BACK from friendly Eugene

Mt Shasta seen enroute SF...
aren't the clouds jes GorGeous?

Wednesday ~ 11:58pm: Returned from Eugene and as always: a stop-N-go nine hours on the road again. Don't ever get that "fat-free" French-Vanilla.... yeeeck. Never put the camera in the front seat and turned ON.

Not if you want to finally reach your destination within the coming year!

I was lucky enough in being able to stay VERY busy this trip.... usually I am so bored out of my mind and shoot just flowers, sunsets, etc. It was good to be able to shoot some other people too... I love staying busy and up late working on fotos while watching the Olympics. Of course I was driving all over Eugene and getting lost.... Aside from the 9-hour drive between Eugene and SF, I think I spent too much time on the road and in cars!!! I finally departed at about 5am Wednesday to beat the rush hour traffic in the Bay Area when I finally arrive.

It was a very good trip for me, resulting in a shoot with a Medford, Oregon model. Cannot forget my friend's skate rink wedding and the great handmade wedding cake!!! Then had a session with a very photogenic couple on Sunday who are expecting a little one in a few months, then finally finished with a very pretty teen and her brother on Tuesday, then later photographed her parents later that same afternoon.

I'll never forget Eugene's sunsets and even Mount Shasta was lovely and dressed in clouds; aside from snapping some pixs while driving 65mph down the interstate, I also stopped and got some better pixs of that beautiful mountain!

Saturday ~ 9:50pm: What a day!! Though I had my alarm set for 8:15am, I actually awoke several times starting at 6am.... I was busy busy as a bee readying to go to deliver a box of goodies of art materials for an internet friend, then head over to the bride's home preparing for her wedding. Then as I was already starting to shut down my laptop to depart, an email arrives with the simple subject line I've been waiting for: driver's license

A kind family discovered my "belt pouch" with my IDs and credit cards near the street at 29th and Willamette, and contacted me. I've known Eugene people to be kind, honest and thoughtful, and this is such proof of that thought; while I worked at the main library here, people turned in money, laptops, credit cards, among other things!

My sincere thanks to this family and well-wishes for them in this new world of thoughfulness to your neighbor and fellow man.

The WEDDING: I arrived early ~ better early than late always ~ be fore noon and soon began recording their spercial day... I am always honored to be a part of such happy and important personal events... it's not easy to be the one entrusted with such responsibilty, but I love to document these moments of happiness, and feel it's something I do quite well. That she would think of me in her important moment is such an honor, specially when one considers that I don't reside in Eugene any longer.

I finally got home at about the same time the sun began to set - again - and stopped several times to record that also. The sun sets in Eugene at about 8:20 and the sunbeams were fantastic. I plan to use one of the sunbeam images as a background for one of their pictures.

Tomorrow I will shoot a pregnant mother-to-be and that will start about 2pm and continue till sunset. I'm so happy I am staying busy and taking fotos ~ it's my life!!!!

Friday ~ 10pm: I spent a disgusting busy day outside in the Northwestern heat of 90f+ and humidity. While I was able to get to all of my scheduled appointments, I did a stupid thing today that is typical of my crazy lifestyle... all of my life I have misplaced and/or lost items. Today, I not only lost the house-key to where I am staying with a friend, but I also lost a belt "pocket", complete with my military ID and CA driver's license, plus a slew of credit cards. Yeaaaa, I've checked the car inside and out so many times and drove back to the places where I thought it might have detached itself from my belt. No luck... plus I had my newest version of my business cards in there too, so if anyone honest did find it, they would have called me.

I am soooo disappointed.

Tomorrow is the wedding, then Sunday I have a shoot that will take up most of the afternoon. Monday or Tuesday I will take a little drive to the Oregon coast which I really like but now may not do it, due to the loss of those important documentation. It seems all of my days are filled up and then I'll depart a day earlier.

While returning from my last search of where the lost items might be, I saw the clouds over the Eugene foothills, and again, I went to get my camera and snapped away. It was so incredible and if not for two individuals who were there with me talking about the sun and about photography in general, I would have cried at my idiotic day and its strange turn of events.

It seems again that Eugene's sunset brightened my day and left me with an awe that I could only have here.... and in Spain.

Thursday 14 August: Early morning departure at 4:45AM. The Harrison Street entrance to the Bay Bridge was closed... a motorcycle cop was there but he didn't help any of us stopped across the street, wondering where to go to get on the bridge. I followed the four cars in front of me and within three minutes and three traffic liggts, I was on the bridge... finally. It seems so strange to be driving through this city that I call my hometown... to see it filthy, dirty, empty of cars and tourists, the shops and restaurants closed and dark... then compare that with the daytime-version: full of cars, traffic and tourists, no room on the sidewalk to walk even... the dirty street hidden by parked cars.

I was to be in Medford, Oregon by noon to shoot with a model... my GPS predicted my arrival before 11:30. With several stops for gas and rest - stretch those old legs - I thought I should arrive about that time. An hour later at a gas stop outside Fairfield did I realize I left the house with only a dollar and some change in my pockets... luckily just enough to buy a french-vanilla coffee... I had to count out 40 cents worth of pennies but the girl behind the counter just smiled and accepted the change.

I watched a golden bright red sun rise... and though I kept watching it, I didn't stop to snap a picture. Perhaps the next time.....

The car was doing quite good... I've been keeping tabs on gas mileage for many months and this trip actually gave me almost 30 miles to the gallon for the first portion of the tank. This is a first for this car since moving from the relatively flats of Eugene to the hills and traffic of SF!! For the remainder I used the a/c as it was sooo hot - how nice to finally have a car equipped with that cooling miracle after 30 years driving without a/c in hotter-than-heck climates! For the rest of the trip it dropped a bit and when I finally filled up again just before Roseburg, the mileage was about 22+ miles per gallon for the rest of the tank... that's not bad when compared to the 12 miles I got for the gallon when I first moved to the City, and buying gas exactly once a week! Those hills and the stop-N-go traffic will do it to the car's performance!!!

In Medford I spent an interesting three hours shooting with a gorgeous model, then when it came time to download the fotos to her laptop, I realized that along with forgetting my cell phone charger, I also forgot the correct cable for the camera. Now instead of DLing 500+ pictures in less than 10 minutes, it would take three times longer!!!

This trip wasn't starting off well! In addition, I actually had to stop the car once I passed Fairfield to find my allergy pills... I smelled something that reminded me of hay burning and my sinuses were really bad this morning...... wow!! By time I arrived in Medford, my sinuses were again so bad even the model offered me some pills which I accepted and 20mins later, I could actually breathe again!!!

Finally done copying the pictures to her laptop, I started the final portion of my trip to Eugene, and traffic was bad. To make up for the traffic, I stopped at a rest area where olive trees were growing; these were old trees with the most beautiful roots!! Unfortunately, the restrooms were terrible! The sinks were filthy and though there were people cleaning, the sinks were so dirty I didn't touch them. It reminded me of seeing the restrooms at the rest areas off the german autobahn, and they were even more filthy than these!



Traffic into Eugene was bad starting about 30miles south, but as I arrived just after 8, I drove over to my "old spot" at Amazon Park and photographed the sunset.

I always feel so honored and special when I am "welcomed" to any location and the sunsets are so incredibly beautiful and colorful! Tonight was no different....



I like Eugene!!!

an angel for a foto shoot today

After many weeks of inactivity in the field of "professional" photography, I had the great luck to finally meet a young model from Sacramento who I've been talking with for the past several months, and off we drove into the sunset... literally!

So-called models living in San Francisco have proven to be very unprofessional.... in conversations with about five since my arrival over six months ago, all of these amateur individuals turned out to be as flaky as an over-filled balloon: when it came to the moment of truth, SF models are just hot air.... and in my opinion do not exist in the City, and their empty words just crumble into false promises after even a few initial correspondence.

On the other hand, since my return to the City I've had the pleasure and honor of shooting with models from Chico, Sacramento (twice) and even Los Angeles. Too bad models in SF are not as responsible or reliable!

My angel of a model and I met at the Marina (free parking and "easy" to find) then started shooting around the little marina there and moved on to the beach at Crissy Field. It was a breezy day but she looked good anyway. From there we went to just west of the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge, and from there down to Baker beach where the shoot ended as the sun set.

This young model has a gorgeous profile and a great laugh... we both trekked a lot today and though the sun was out, I really wished we had the fog and clouds that were present for the past few days instead. I don't enjoy shooting in the stark bright harsh sunlight but when forced to, I will do it as I have previously in Spain.

She is also the first one to be captured with a new lens I have during a sunset, and of course everyone knows I just looove capturing sunsets.

this is the sunset seconds after we finished

CSI ~ how Life imitates a living nightmare

As everyone who reads my blog ~ all four and a half of you out there ~ I love the CSI series. Living in Spain, these series just started airing probably about 2005 and I loved it from the very start. I immensely enjoy the plot, and how they show the details of how a crime scene is analyzed and inspected, how a scenario for a crime is determined and how new facts may reveal more details of the actual crime and how it occurred. But more than that, I love the human factor in these virtual tales, and how the human mind interacts with all this data, adds invariables, mixing it up with the unpredictable human factors and even the personal lives of the CSI team.... but finally, all within an hour - commercials included - it comes all together.

Often we are all exposed to the stark reality of a crime and how it looks under a microscope; what if our lives were to be placed in the public eye... how would we be seen and interpreted, and our lives, our personalities and lifestyles, habits, etc?

I also like how often the end of the episode is not as we would want; the bad guy gets away somehow, or the dirty partner is the fault but isn't charged. In this case, I saw a rerun today - I religiously watch CSI reruns every weekday and have seen many I've never seen before, and what a delight it always is when I catch those so far in the past it seems to me, to be a yet-unseen dust-covered relic from a treasure chest!

This particular one tells the story of how a brother was discovered at a crime scene. Every piece of evidence recovered points at him as the murderer; to which Grissom later remarks: "This places him at the scene and burying the bodies, but not as the one who killed those bodies". The evil brother is the actual killer and even has the nerve to send via messenger the key missing evidence required to convict the hapless innocent quieter brother. With this new evidence, he is told that he would likely see at the very least 10-20 years as a minimum, but possibly life in prison. The brother states with tears in his eyes: "I can't survive through that...." The ending of this episode has me crying as a medical emergency is called and Grissom is nearby; seeing the running police, he rushes in also.... only to see the innocent brother lying on the floor, covered with blood as he is supported by others in an attempt to save his life. This young man has used his own teeth to "slash" his veins and was "lucky" enough to hit an artery and the floor is quickly turning red beneath him... Grissom stands off to the side staring in shock, disbelief and horror.

He watches as the life in the gasping brother leaks out, as he dies with eyes open.... and Grissom now realizes he is witness to an unnecessary death of an innocent person.... his brother had turned him in to serve the death sentence which should be for him but... what in this world is right and what in this crazy unpredictable world is just, if ever?

CSI remains possibly one of the best television series I have ever seen, and most episodes move me to tears and disbelief at the outcome and unwelcome irony.

In this same theme, there are times when my own personal life is just as much an irony as any virtual life broadcast on the little screen that I have viewed. How many times can one be subject to rejection from a single person...

It is sometimes amazing ~ no: unbelieveable, how one single individual can take my life and fill it with happiness, joy, pleasure, hope and dreams, then in an eerie split second, take that same life, and with that same voice, easily and quite simply rip everything to shreds.... seemingly without a care of concern.

I have always considered myself a very patient individual with too much damn friendliness towards others and even strangers. It seems in this case though, I seem to have gone too far and allowed myself to be used and left by the wayside once too many times not by many, but by a single individual. In my life I have abandoned no one yet I am abandoned by everyone and everything.

So, here I stand at being rejected six times by a single person whom I know to such detail, I would like to think I know - knew - every thought process of this person before it would be actually revealed.

But, here I am again: amazed yet saddened that this person has again struck me down again, and this time it will be final. Am I wrong in holding on to a dream that seems to be not forthcoming? Is it wrong to dream when the other half of you seems to be holding back? Am I an idiot just because I hold on to something I have never been lucky enough to have, and with this departure, it seems as though my dream of a happy future with someone is now more fiction than a frog's pond?

How would you react if someone abandoned you so many times... am I the only idiot in this world? Or just the only one who has dreams..... never to become a reality?

Many persons have told me, yet I refuse to listen. There are people in this world who are not as they seem. Are my glasses just too thick for me to see this? I've always been a good judge of character but in this case, it seems my character has been sold out once too many times!

I think now is a good time to move some more heavy boxes, of which in my present location I have a lot of: dust-covered boxes filled with loneliness and isolation, while others over-flow with disappointments and let-downs.

It seems my measly life has had more than its share of these items.... to which there seems to be no end. sigh

nothing like a glorious flaming sunset to clear
the mind and refresh the soul

Back to my dungeon of filthy boxes.....

is this dew or my tears that drop from my lifeless arms...
falling to the ground like a million other tears before

those sunbeams last night

It's been sometime since I have gone with camera in hand to capture a sunset ~ any sunset ~ in the Bay Area. As most of the haze hanging in the air as a result of smoke from the remaining forest fires isn't as evident as it was months ago, the sunrises and sets are not as smoky red as before, but oftentimes, this area has such natural color that it's not necessary for fire smoke to "enhance" a sunset sometimes......

Tonight I decided to snap some sunset pixs from the curved pier at the foot of Hyde Street Park... I haven't been there in some time. I've actually wanted to snap some for the past weeks, but for one reason or another haven't gone on my personal mission.... till last night. This pier is always a (very) breezy place... people were there crabbing and fishing, kids playing and running all around. Of course the seagulls were out in full force gliding, flying and landing. I could see pelicans occasionally flying by, the flock gliding in perfect formation of a single line just inches over the wind-blown white-caps of the bay, and tourists were everywhere snapping away at the glorious scene before our eyes.

Someone or thing attracted my attention, and as I looked to the right, all at once being blinded but also amazed to see the last seconds of the sun disappearing behind the Marin County headlands, but the sun was spiking, being positioned exactly just behind the north tower of the bridge...

It was simply amazing and one that I've never seen ever!
There was a slight fog over those hills, which made the sunbeams stand out quite well, and it was a incredible sight...... I stood there transfixed and at the same time snapping away... hoping to get what my eyes were blinded though amazed by the light....

Minutes later I discovered myself ~ quite by an intentional accident ~ near Alamo Park and in the quickly fading soft sunset light, decided to double-park illegally, run up the hill (oh my hurting knees!) and snap a few more pics......

Did you see the sunset where you live? Were you amazed by what you saw: the end to yet another day but yet another day in your life?

those amazing toys

... it took me quite a few years while I lived in Spain before I finally purchased a cell phone. I withstood the urge thinking that tiny bit of progress would infringe on my sanity and privacy. After hearing the same statement from many friends "How can I contact you for fotos if you're never home?" which of course, after I got a cell phone the calls never came....

Of course!

Sometimes it's really amazing the toys and things people can create when time and creativity is not a problem.

Take a look at these two pictures... incidentally not created by me but by my brother. Guess how these were created? It was taken using the first version of a very small and simple "camera"; the circular effect a result of a fish-eye lens "adapted" to fit over this camera's lens.

Isn't this amazing?

When one has the moment to stop, sit and take a deep breath and look around them... they will see a lot of things that are so amazing... just think that in a normal household, more than half the things found today inside a living room and kitchen did not even exist during the previous 40 to 50 years!

Most of the things we take for granted now were described in science fiction novels or movies as things of the 23rd century.... who would ever think these gadgets would actually exist and be even "affordable" in our lifetime?

Even the car that I drive now, with its electric door locks, electric windows and air conditioning.... I've never had a car like this in my life! I'm used to driving a manual shift transmission, manual roll-down windows power by hand and elbow motion, and a door that locks when you remember to push the little thingy down, or by using your key in the lock!

I agree that modern progress and technology has a lot in making our lives more comfortable, but at what cost? I miss the days when I could control completely and exactly the amount of window I wanted open or closed by turning the lever by hand, and it didn't need any electricity.

I remember that in my short and few teen years, the greatest joys then and which still apply now, were those toys or things that required no batteries, and made me think by using my brain... our personal and amazing incredible built-in computer that comes with each of us with no warrantry but is the simpliest and most advanced computer ever created in this world.

Will this technology be the downfall of this generation and of generations to come, by creating a race of people too lazy to go out to play when one can play on a handheld game console? Will we grow wide and bigger because the only exercise is between the car, the elevator or the desk and our homes? With so much porn online, will the act of "love" become a virtual sensation through online sites? Already people are starting to date through online sites, and it won't be too long before people begin marrying and conducting relationships virtually.

At what price technology? I can't wait to return to my empty apartment in southern Spain where my car - when I have another car there again - stays parked 90% of the month and I walk sometimes up to 10 to 15 kilometers a day, eating less... much less than I do here!

This was created by attaching a fish-eye lens accessory to the "lens" of the camera of a first-generation IPhone!! What one can create through ingenuity and materials at hand!


this is a 1st generation IPhone (left) outfitted with a fish-eye lens!!!
on the right is the lens alone with a juryrigged adapter