Play time

Play time
My desk, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

The oncoming holidays, a crunch at work, and dismal weather have conspired to limit the time I can spend with camera in hand this past week.

So, I've been playing around with various photography apps on my new iPhone.  This fun shot was taken by putting the Super Camera app into "Lomo" mode.

I'll be back to using my PowerShot in the next week or so, but I'm having fun with the phone for now.

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Lonely Sculptures

Lonely Sculptures
San Diego Museum of Art Sculpture Garden cafe, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

This shot was taken by setting my tripod up very close to the ornamental gates in the last shot, and shooting through one of the gaps.  I played with exposure and aperture quite a bit for this shot, trying to retain enough detail in the wall sculpture and the intricate ball in the lower middle.  I'm very happy with the results.

These sculptures are in the middle of the cafe courtyard in the sculpture garden.  This shot would only be  possible at night, I think.  Not just because of the lighting, but because the cafe would be full of happily dining visitors at any time during the day.  Without the patrons, these sculptures felt lonely and unappreciated.  Except by me, I suppose.

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Night Outside the Museum

Night Outside the Museum
San Diego Museum of Art Sculpture Garden cafe, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

I rather like this shot.  The gates surrounding the sculpture garden at the San Diego Museum of Art are, to my mind, beautiful sculptures themselves.  I like the warm colors of the yellow incandescent lighting and the red cafe tables and chairs.  Framing them with the ornamental gate overlaying the scene gave me an interesting composition.

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Night Arches

Night Arches
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

Balboa Park features a formal garden, bordered on one side by these ornamental arches.  At night, the ground lights show off the arches and the trees above.

I like the contrast between the hard arch of stucco and the graceful arching curves of the tree's trunk and branches.

Composing this shot was an interesting challenge.  There is a parking lot just beyond, with an assortment of lights and reflectors.  Finding a position that showed off the tree and arch well, while masking the distracting elements beyond, took some time.

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Incandescent Stairs #2

Incandescent Stairs #2
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

A second shot of the beautifully lit ornamental stairs.  The (relatively) bright light fixture is just out of the frame, above.  I like the variety of depths revealed by that light.

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Incandescent Stairs #1

Incandescent Stairs #1
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

I spent an hour or so last night in Balboa Park, looking for interesting combinations of shape and nighttime lighting.  These stair rails are lit by an incandescent fixture of yellow-orange glass. The warm light on the tan walls and terra cotta tiles is very pretty.  I liked the graphic composition of the rails, shadows and steps.

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Table with a View, #2

Table with a View #2
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

Another view of the table and chairs, placed by someone with a sense of humor atop this tall stone monument/chimney.

In this case, I kept the image in color, because I liked the complimentary colors: blue sky with the orange stones and rust.  The chair in the lower right is at once distracting and interesting.  I can't decide whether I like it there or hate it.  Any attempt to frame this photo with more of the lower chair necessarily included intrusive background greenery, unbalanced empty space to one side of the chimney or the other, or both.

It only occurs to me now that I could have easily taken that lower chair down, shot an ever better scene, then replaced it.  Maybe this will all still be in place when I return next weekend.

I'd also love to get a shot of a couple, seated across from each other in the higher pair of chairs, trying to make the best of the situation.  Now...to convince someone to climb up there...  The seats of the upper pair of chairs are, I would guess, (only) ten feet off the ground.

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Table with a View

Table with a View
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
November, 2010

This tall structure is a monument, as well as an open air stone oven and chimney.  Someone...I'm assuming either an artist or a prankster...placed a small metal table up on top, and two chairs on the tops of stone supports on each side.  The second chair on this side is below and to the right, off camera, atop another support.  These chairs and the table were so incongruous, and so interesting, that I had to find a way to photograph them.  I liked the mixed up, puzzling story, the contrast between the smooth white metal and the dark rough stone, and the clean lines.

Composing a photograph, I find, is often as much about what you leave out of the frame as what you include.  In this case, there were several Eucalyptus trees nearby, and there were those other, lower chairs.  There was no point of view that included more than one chair, that didn't also include distracting and unbalancing greenery in parts of the background.  There were only a couple of points of view that let me put at least one chair and the table in the frame nicely.  This is the one I'm happiest with.

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