First photo from Leica Q2 Monochrom goes to Bandit, who appeared in my “Cats of University Heights” series on Sept. 4, 2017. The Featured Image was a blind shot that should have been a throwaway. […]
Tag: street photography
The Cats of University Heights: Tails
I have amassed a backlog of photographed but unpublished putty-tats—many of them from months ago, like this Tuxedo seen on Oct. 20, 2020 and no other time since. The shorthair earns nickname Tails, for what I hope is obvious reason.
My wife and I encountered Tails along Golden Gate Drive, nearby where we once saw Bushy and Cali on the same day. ChaCho and Tony live in a house nearby.
The Cats of University Heights: Angelo
Next door to Huck and across the street from Fluffy and Pepto, you could meet Angelo—as my wife and I did yesterday. Daniel Tiger lives on the same side of the street—as may Darth Mew, Ginger, Huck, Jedi, Milo, and Princess Leia; I haven’t seen any of them recently. The leashed, 17-year-old black, whom his owner has had since kitten age, drank water from a cup as we approached. A roommate watched Angelo, enjoying the delightfully sunny 18 degrees Celsius (64 F) temperature while laid back in a lawn chair.
I wouldn’t call the feline feisty. He moved slowly but assuredly. To assist aged digestion, part of Angelo’s diet consists of chicken and pumpkin puree reduced to pâté in a blender.
You Spell It Like This
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes you need a second one to communicate the message. I captured the Featured Image today along University Ave. in San Diego’s Hillcrest Neighborhood. “Massachusetts” is correctly spelled in the billboard for Mike’s Pizzeria.
Digressing, why New England pie? I recall there being a New York pizza place in the location before it joined the many shops and restaurants that have closed thanks to the overly onerous lockdowns imposed by Governor Gavin “Gruesome” Newsom. He acts like some quirky, hallucinogenic-taking medium blessed him as the messiah of COVID-19—the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2). He will kill more people (and businesses) than he will ever save; he attacks the pandemic with the figurative equivalent of atomic bombs. Will someone please hide the launch codes before radioactive fallout kills us all!
Good Advice
Happy New Year! Here’s a worthy resolution that my wife and I saw today, chalked on the Madison Ave. sidewalk near Massachusetts in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood. I used Leica Q2 to capture the […]
The Cats of University Heights: Lovely
Our fifth New Years kitty to appear in the series, joining Gem (2020), Storm (2019), Norman (2018), and Chub (2017), is almost certainly the last. My wife and I are plotting to escape California soon as logistically possible. As such, I will rush through the backlog of photographed but unpublished kitties and close down the series, which later may become an ebook—because why not? But that’s a future topic.
For today, let us meet the Calico whom we shall nickname Lovely. My wife and I met her on Dec. 11, 2020, along Maryland near Monroe. That’s a treacherous area because of cars and coyotes—and females will soon leave the nearby canyon searching for prey to feed the pups. Be safe, Lovely!
Flickr a Week 53: ‘Blue Lives Matter meets ACAB’
The final Wednesday of the year brings us to the second-to-the-last post in the series, should it conclude as previously planned. I am undecided. For now, our selection captures some of 2020’s most important themes—triple-P: pandemic, politics, and protests; for sure one overlaps another in some manner or another. My first choice, self-titled “Respirator Life“, by David Geitgey Sierralupe, is unfortunately All Rights Reserved. So I had to pick another selection, one Creative Commons-licensed, from the carpenter who lives in Eugene, Ore.
“Rally for Democracy“—with a nurse wearing KN95 mask and typifying fallout from the Presidential Election and SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2), better known as COVID-19—was a contender. But the choice came down to a coin-toss between two street shots with the same self-title: “Blue Lives Matter meets ACAB“. The acronym stands for “all cops are bastards”. The second choice (blame the quarter for landing tails).
The Bee Tree
I am not a photographer and bear no illusions about ever being one. My composition skills are raw, and rarely cooked, and I lack the post-production sense that someone else would use to create art. My camera, the Leica Q2, is professional grade and seemingly beyond my skills. But I handle the all-in-one well enough, and it is satisfying to use—enjoyable and versatile.
I am a storyteller, however, and use photos to mark moments or to illustrate a narrative. Take as example the Featured Image (warning: 30GB file), which I captured today along Georgia Street between Lincoln and Polk in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/320 sec, 28mm; 11:36 a.m. PST. The original was portrait, but I cropped square.
The Cats of University Heights: Measure
I really should be more observant about where kitty portraits are taken. This one is on North—or could be Campus—nearby Madison or Monroe. For some reason I failed to use the iPhone XS camera for quick, GPS-marking shot. Sigh. The Featured Image comes from Leica Q2, on Dec. 4, 2020. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 125, 1/125 sec, 28mm; 9:41 a.m. PST.
The black earns nickname Measure, for how it sized up my approach and the motion of nearby birds.
Flickr a Week 52: ‘Llama Love’
What’s not to like about a child receiving a little “Llama Love“? Ian Sane used Canon EOS 5DS R and EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens to capture the self-titled portrait on March 23, 2019. Vitals: f/2.8, ISO 250, 1/800 sec, 50mm.
About the moment: “Here’s my granddaughter, Penelope, getting a kiss from an unlikely source at Riverfront Park in Salem, Oregon. Full disclosure: I love her wild looking hair”.
The Fiddler
The National Weather Service has issued Winter Storm Warnings for Boston and New York, with expected snow accumulations between 20 and 38 cm (8 and 15 inches). Washington, DC: Mixed perception, which if typical means freezing rain. Well, perhaps I don’t miss the East Coast as much on this fine Wednesday. The third season of the year, Late Summer, brought breezy air and blazing sunshine to San Diego for a high temperature of 22 degrees Celsius (72 F).
My wife and I spent much of the late morning through early afternoon in Ocean Beach, packing up our daughter’s apartment. Molly’s plan to vacate the place by the end of the month was interrupted last week by an emergency trip to the hospital, where she spent 24 hours on a ventilator (unbelievably not for COVID-19, which is caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2).
Flickr a Week 51: ‘La Orotava, Tenerife’
Expressing a sentiment that applies to most photos showcased in this series, Viktor Kirilko says about self-titled “La Orotava, Tenerife“: “Pre COVID-19 era”. No social distancing. No mandated mask wearing. We see life as it was—magnificently depicted, too—one year ago, when, already, SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2) silently spread. How dramatically—no, drastically—life has changed since.
Viktor captured the moment on Dec. 7, 2019, using Fujifilm X100. Vitals: f/16, ISO 200, 1/4000 sec, 23mm. Nearly a decade after its release, the X100 is still worthy in capable hands and eyes. The photo takes the week for clarity, color, contrast, sassy saturation, and three-dimensional depth. BTW, the yellow building to the right is a hardware store: Ferretería Orotava. The Novel Coronavirus hit Spain hard. Did, or will, the shop—and others around it—survive?