I always love telephone poles in landscapes. I know I said something similar on here before, but I just love the contrast of technology and nature that they instill in the photograph.

Spent the day wandering around the docks down in Long Beach a few weeks back looking for inspiration on a project I have been thinking about doing.

The sky was dark and saturated that day and the buildings seemed to pop out in the viewfinder of my camera ( a polarizer emphasized the effect all the more). I wanted to catch that with the photographs. The water tower seemed to glow like a beacon in the sky. I thought this one was a strange composition, the way the telephone poles line up with the lit side of the building and divide it evenly in perspective. The building had interesting lion heads for decoration in rows on both fronts of the structure. Just realized I don't have a picture of them ready. I will have to search back through my photos and post one. : )

Even across the dock the water tower still caught my attention. Shot this one through a hole in a fence. The most interesting places were guarded by fences. Isn't that always the way.

We went hiking in Malibu's hills again last weekend. Ocala had her first run in with a rattle snake. Quite a new experience for her. She spotted it right before I step on it. After a bit of hissing and rattling it left us in peace. (Its not in the pic, incase you're lookin) : )

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Thoreau from Walden

I accidentally did this to one of my pictures while trying to recover it from being well under exposed. It reminded me of ink drawings I used to do when I just got into college. In fact I would mistake it for one if I didn't know better. It gave me an urge to dig out my old sketch books. I found myself looking at how far I had come since then. In a ten year old notebook I had written several quotes from Andreas Deja that I had heard from a documentary on the making of the Little Mermaid. Funny that he was at my work just a couple of weeks ago giving the animators tips.

I could never afford a camera back then. I drew everything, which was an adventure in itself, but once in a while I wish I could go back and hand that me a camera just to see what pictures he would take. I wonder what I would think of my pictures from now back then.

I would venture to guess that I would be really excited by what I have managed to do and equally disappointed that I wasn't out photographing right now and every moment.

Some flowers from the Malibu hike a couple weekends back.

Things have been slow lately photo wise. You might have noticed. Work/life has kept me super busy. So I decided to dig back through the archives for a bit, back to before there was ever a forgottengrain.com and show some of my photos from days gone by.

It was actually a lot of fun to do. There are a lot of places and times I miss in my collection. Plus it gave me a bit of encouragement, looking back at old work and actually liking some of it. A lot of them (probably all) were taken with rinky dink little cameras from here and there and that was fun to see too. One downside to having a new spiffy digital slr is that everybody tends to compliment the camera... I miss the "you took that with that!" days. Now people tend to see my camera and nods as if my camera knows how to take good pictures all by itself. : )

This first pic is from the north shore of Minnesota along Lake Superior three years ago on one particularly wonderful day when fog rolled in just as we reached Grand Marais (you will see several more photos from that one day before we are through). It is a very dear place to Ocala and I. We escaped to there from time to time, especially early in our relationship. We were rather punkish back then and seemed somewhat isolated and out of place, but something about it felt like home. We have made a goal to move back there someday.

I took this while hiking up in Malibu a few weekends back.

Monkeys, Tigers and Bears! ... ..Oh my?

Ocala and I went to the San Diego Zoo over the weekend. Thought it would be a good break. We wandered around leisurely and looked at the animals. Zoos always depress me a little. Growing up where almost every wild animal I saw was ... well... wild, it still sits strange with me to see so many animals caged. I mean no offense against any of the Zoo peoples, in fact I have a great respect for them and the animals all seemed happy.

It was funny to see the interaction of people with the animals, because we all know that is a big part of going to the zoo.. people watching. Even seeing how the indigenous animal life was fun to watch interacting with these animals for elsewhere. It must be mating season for ducks, there were ducklings everywhere.

(Tips hat to Bob Hope)

A well walked sidewalk lit by different colors of filtered light along the path to monkeys. I know it isn't an animal, but the environment at the zoo is part of the experience.