EDGE PHOTO: August 2006

Captain Jack Sparrow

Tomorrow is my friend Polly's wedding rehearsal. Since I recently invested a chunk of change into a new camera, she asked me if I would photograph her rehearsal and the dinner afterwards. I'm still breaking this camera in, so I decided to head over to the church after work and take some test shots.

Note to self: When taking test pictures inside an empty church afterhours, DO NOT walk up on the altar. The almighty lord was not pleased and he let me know it. Out of nowhere alarms and sirens were exploding throughout the church. I just about peed my pants and had a heart attack at the same time.

Since my photo session didn't last long and the church is nearby the ocean I decided to go for a walk. I headed to the Redondo Beach Marina and to my surprize there was a TON of comotion going on. There were white tents and trailers all over the place. Apparently they have started filming Pirates of the Carribean 3 off the coast of Palos Verdes. There were literally thousands of looky-loos waiting to catch a glance of the "Black Pearl" make it's way back into the marina. I was pretty jazzed by all this because I just so happened to be walking around with my new camera. My 30D armed with my battery grip and 24-70 2.8L lens made me look just like the paparazzi, and believe me they were everywhere.

So here I am stoked about the possibility of catching some pics of the "Black Pearl" when out of the blue people go running and screaming the other direction. Naturally I followed suit along with the rest of the paparazzi and to my surprize, Johnny Depp himself was out meeting the heathens and signing autographs. It was utter chaos but fortunately I got off some decent shots. I didn't have the best zoom, but these pics came out alright. It was cool to actually see "Captain Jack Sparrow" in the flesh. I'll be looking forward to seeing this movie when it comes out. I may just have to change my profession and start stalking celebrities for a living...or not.

Weekend in Shasta

First Photo Contest

I finally got up the nerve to enter some of my images into a South Bay photo contest. I figure this is a step in the right direction to be a little more proactive with my photography. First prize is a Nikon D200 which I could care less about. I think I'd sell it on Ebay and trade it in for a Canon 5D. I guess we'll see how I do. What do you think?

"Almighty Neptune"
This is my favorite

"Sunset at Torrance Beach"
They don't get much better than this.

"Lifeguard's Sunset"
Another Torrance Beach sunset from a different perspective.

Canon 30D

Well, I finally broke down and decided that it was time for an upgrade. After days of tormenting between 20D’s, 30D’s, 5D’s, and 1D Mark II’s, I sacked up and made the purchase. $2,527 later and I’m a proud owner of Canon’s newest Pro-level 30D Digital SLR camera with a 24-70mm 2.8L lens to boot. I figured it was straight to the L-glass for me…no point in wasting time with cheap imitations or flimsy plastic parts. I guess you could argue that the lens is more important than the camera anyways, heck it cost just about the same amount of money! Who would have thought my hobby would become so expensive. Hopefully it’ll pay off and I’ll have tons of new pics to share once I actually get it in the mail. The suspense is killing me. The loot is supposed to get delivered today, but I had to fly up to San Jose yesterday for a last second job interview. Damn!

OC Fair

A couple weeks ago I decided to hit up the Orange County Fair with my folks and my brother and his wife. I guess you could call it a family afFAIR. The O.C. Fair has to be one of my favorite fairs in Southern California. It's clean, free of crazy crowds, and best of all it's only 8 bucks to get in. There's no place better to wolf down a churro, some deep fried zucchini, a hotdog on a stick, a BBQ'ed turkey leg, dippin' dots, and wash it all down with a 32 ounce Coors Light.

I brought my camera along, like I do everywhere, and decided to capture some of the attractions. Naturally my sister-in-law was harrassing me throughout the entire day because I was taking pictures of all sorts of stuff. She's like, "What are you going to do with that picture...put it up in your bathroom?" To answer her question...NO!...I already have pictures up in my bathroom. So in honor of Sarah I decided to post some of these pics up on my blog. Maybe if she's nicer to me about my picture taking she'll make it up here someday.

It wouldn't be a true fair without a "Personality Analysis" machine and a "Miracle Blade" guy.
I actually thought the guy was going to stab me because I was taking a bunch of pictures of him and I think he thought I was actually interested in his knives. He got pretty pissed when I left. C'mon though who needs Miracle Blade when you have Global.