focus as long as the button stays semi-depressed. You aim at the subject, get your camera focused by pushing the button down slightly, then reframe your picture until you’ve got an interesting composition and snap it.

Tip 2: Don’t be afraid to crop in close.

Generally, when I’m talking about cropping in close, I’m talking about people. Examples:

Don’t be afraid to crop off foreheads, parts of faces, etc. Experiment. Anyone using a digital camera can afford to take multiple shots of the same subject. Take a bunch and see what you end up liking the best.

Tip 3: Don’t be afraid of leaving a lot of blank space.

This can apply to landscapes, portraits, anything, really.

Tip 4: Leading lines

Leading lines are lines within your composition that draw the eye in a certain direction. Typically, you want any leading lines to lead the viewer’s eye to the main subject of the photograph.

Two rather heavy-handed examples:

Fences and anything with rails are ideal for this.

Slightly more subtle examples:

On the left is some guy at the beach. The tire tracks in the sand point up the picture towards the horizon and where he is sitting.

On the right is the singer of the Nebula, and the lines on his pants lead you up to the curve of his back and his face.

Tip 5: Framing your subject

Usually when I think of “framing” a picture I just think of the general composition. But you can also literally frame your subject within your picture. It can create interest as well as give perspective to a shot.

It can be literal, as with this picture of my husband on the beach, taken from a pier above:

And with this picture of an LDS temple, taken through a nearby fence:

Or it can be something surrounding your subject that when composed properly in the picture becomes a frame around it, like with my husband and the line of the coping at a skate park, or a bird and the pier and its reflection:

Doorways and windows are excellent for framing subjects, especially since they generally have light coming through them.

That’s it for part one. Future installments will include things like depth of field/aperature settings, shutter speed, film speed, taking action shots, working in low light conditions, what those settings on your camera besides “auto” mean, using white balance, macro, all kinds of good stuff. I expect a lot of these subjects will overlap, ie, you’ll be hearing more about composition as I go along, I’m sure. If you have anything you’d like to see addressed just let me know—like the disclaimer says below, I’m no pro, but I am obsessed.

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional photographer, purely an amateur. Besides some classes in high school, everything I know has been self-taught, and believe me when I say there are plenty of websites out there with all kinds of information and tutorials if you’re interested, the best of which that I’ve found is www.photo.net.

Gutter Twins have a great album out called Saturnalia and are currently touring. I caught them at the Avalon, which is a Hollywood venue I hadn’t been to before. I’m generally shy of LA venues, they can be rather lame, but the Avalon was nice. They didn’t even search my bag for a camera. Cameras were allowed! Holy cow. The venue holds about 1200, so it’s one of the medium-sized venues in town. The floor is standing only, and there’s a balcony with seating, but I didn’t go up there, so I don’t know if it’s open to anyone or if they only allow people who order drinks up there.

Their set seemed rather short. Only about 13 songs, most of them straight off the album. There were a few unexpected treats sprinkled in. They started with “The Stations,” “God’s Children,” and “All Misery/Flowers,” which also happen to be the first three songs on the album. Then they did a Massive Attack cover called “Live With Me,” which was great. Then some more from the album—”Seven Stories Underground,” “Idle Hands,” and “Bete Noir.” It’s funny because I want to say that “Bete Noir” is my favorite off the album, but the truth is, I want to say that about almost all the songs on the album. My favorites are the ones Mark Lanegan sings lead on, though. They trade off singing lead from song to song, and sometimes trade off within a song, too. Their voices are both very raspy, but Mark’s is incredibly low and warm. I love to hear them harmonize.

Next up was a Jose Gonzalez cover called “Down the Line.” Fantastic song, makes me want to check out Jose even more. Then came “I Was In Love With You,” from Saturnalia, which Greg started out by singing a few lines from Zep’s “When the Levee Breaks.” That was cool. Then they did an old traditional folk/blues song called “St. James Infirmary Blues,” with Mark singing lead—perfect showcase for his voice. It was excellent. Then another cover, this time “Belles,” originally by a band called Vetiver. Another band I now want to check out.

They closed with “Each to Each” and then “Front Street,” which are also the closing two tracks on their album. “Front Street” was a great one to end with, but I couldn’t believe it when they left the stage and a roadie signalled the house to turn the lights on and put music on the PA. The rest of the crowd couldn’t believe it either, and most of us hung around, cheering and waiting for an encore. I didn’t leave until I noticed the security guy next to me talking on his radio and then confirming it was over, the band wasn’t coming back out. No encore?!

The band seems in good shape, although Greg mentioned the bassist was there straight from the hospital. Greg got the crowd clapping along a couple times and seemed in a good mood. Mark was his typical self—every time I’ve seen him live, he plants his feet, grasps the microphone, and doesn’t budge an inch. But his voice is enough for me, I don’t need him doing anything but singing. If you’re not familiar with their sound, it’s basically Afghan Whigs or Twilight Singers, with Mark Lanegan participating on lead vocals. Lots of swirling sounds going on—two guitarists, two keyboards, bass, drums, and then two singers—it’s a lot to take in. I’m glad I got to see it all live, it cements the music more in my mind and I can enjoy the album even more now. I’ll post “Idle Hands” to the radio.blog.