A little stroll with the camera

A lot going on as usual all over the place and finding time for myself to just shoot becomes a challenge. Fortunately it all came together the other day and I got to go for a walk along the San Gabriel River.

I stumbled across some new urban art under the Encanto Park Bridge in Duarte. There's a new group in town, not the usual "DESG". They call themselves "Los Asult" and have started a mural under one of the bridge pilings. How can I tell the difference between urban art and graffiti and simple tagging? Easy...one has a lot more to it other than a quick scrawl to mark territory. Compare the piling with the simply tagged chair. Says it all.

The one thing I've noticed about doing my own B&W work again is that I do miss the instantaneous thumbnail at the back of the camera that tells you if you got your exposure and composition right. Require much more focus rather than spontaneity when shooting. Not that the latter is a bad thing, as its not. I've discovered, or re-discovered that I like the forced concentration that working in film requires with a manual camera. A lot of thought goes into the process for exposure etc., than with a DSLR. I like it. A lot.

Of course the lack of spontaneity has its draw backs too. The process of doing ones own film and then getting it scanned is time consuming and finding a morning free to devote to it is difficult. But I'll still take it as the rewards at the end make it worth it.

Great little stencil

Urban Art from along the Lario Bike trail. Its new, still bright colors. Only a matter of time before it gets tagged over or removed by the LA County Dept of Parks. Until then its there for all to enjoy. Actuall size is about 6 by 8 inches so that was some intricate stencil cutting.

Urban Art in the wild

Living at the edge of the LA Metro area I do have a lot of wilderness close by. I'm not the only who ventures a few blocks from home to enjoy the outdoors.

In Duarte at their Encanto Park there is an old railroad bridge that connects it with the San Gabriel River Trail that you can use to bike all the way to Long Beach if you desire. The bridge is all nicely paved and now that the river has been off for nearly a year (not sure who or why they did it, but its LA Baby and you roll with nature being shut off) so its possible to walk under it. For years even when the river ran the Duarte East Side Gang and some other groups have been decorating and putting their own mark on the undersides of the bridge. I think DESG is gone as the incredible murals are painted and tagged over. Sad to see their art go as the tagging usually doesn't bode well.

I do have to admit that this is my favorite time of year to shoot. Now through the end of October the sun isn't as high and the resulting color shifts to the redder side of the spectrum really accentuate the warm tones of a scene. Add in the natural fading of greens as fall approaches things really warm up a bit. Late afternoon and early morning this is most noticeable and is the reason I do so much shooting at those times of day.

I shot these bracketed with 2 stops over/under exposure using the EOS 20d with an ultra wide angle to capture as much of the scene as possible and add some linear distortion. I used the 3 RAW files to generate HDR files that were tonemapped and run through Virtual Photographer to get to the final images seen here.