The Zeppelins are back!

Nary a boring day in Hermosa Beach.

On Sunday I was working on a photo class assignment that resembles a scavanger hunt, which meant I was outside wandering around with my camera.  An example of one aspect of my mission was to capture a scene with three pastel colors on three-dimensional objects with no black or white in the frame.  To imagine how difficult this is, take a look around you quickly.  Assume you wanted a 4’x6′ frame to be filled with an image.  How many places can you see with no black or white within this area?  Not many.  This was one of seven shots where the instructions were this specific.  While I understand there is a purpose to the assignment, I still reserve the right to be frustrated when wandering the streets for hours looking for these Holy Grails…

Wandering around with my brain in “Pastel” mode, I was nearly knocked over by a man running past me not looking where he was going.  He was staring over his shoulder into the sky behind him, as if he were about to be attacked by birds or air sharks or something awesome like that.  Just as I’m hoping this moron decapitates himself on a volleyball net, a giant silver flash comes into my field of vision…  The man catches a 15 foot silver bullet as it falls out of the sky.

“Pastels, pastels, pastels, pastels, HEY watch out!  WHAT THE FU<K?!”  Says the hyper-eloquent Matt in his head…  These things are instinctual, probably picked up in my past life as a Duke of Somewhere-landia…

Turns out, he’s got a massive tubular balloon that he can punch into the air and send it sailing 60+ feet up.  It’s pretty cool to watch him play with it, but most of the entertainment comes from watching him chase it as it drifts back towards terra firma.  Knocking over children on bicycles (don’t worry, that’s why they wear helmets these days), crashing into patio bar areas, and even bouncing off the top of a police SUV; this shiny inflatable contraption rained down terror from the sky.  It was awesome.  Keep your eyes open for this device to be used as the next cutting edge weapon in urban warfare…  And hope you never have to see it!

Check my Image of the Day Project HERE to see which images from the collection below will make it into the project…  They’ll be up shortly… 

P.S. The flower images were from outside of my office on Monday.

Mixed messages… wait, no… clear messages… wait…

Nobody likes to move.  Fact.

Nobody dislikes moving more than me.  Speculation.

Proof:  I dislike moving so much…  I avoid buying normal things people use on a daily basis because I’m afraid of amassing a pile of junk I’ll need to move in the future.

Case in point:  I don’t own a cookie sheet.  The only reason I have silverware at all is because Joel felt so bad for my pathetic ass when he left, that he was compelled to leave some behind.  My apartment does not have a kitchen table, coffee table, toaster, spatula (making eggs is hilarious), television…  You get the idea.

If I’ve made you concerned about my well-being or left you thinking I’m pathetic, I’m sorry.  I assure you, I’m not.  Well, that’s like, my opinion, man.  I’ve managed to live with people who’ve had all these things for the first 28 years of my life, and haven’t found a need to collect the things we so loosely call “necessities” at this point.

SLAP!  Back on topic, Matt!  Sorry for the digression.

My point here is that I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I’ll be moving away from the beach.  Sad.  So very sad.  This weekend the PTB (Powers That Be, remember?  Keep up people!) were either trying to make the separation anxiety kick up early, or they were trying to give me a show for one of my last few weekends here.  That show (read: Beautiful Sunset) is the subject of the images for today…  Now since it’s blistering cold elsewhere in the country, I won’t dwell on this too much, but I’d like to mention that this beautiful sunset came with a side of ridiculous wind.  A wind that ripped chills through bodies, ripped hoods off heads, and ripped feeling from hands gripping cameras.

Maybe that wind was part of the mixed message, but there’s more.  Just when I think there’s no way I can walk away from this lovely little beach town buried in big ‘ole L.A., I get the hint that I need to get the ford out of dodge…  PTB had me open my patio door at just the right time, which led to an introduction to my downstairs neighbors, or as I will now call them, the Ghost of Hermosa Future.  Ebenezer Matt introduced himself to the 42 year old New Yorker who now occupies the room directly below him (one of two roommates).  A perfectly polite gentleman.  What’s the problem Matt?  Well, since you asked, here’s the problem.  In the slightly invasive 5 minutes he spent walking through my apartment and telling me the differences between his and mine, he managed to bring up the fact that he’s been living in Hermosa for 16 years.  He moved here when he was a punky little 26 year old, and has been juggling roommates and living the beach life ever since.  A little strange you say?  Well consider the fact that some of his recent roommates were younger than he was when he moved here in the first place.  Jebus.

Old man neighbor is all well and fine, until you smash cut to 9PM last night.  Said 42 year old man is scream-talking to someone about some fight somewhere involving someone he knew.  “Bam! blah blah blah blah…  BAM!  muffle muffle muffle…  Knocked OUT!”

Welp sunset, you were pretty.  You are replaceable though.  The Ghost of Hermosa Future is powerful, and has opened my eyes.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about rush into a responsible amount of responsibility or anything drastic like that.  I just know that there is more for me out there, and now it’s time to move on.  Hopefully moving on gets me closer to my lady, because she’s the missing link in the evolution of my life…

I hope you like the images below, I risked having my hands amputated to get them for you…

See which one I picked for the Image of the Day Project HERE…

Image of the Day – Catch Up Batch Part 2

So an Image of the Day Project should probably have an image posted every day, right?

Well I’m really not doing so hot when it comes to staying on track lately.  Don’t fret, I haven’t stop shooting photos, I’ve just been doing a poor job of getting them online in a timely manner.

I have another large batch below of images taken since the last update, now the chore is to get them on the project website (HERE)…  I will attempt to get back on track now, so please come back and see if I’m making good on my goal!

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you like what you see.  Feel free to contact me and let me know what you think!

matt@matthewandersonphotography.com

January 6th, 2011 – Image of the Day Catch Up…

An old post long overdue…

January 22nd, 2011 – Image of the Day candidates…

On this happy Saturday I woke up early because its what I do.  Whilst waiting for my coffee to brew, I decided to walk and see the sunrise.  The surf came up and made for an interesting couple of hours.  Let me know what you think and how I did.

See which image I picked for the Image of the Day Project HERE…

January 19th, 2011 – Image of the Day candidates…

Well, Wednesday morning was good…  I decided to stop and shoot some surfers while the sun came up, and it was the perfect way to start the day…  Since I had trouble filtering down to a handful, I decided to try out the gallery function of the blog…

Take a look…  What do you think?  Just keep clicking the photo to see the next one…

When you’re done, don’t forget to CLICK HERE to see which one I picked for placement in my Image of the Day project…  Did you pick the same one?? (You may have to look back a few days if time has passed since this was posted)