Pinewood Derby
Albany Pack 3 Pinewood Derby
This year’s Pinewood Derby was nearly 3 hours of racing and photo-shooting fun. It’s may be the funnest thing we do all year. Everyone gets into it, parents, siblings and scouts.
This time around, Theo was committed to making a green sparkly lizard for some reason. He helped design the shape, picked out the colors and sparkles, and the googly eyes. He didn’t want to really do much of the actual physical work. I can’t blame him, I didn’t either. So, I made him at least start each of the tasks, except for the cutting on the band saw! Letting him play with that didn’t seem like a real good idea. But he worked at least a little on the rasping and sanding and painting and gluing.
Last year, Theo got the award for Coolest Car. He was the only one to affix legos and Clone Troopers to his car. This year there were several with lego parts or lego figures attached. This year he came up short, despite actually doing much better in the race. In three heats he went 2-1-2. Then in his semi-final race, he came in second. But they only took the first-place cars for a four-car final race. It was largely dominated by the Bear den. They must have some engineering secrets over there.
While there has been a sibling category so that all the kids can get into the fun, year was the first time that we’ve had a parents category. There were no weight or other rules limiting what one could do with the car for the parents. So, of course someone took the nuclear option. Or at least the CO2 option, as you can see below.
Lampposts
Oakland, CA, February, 2011
I left work tonight a little later than usual. It was the blue hour. As soon as I walked out the door I was struck by the contrast of the old fashioned street lights against the deep dark blue sky and charcoal gray buildings. And just beyond was the Tribune building peeking up like a playful old friend.
Despite the fact that I was in hurry to get home and get Theo to his Cub Scout den meeting, I pulled out the camera and took a few shots. As I walked out into the marble courtyard, I noticed the warm light falling on the few leaves clinging to the cold branches and tried to capture it.
Twilight Lamppost #1 / © neo serafimidis
After uploading a couple shots to flickr, I decided I really liked the black and white experiment I did with one of them. So, I’ve uploaded those here and linked back to the color versions on flickr.
Twilight Lamppost #3
None of this comes close to how interesting it all looked in person, but I thought I’d share anyway.
Albany Commercial Streetscape #4
Untitled / © neo serafimidis 2011
This is the last shot I took yesterday before stopping for the day. This is processed in Lightroom with a Velvia preset I found somewhere, and that I have adjusted a bit, actually dialing back the contrast and intensity a bit. As you can tell, I’m continuing to experiment with the look for this streetscape series. It’s hard to decide what to settle on, in part because a given look doesn’t really work equally well on each shot. Also, I have at least three different process approaches that I like and can’t decide between. Even black and white is really attractive.
I want the series to have as consistent a look as possible, but I suspect that it is going to be hard to achieve on account of the quite different light conditions under which the various stretches of streetscape get shot. They are getting shot a couple weeks apart with the sun in a different place, different whether and sky, and different time of day. Moreover, it takes me a couple hours to shoot a half mile, and the light changes pretty dramatically just during that time.
Streetscape
Jay-Vee / © Neo Serafimidis 2011
Today was such a day of photography, it was almost like work. It started this morning with Albany Cub Scouts Pack 3 Pinewood Derby. That was over three hours of shooting. Then, after a little lunch, I went out to make some progress on the Albany Commercial Streetscape project. I started shooting the east side of San Pablo at the El Cerrito border and made it down to Solano Ave, before it was time to get home. My guess is that this is about half the length of it. I was pleased with the progress made today in terms of quantity. It remains to be seen what was accomplished in terms of the images themselves. Right now, I’m predicting that the two liquor stores are the most interesting subjects on the side. I thought I’d play with this one in black and white, even though I keep saying that the series won’t be. Maybe I’ll have to rethink that, too.
Better Late Than Never
One thing leads to another. For example, a business lead leads to a dinner. For example, a dinner at Greens in San Francisco.
I first heard of Greens in the mid-80s. At the time, I was working at Harland’s Restaurant in Fresno, where friend and chef Sheli Stancato was a big fan of the place. I think my recipe for black bean chili passed along by Sheli originates from Greens. Also, I was studying Eastern philosophy in college about this time, and when I had a course on Buddhism we took a field trip to the Zen Center in San Franciso, the organization that built and founded the restaurant. But we didn’t make it to the restaurant. So, it has taken me quite some time to make the pilgrimage.
It was an interesting coincidence. A couple of months ago, a friend and I came to hear an electronic music concert, part of the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, in a theater at Fort Mason. Afterwards, cold and dark as it was, we wandered around the grounds for awhile, I realized that this is where Greens is. I didn’t know, even after living the last ten years in the Bay Area. Then, just a few weeks later, we ended up out at Fort Mason again when friends were visiting from Seattle and staying in the City, and went to see the handful of Exploratorium interactive exhibits installed around Fort Mason. This time, we had a great takeout lunch of sandwiches from Greens.
Finally, Angelo called to say we’re going to dinner and had made reservations at Greens, totally coincidentally. So after years of not being anywhere near the radar screen, Greens serendipitously pulled me into its gravitational field three times in just a few weeks.
Dinner was wonderful. Was it transcendent? Well, not quite, but almost. The wild mushroom ravioli above was fantastic, and very generous, as was everything else our group had. I hope it doesn’t take another 25 years to make it back. Something tells me it won’t.
Old Habits Die Hard
Blue Rambler / © neo serafimidis 2011
I left work just a bit early today in the hope of getting to the computer repair shop across the street from UC Berkeley, Fix That Mac, to pick up my revived laptop with the new hard drive. It went quickly enough that I decided I would try to get to the lighting shop, Metro Lighting, and pickup two pendant lights we ordered for our kitchen. I was guessing that they closed at 5 pm, and it was now 4:48. I could make it if I didn’t dawdle. I was doing well enough until I passed this guy somewhere about Bancroft and Sacramento. I pulled over, jumped out, and took a few fast photos. This was my favorite, which has me relying on the same old formula I’ve been beating like a dead horse for a couple years now. I can’t help it. I try to do something else, but cars just beckon. Then I got back in my car and drove. Yes, I made it just in time.
West Albany Apartment
Camper and House / © neo serafimidis 2011
This makes me want to revisit the idea of photographing every home in Albany. It would be a huge undertaking, but it sure would be fun. And yet, I am still only 25% through photographing the commercial buildings. That suggests the residences are probably a project that can wait for my next forced retirement, and the kid has gone off to college.
Broken Things/Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
My laptop froze. I tried to reboot it. I got the flashing question mark of death. I tried to resurrect it. Finally, I took it to the repair shop. The guy said, “hard drive failed. Completely.” I didn’t get too upset. I had backups. I saw that the last one was several months ago. I didn’t get too upset. I didn’t keep much on the laptop that was not also on the desktop. Then I remembered. Some websites I had built for others were only on there. Now there’s probably no backups or original files and graphics. Then I remembered. Some ebooks I bought were only on there. There were all the PHP exercises I was working on. Then I remembered. There were lots of applications on that thing. Restoring won’t be easy. I hate that.
Albany Commercial Streetscapes
Albany Streetscape #143 / © neo serafimidis 2011
Among all the other things that were going on, I managed last weekend to finish photographing the west side of San Pablo Ave in my Albany Commercial Streetscape series. It took awhile because I wanted to do it during the morning hours. I only have weekends on which I can take mornings to go shooting. And often, it is hard to take a weekend morning with all the domestic tasks that must also be done. But shoot I did, this last weekend. So, now I’m approximately 25% done. I’ll shoot the east side of San Pablo late in the day. Then Solano Ave from roughly San Pablo up to the Albany border with Berkeley. The tricky part is knowing exactly where that border is–Solano eventually splits with one side continuing in Albany and right across the street becoming Berkeley. I’ve yet to really figure out shooting times. I’m actually hoping for some lightly overcast days to get more even light, especially for the south side of Solano, which is always in shadow.
Glass Ceiling, Invisible Line
Rotunda of the Oakland Federal Building. Oakland CA, February 2011.
The post-9/11 security obsession had built to the point where photographers are routinely harassed and intimidated, and have their property stolen or smashed. A few months ago, TSA even published posters depicting photographers as terrorists. But just a couple weeks ago came some sanity when a man was found not guilty in a case stemming from his refusal to show ID and turn off his video camera in the airport. Reading that story, I learned some very surprising things that came out of the case. Perhaps they are surprising to me because I am too much of a rule follower. But the case placed on record that, for example: TSA checkpoint staff are not law enforcement officers and have no police powers; you have the right, recognized by the TSA, to fly without showing ID, and signs and announcements in airports saying that all passengers must present ID are false; you have the right, recognized by the TSA, to photograph or film anywhere in publicly accessible areas of airports including TSA checkpoints. Who knew?! Really, check out those links above or do your own web search. Let me know what you think.
The reason I am thinking about this is that as I left work today, the big doors around the rotunda of the Federal Building were open, making it feel truly public. Whether it is, I don’t know. It is outside the checkpoints to the entrances of the building. But I have long wanted to photograph the glass ceiling from directly underneath, and this seemed like a perfect time to do it. So, I walked to the middle of the floor and looked straight up. I took out my camera and shot the rotunda. I got one click before the nice guards with whom I had just exchanged “good night” pleasantries called to me stop immediately, that photography was not allowed. I sheepishly started to put my camera away. Just then another couple of guards who were standing outside in park area approached me and insisted I take the pictures I wanted to take. “It’s ok, take the picture, just don’t photograph the checkpoint equipment area.” He seemed to be in charge in some way and was quite adamant, and then went over to talk to the guards that had stopped me. So maybe sometimes people mean well but there is confusion and miscommunication. And, of course, other times people are power drunk,… and there’s confusion and miscommunication.
I looked at my camera display and saw that I had an ok shot, and anyway, the moment was kinda ruined now. So, I thanked the second guy and turned to head for the train station to go home. Perhaps I’ll try again another day, and the light will be even better.
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