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Here In Oakland

Art & Life


   



June 9, 2013

To The Court
Sunday. A Netflix movie to usher out the evening last night, so to bed a little late. Up an hour after the alarm to set out for breakfast and back, the sun now breaking through some of the overlying clouds, giving us a decent chance the Lake Merritt Oaklavia (Love Our Lake Day) festival will go as planned, even though the weather people have said there's a chance of rain. Convenient to photograph when the event takes place a hundred feet from your front door.

Later. Set out just after eleven in a light jacket carrying a camera with the 70-200mm lens, the debate having been should I add the second camera with the 24-70mm as I usually would or should I travel light? I didn't want to carry two and, well, most of my shooting is done with the 70-200 anyway. Lazy, but reasonable. Rational.

As in “rationalization”?

Well, yes. Anyway, there were quite a few people at the lake as I crossed Grand, a group setting up to play what I believe is called a zheng. One or two pictures before deciding to walk essentially right back to the apartment to lose the light jacket (too warm for a jacket, just right for shirt sleeves, everyone else seemed to be doing just fine in t-shirts) and wait for a while for more people to show up. And (therefore), in the interim, to take a nap.

A good nap, I guess I needed one. Off again in shirt sleeves with but the one camera to walk the usual short course along the lake, first crossing the street and then down to the shore, a right turn along the path to take pictures of a group of drummer/dancers who were quite good. Pictures, of course.

On to the pergola area where they were setting up for the salsa session, a group I've photographed before. Lots of people, not only the salsa group, but the tightrope walkers were walking their ropes, a large area for parking bicycles was filling up (they'd cordoned off two lanes of traffic and there were people riding bicycles in what seemed a continuous line around the lake) and a small group of people giving boxing lessons. Boxing lessons. That's a first.

Back to the apartment to work on the photographs. I have enough for a section, but are they good enough? Do they in any way describe this Oaklavia event? Probably not. In the beginning I didn't think about “describing” an event, something I'd do if I were photographing it, say, for a newspaper, but concentrated instead on the candid portraits with the occasional (generally badly done) crowd shot thrown in. I've been working on crowd shots. Not there yet.

Evening. Another Swedish detective program at six, Irene Huss, an interesting series most of the time, although, when it comes to tangling with the bad guys, I'd rename it Irene Wuss. For a program that emphasizes her judo training, the credits beginning as she takes down all sorts of opponents in practice, she invariable seems to get herself shot. She's good hand to hand, but this night's episode, had it happened in real life, would have lead to a dead female detective at least twice. More practice on the firing range please, Ms. Huss.

Let's see, what else? I'm writing this, having just gotten home from waiting to see if I would be picked for jury duty (I wasn't), I'm guessing last night is too long ago to remember. Ah, yes. To bed right at nine, nothing on I wanted to watch on television for Netflix knowing I had to get up early to walk instead of drive to breakfast and then take the bus to court.

The photo up top was taken at Lake Merritt yesterday with a Nikon D4 mounted with an 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR Nikkor lens.


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