Getting out

Hello everyone. Just wanted to share some photos from a recent (recent as of May 2007) roadtrip up the 101 highway in California.

(click here for gallery)

Work had been real crazy for a while and I was in real need for a vacation. Memorial Day weekend was near and I decided a roadtrip would be a lot of fun. No other friends could make it and I had to decide what to do. It became a time to spend with my Father. When I set out, I didn't really have any specific plans or reservations except maybe stop in Santa Barbara to spend a night in a hostel. I gave up the weekend in prayer to God and set out in the late morning. I headed for Santa Barbara and as I got near, I thought it might be fun to stop at Santa Barbara's Brooks Photography school, to see if they had any upcoming workshops. I had been to the school once before and tried to find it by memory. All I could remember was that the school is up on a hillside that overlooks the city. To my dismay many of the streets looked the same. After dead ends and wrong turns, I would give up and decide to move on from Santa Barbara. Each time I gave up I would find another street that looked familiar, and it would encourage me to keep looking. After a couple more dead ends, I finally found the correct street. I forgot the landmark that is an old hippie bus parked on the street nearby. I found the school and made my way inside to the office. Just as I entered the registrar's office, they asked how they could help me. Just after asking for information on the school, they invited me along for a tour of the whole school. I went in thinking I would be at the school 20 minutes and then break for lunch, but instead got a tour of the whole school. They had a bus ready and waiting to take us to their three buildings around Santa Barbara. The tour was really cool but in the back of my mind I was thinking how badly I also needed to use the restroom. Then after the tour, we met with the head registrar for an interview to see how interested we were to enroll. I was interested but really wanted to hurry the process in getting to a restroom and move on in my little vacation. After a 30 minute conversation of "here's my email address, please email me any information", I left Brooks (after a quick stop to the restroom of course)...

And thus was the start of the trip...

To be a kid again!

Recently, my friend Ryan and I decided to go on a little photography excursion. We headed to Carlsbad to see some flower fields but during the drive down we found out the flowers aren't there. It's not their season. Instead we headed down to San Diego's Balboa park as Ryan had never been there before. He's learning photography and it's a great place get lost in with a camera. It was a lot of fun watching Ryan discover the art of capturing candid photos of people just sitting on a bench and seeing him try all types of different angles. While he went off on his own to play with his camera I went to make some pictures of a huge birdcage they have down in the park. The weather on this particular day was gloomy as rain rain clouds were gathering. It reminded me of an episode of the Batman cartoon (uh oh! Nerd alert!) where the Penguin was hiding out in a bird sanctuary. So that's what I was trying to capture.



Another highlite came after photographing the cage. Far away I could see a fountain and some kids playing next to it. Dusk was looming and the sky was turning to a dark blue. The light from the fountain turned the kids into silhouettes. I hurried my way down there and Ryan joined with me. I saw the kids running back and forth between the water and a couple ladies. I assumed the younger lady was their mother and asked if it was ok take pictures of the kids. She then told the kids to let me take their picture. They turned and posed for me but I wanted to take pictures of them running around. They also looked really nervous and I thought I killed my chance at a cool photo opp. I tried telling them to just act natural but they kept looking at back to their mom and the expression on their face said "who is this guy and why do we have to stand like this?" I began to fret but found some quarters in my pocket and then gave them to the kids. They ran back to the water to make their wishes and they began running and playing again. Do you remember when you were happy with just a quarter?