Photo of the Week (January 27, 2008)

Greetings from Los Angeles, California, USA!
Photo taken on Friday, January 25, 2008.

A week of rain in Southern California? Never! But it did. This week was also a roller coaster ride – a wet one – like Disneyland’s Splash Mountain but less fun. Here’s the setup. I am looking for a job and had four leads. Monday, a holiday, was the quiet before the storm.

On Tuesday, the rain clouds rolled in. That morning I had an email from a recruiter. His client cancelled its job opening. STRIKE ONE. In the afternoon came the call from another recruiter. His client interviewed me a month ago and finally decided on a candidate – not me. STRIKE TWO. Then another email. The client of a third recruiter put an indefinite hold on its job opening. STRIKE THREE! I’M OUT! I now hate baseball. Thoughts of emptying my liquor cabinet or standing on a rooftop ledge were both appealing. Instead I vented my frustrations by talking with two friends. To them, I give my many thanks.

Wednesday brought more rain but the black clouds had a silver lining. Unexpectedly another friend connected me with yet another recruiter who had a job opening that fit me. I drove to Beverly Hills on Friday to meet the recruiter and we will be submitting my resume to her client. I may be turned away immediately or have a potentially long, uphill battle involving several interviews, much waiting and rejection always lurking. I also followed up on the last of my first four job leads and it is still in the mix as well. Wish me good luck and keep the liquor away. We’ll save it for the eventual celebration.

The drive to the recruiter was 50 miles and luckily done between downpours. Making the most of my trip, I went to some points of interest afterwards. The first stop was for lunch at Pink’s, an eatery famous for its hot dogs, then on to the Beverly Center, the mall that had the USA’s first Hard Rock Café. In this week’s photo, colorful lanterns illuminate the hallway of escalators connecting that mall’s eight floors. Final stop was a men’s volleyball match between UCI and USC, my undergraduate and graduate alma maters. For whom did I cheer? I was at USC but UCI is the defending national champion. Inspired by the Trojan Horse – the large wooden equine hiding enemy soldiers inside, I went to the game as a modern-day version - Trojan soldier (USC’s mascot) on the outside, Anteater (UCI’s mascot) hidden inside. The “Eaters” won.

I spent the night at my parents’ house as it was closer than mine and the weather was still wet. On Saturday afternoon I went to a housewarming party before finally heading home. Sunday was all about recovery from my roller coaster week. Let’s hope the next ride will be on Cloud Nine.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (January 20, 2008)

Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Sunday, January 20, 2008.

When I began these Photo of the Week emails, I did six all at once, then stopped, then started again with six more and, since then, have been able to churn these out steadily week in, week out, up until now. This latest email though comes out later than normal. I admit it. I was stuck. I even began writing one message but eventually abandon it because the topic just did not excite me enough.

The weeks have gone from one extreme to the other – one week busy, the next week not busy, then back again. This week was definitely not busy and by the time Sunday arrived, I had no new photos. Evening came and I took a walk. I went to the beach but it was too dark. The camera shutter would stay open longer to compensate for the lack of light and the cold air made holding my hands still very difficult. Every shot was blurry.

On my walk back home I stopped by the community swimming pool. Definitely nothing to brag about – in fact, it’s blurry too – but I had something that I could live with as the photo of the week. Last November one weekly photo was actually a pair of pictures – two near-identical shots of fake reindeer, one taken in the day, the other at night – and the decorative lightning in the night photo was accentuated when juxtaposed by the day photo. Lighting plays a big part on this chosen photo too. In fact water and lighting can create an interesting interplay. That potential is barely tapped in this photo but it is there.

Hold off on calling me washed up just yet. Instead consider this week a wash. I didn’t drown but I didn’t swim either. Instead I barely treaded water. But before this starts to go down the drain or in the toilet, I’ll put an end to all these aquatic remarks. Let’s hope my writer’s block ebbs and I’m flooded with topics for the next weekly email. Oops, another water reference. Sorry, that will be the last one. I swear. I am now bone dry. Or not. But the wine bottle next to me is definitely empty. I have said too much.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (January 13, 2008)

Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Wednesday, January 9, 2008.

I spent the first week of the new year mostly indoors. I could blame my self-seclusion on the series of rainstorms that passed through but I claim post-holiday recovery as the real reason. The threat of cabin fever was diverted by a dry and warming trend in the weather. On Wednesday afternoon I headed to the beach where I captured a shot of a spectacular setting sun that became the bonus photo of the week. The accompanying message encouraged you to respond with your own thoughts but I have yet to receive a single email reply. I will naively believe that I wrote an incredibly thorough description that left nothing else for anyone to add.

The beach trip was so great that I went back the very next afternoon hoping that lightning would strike twice. Instead the weather was even better. Yet in reviewing the photos, my favorites were from the first of the two days. I also went back to the Great Park of Irvine and took a literal lift up on the previously mentioned and still free Great Balloon Ride. The experience itself was indeed great but the view was obscured by marine haze. I’ll have to take the ride again another day. Last week still have more adventures.

January tends to be light on social events as people recover from the holidays. But the year has gotten to a rousing start and I went from totally reclusive to completely social. On Friday night I attended a volleyball match at my alma mater UC Irvine where the men’s team are the 2007 national college champions. They won of course and afterwards I went to Laguna Beach for a friend’s birthday at Hush restaurant. Then I had a housewarming in Aliso Viejo and a “post-holiday holiday party” in Orange both falling on Saturday night. I managed to attend both before heading to West Covina to spend Sunday with my parents. Are you exhausted yet?

With uncommonly clear skies in West Covina, I drove up to the Pacific Palms Hotel & Resort atop a hill in the aptly named neighboring area of Puente Hills. This vantage point boasts breathtaking vistas of the San Gabriel Valley’s eastern edge. Forming the northeastern border, the Sierra Nevada mountain range was a mix of white and brown peaks. I took dozens of pictures but they will have to be bonus photos for another time.

Instead here is another beach shot. Normally the pictured rock formation is completely submerged but an extremely low tide brought it almost entirely above water. Perch pelicans on the rocks, toss in a few more feathered friends in flight, add anchored boats to the background and you have the makings of another perfect picture - if I must say so myself, since no one else is [cue ego stroking].

Angelo

Deconstruction of a Photo

Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Wednesday, January 9, 2008.

The photo would inarguably be the Photo of the Week. But it inspired me. The results are below. I look forward to your comments.

When I first looked at this photo, it became an instant favorite. If asked why, I could reply with a simple “just because” but the full answer is much, much longer. The thought of deconstructing the picture sounds unnecessary, undesirable, and even unpleasant. You may think that the photo as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and I agree. Yet identifying the parts and how they interact with one another shows why the whole picture is that much better.

With so many elements, where do you begin? The focal point, believe it or not, is the bench. Prominently in the forefront of the photo, it is a point of reference providing perspective to the view and serving as a scale to the scope. Also the bench’s pastel hue is shared with the sky colored by a setting sun into a fruit candy combination of orange cream and crushed pineapple.

The next step is to examine the photo, layer upon layer starting from the top. A sky-wide rip in the cloud cover offers a peak to the low-slung sun. It has not yet begun to sink beyond the horizon but a convoy of clouds creates the illusion that it is. Beneath this is the Pacific Ocean living up to its name, its calm waters stretching westward, its welcoming waves lapping the shoreline, its warmth radiating by its interplay with the sunlight. In the center of the photo, slicing the long lines of the Newport Harbor breakwater are the silhouettes of scattered palms, their slender columns crowned with a firework explosion of fronds.

On the left side of the photo, an extremely low tide briefly widens the beach of Corona del Mar – Spanish for Crown of the Sea – exposing a swath of sandy shoreline usually submerged in the salty water. Moving rightward in the middle of the photo are two people – a pair of small slender marks on the beach – and further right in the parking lot is a lone car. We return to the bench – empty – and realize the near absence of human presence, hinting that this unfolding scene – a mere moment of it captured by this photo – was witnessed by too few.

All these elements contained in one photo. Deconstruction done. Did you notice everything that I did? Did you notice anything that I didn’t? Please share. I did.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (January 6, 2008)

Greetings from Los Angeles, California, USA!
Photo taken on Tuesday, January 1, 2008.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! A few weeks ago, I wrote about my three rules for writing these weekly emails. I appear to have rules for everything because here's another one: celebrate New Year's Day in a different place each year. It's a fun challenge. I use street addresses to distinguish different places. For example I can't celebrate New Year's in different rooms of the same apartment as both rooms are at the same address. But I can celebrate it in adjacent apartments, as the addresses would be different although very similar. Got it?

I started the rule in 1990 and, like my other ones, it has been broken but only once. On New Year's Eve circa 1995 I was at my parents' house enduring the worst part of a cold. My only plans were to watch the midnight ball drop in New York's Time Square during Dick Clark's annual New Year's Rockin' Eve television show. My parents and brother had all gone out, leaving me on the couch with a box of tissues. Even worse, I fell asleep and woke up a half-hour past midnight, completely missing the countdown.

While that was my worst New Year's Eve ever, I hadn't broken my rule yet. On New Year's Eve of 2005 I was at my parents' house once again but planning to head out to a party in Pasadena. I had been feeling tired that day and ended up taking a nap in the early evening. I slept longer than expected, waking up less than an hour before midnight. There was just not enough time to drive to Pasadena before the new year arrived. The party was very close to the Rose Parade route making parking extremely difficult too. Out of options, I stayed home but did see Dick Clark's countdown this time.

Over the years I have counted down to the New Year in places from downtown Canberra (capital of Australia) to downtown Las Vegas (capital of greed) and points in between. I greeted 2008 at Tom Bergin's Tavern in Los Angeles. The bar faintly resembles the one in the television show "Cheers" - "where everybody knows your name" as its theme song goes. In fact the names of past guests are written on shamrocks that practically wallpaper the place. As the photo of the week shows, the clovers are even on the ceiling.

Hmmm... A few months ago I had a shot of beer taps on the ceiling of another tavern. Do I pass out at bars, then wake up staring at the ceiling and think, "I'll take a picture of that"? It's far from the truth. REALLY. You won't even find my name among the shamrocks at Bergin's. It's well hidden... Or non-existent. You decide.

Angelo