A Walk to Remember

Remember a while ago I mentioned about doing a charity walk? Well, we did it on Saturday! Whee! A big thanks to all of you who supported me in this endeavor.

We gathered by the Coliseum for the pre-walk ceremony.



I had no idea who Sammy was, but I really wanted a picture with him :)



Honestly, it was early, I was shivering, and I needed coffee or tea badly. And really, who needs to stretch (your arms, no less) for a 5k walk? But whatever, it was for a good cause.



Finally, we started!



Wheeeeeee!





Why did they all wave at me? I don't know.



Even though we were raising money for the homeless people in LA, we saw zero homeless people as the route was literally around the USC campus. We didn't even march on Skid Road.

Walking on the street with a bunch of people kind of reminded me of the Inauguration. Except there were even more people on the street. And even farther walk. In the 20-degree weather.



We walked by a Starbucks. Heck, y'all know how much I love Sbux. I even walked inside. And waited in the really long line for a few minutes. But in the end, in the interest of time we left without the goods in our hands :( But soon enough, we were at the finish line!



As we were leaving, I saw these people signing a banner.



C'mon, you KNEW I had to run over and do it too.



Afterwards, we treated ourselves to Wurstkuche. Hee. I still can't stop giggling about the name.



Folks, this is what we do when we're bored.



Really, why was this guy wearing SOCKS with sandals in 2009? So much for feeling all charitable and stuff . . . cuz by lunch time the bitch in me came back out.



But hey, the food shut me up instantly :)





That is, until I saw this Lady Gaga wannabe:



Whee! Happy Monday y'all :)

Lighting Fundamentals 6.1

I suck. I never even got around to posting the second half of the fifth assignment. But well, the results weren't that great anyway so you didn't miss anything. Really. Anyway . . . for the sixth assignment (whee!), we're supposed to photograph the classic sphere + cube + cylinder combo in the "studio" setting, and then find these shapes in our daily lives.

It turns out that much like drawing (and let me remind you what I did way back when I took that intro to drawing class in Virginia) . . .



. . . properly getting the highlight and shadow of these objects are ridiculously difficult in a photograph. These five images demonstrate my progression:











And this is my ghetto-fabulous studio:



Hee. Onto the real-life examples of cube, sphere, and cylinder.

Lots of cylinders on a bike:



More cylinders (though I guess I should have straightened this picture in Photoshop . . . oh well):



A sphere on a palm tree . . . I know, it's not quite a sphere but that's all I could find in an hour:



A "cube" -- I took this picture entirely because of the red + blue color combo :)



And I do realize these aren't quite "cubes" . . . but I justify it as many cubes stacked next to each other.



Yes, that's totally pushing it. This was taken at Borders. I wanted to snap a photo of my most favorite ever book in its various edition glory (p.s., that would be Wuthering Heights), but they were too high and I am too short. But then, I saw this strangely amusing combination of books nearby (Nick Hornby, one of the funniest authors I have read, and Kite Runner, one of the saddest books I've ever read).

I know, I know, there are way better examples of cubes / cylinders / spheres in life, but I was restricted by time / location / space / stealthiness.

Lighting Fundamentals 5.1

You must be wondering, do I have anything else to blog about besides my photography class? Well, kind of. I have a special treat which I'll post soon :)

For our fifth assignment, we're supposed to take some on-location portraits as well as studio portraits under a variety of lighting situations. I haven't started the studio portion yet, but on Saturday I participated in the class field trip at the Getty Center for the on-location portrait session. Do you recognize my model? :) Yep, it's none other than the famous Wannabe!

Whee!



Wan was a good sport and put up with all of my quirky demands without complaints. Well, except when we saw this ginormous bug and we both screamed and ran for our lives. Hee. We also laughed so much that it was almost impossible to hold the camera steady, which I think should be the definition of a good time.



The point of the assignment was to test out different lighting situations, so most of these are headshots. In case you're wondering.











Thanks, Wan, for being my model for the day!

Lighting Fundamentals 4.1

My class went on a field trip to Downtown LA on Saturday for our fourth assignment. I went to a wedding instead. However, I made up the photoshoot on my own on Sunday :) The focus of the photoshoot was to look for reflections. Following the footsteps of the class, I started at the Disney Concert Hall:











Then drove . . .



over to the Library Tower.





I didn't have enough pictures, so I moved on to Pasadena, but the city hall was closed for a wedding reception. Boo.



I thought this was a pumpkin graveyard but my husband said it's . . . not. Oops.



These were just filler pictures to fulfill the assignment requirements :-P









And finally, I took this outside of my local library one night after returning some books :)



It was my attempt to be more art-sy. Hee. Next assignment: portraits at the Getty Center, with a special guest :)

HomeWalk 2009 / Haircut Poll

Somehow, I got conned into signing up for HomeWalk 2009. HomeWalk is a United Way project fighting to end homelessness in Los Angeles County. Apparently I'm supposed to walk 5k on November 7th for this thing. Yikes :X I'm not sure why someone who hates physical activity as much as I do would sign up for this neither. Wah wah wah. Too late to back out, I guess.

Anyway, if you would like to support my self-imposed suffering this cause, you can make a donation here. Thank you :)

On another note . . . I'm seriously considering getting bangs. Like, straight bangs that would cover my forehead. I haven't had bangs since I was in 4th or 5th grade. I have a wide face. I'm super cheap and lazy when it comes to getting haircuts (however, I'm not afraid to cut my own bangs in order to delay the next hair appointment, because that's how cheap I am). So . . .

1. Do you think I can rock the look?
2. Am I too old for bangs?
3. Are you being honest or just being nice?