Going To Visit The New LACMA Thursday

Visiting the new Broad building on Thursday, Valintine's Day. Here's what it looked like back in September '07. I have some earlier ones but they're on film and I just don't feel like searching for them. Considering I get maybe two visitors a week I don't think they'll be missed.

I'm not that interested in what's inside the building as how the Broad fits with the rest of the museum. I'll hold my judgement until I see the entire remodel. Isn't that what you're suppose to do?

Does Yahoo Search Do Blogger Better Than Google?

I have been observing something interesting over the past few weeks. Yahoo does a better job of finding Blogger sites than Google search. The best way to show this is by example.

We have a second blog on Blogger called Laguna Beat. This blog centers around Laguna Beach and observations of this photographer. Last December I started putting images up on the Picasa web site which is a Google site for storing and showing off your images. I guess it's another Flickr. Anyway I have a post at the Laguna Beat blog that explaines where the images are located and which ones you want to download depending on the dimensions of your monitor. The title of the post is Screensaver/Desktop Background. I also use the Tags: Desktop Background, Laguna Beach, and Screensaver.

Now here's where it gets interesting. Do two web searches. One at Yahoo and the other at Google. Use the seach phrase backgrounds desktop starbucks. Laguna Beat will show up on the first page of the Yahoo search and nowhere on the Google search. Why? We have no idea. Laguna Beat is a Blogger site which everyone knows is Google not Yahoo. Yet Yahoo will see the tags we used and other words that match the search criteria. Starbucks was mentioned in a couple of Laguna Beat posts and there is a tag Starbucks listed. Yahoo web search finds this tag Google doesn't.

In all the referrals from a Yahoo web search we find that our use of tags was the difference in a high search result. We have yet to see tags used by Google to find anything.

Now for the weird. Do an image search at both sites. Yahoo finds no Laguna Beat pages and Google image search will - maybe if you go deep enough into the search results.

Referrals from Google are usually the result of the searcher doing a image search and going to the 10th or greater page in the results.

Adsense Makes No Sense

Adsense is another Google something. This week we received a card in the mail with a PIN number for our Adsense account. They instructed you to go to your account and input the PIN. We go to Adsense and put in our username and password and the response is there is no Adsense account under that username. Really? We get their e-mail newsletter and now the card with the PIN number but there is no account. We send a scripted help request to Adsense and they send an e-mail instructing us to do EXACTLY what we were doing in the first place. So we just said no and removed Adsense from our blogs. Can't be bothered with this shit.

The Bright Spot With Blogger

Does all this weirdness with Goggle products mean we will give up on Blogger? No. It's free and relatively easy to use. Not that easy but what is? Remember no matter what product you use they're all desgned by geeky programers and not by people experienced in useability. I mean look at the the edit window we use to create a post at Blogger. It's TINY. But it's free.

One other advantage to Blogger is the ability to have your own name in the URL. An example is Laguna Beat. If you look at the URL address in your browser it saids http://www.lagunabeat.com/ and not lagunabeat.blogspot.com. The blogspot address will still work but it's cool seeing your own URL in the address.

Oh My It's Worse Than We Thought

Update: February 9, 2008

We didn't know that Google had a blog search that was a seperate search engine. So we decided to test it. We did a search for Laguna Beach. Now you would think that a blog (LagunaBeat) that had Laguna in it's URL name, that used the tag Laguna Beach in every posting, and used the alternate text Laguna Beach with every photo posted would get at least one hit. Well I'm here to tell you it got ZERO hits. Nothing. Nada. ZIP.

Will someone, who can get through to the pin-heads at google, please have them explain this weirdness to me.

Alive And Well In Laguna Beach

Insert Here

This was one of those temporary walls they set up at construction sites. The access was fine except one little thing. The water hydrant was 6 feet from the access hole. A long reach even for a fireman.

Concrete Dust Everywhere - Camera Too

This photo was for another blog we publish, Laguna Beat. Liked it so much I posted it here. A fellow behind the one laying concrete blocks was cutting a block with a power saw. Result was crecrete dust. Wind was blowing dust at the worker and the photographer. I could of gotten out of the way but the picture was to good to pass up.

Enough With The Rain Already

You know when you've had enough rain when the flowers want to stay dry.

One to Ten Thousand

I have now taken over 10,000 digitals images with my Nikon D40X. For someone who has been taking pictures for 50+ years this is weird. In the 60's a busy day for me might have been 4 or 5 rolls of 35mm-36exposure Tri-X film. The day wasn't over by a long shot. Back to the photolab to process the film, make contact sheets and then try to decide what if anything should be printed. With digital it's shoot and back to the computer, where-ever it may be, and load the images into the computer and then decide what gets put up on the blog. If it takes 1 hour in the digital world it probably took 8 hours in the analog world.

Do I want to go back? No. But I do miss black-and-white photography. I still have my 35mm cameras but no darkroom. If and when I can set up another darkroom and Tri-X is still sold then I will get back to b&w photography. But it will never again be my primary source for photos, that duty has been taken over by the digital camera.

The camera, a Nikon D40X, with a 18-70mm zoom was purchased the day photo one was taken, August 16, 2007. The camera was cleaned by Nikon once. This was required because of user stupidy. I have had absolutly no problems other than keeping the photo-cell clean and that was operator error. Since the camera was cleaned on December 1, 2007, I have had only one spec of dust and that was removed and since then nothing.

I do have one big grip with Nikon and you can read about it here.

Below is number one, the Laguna Beach lifeguard tower, and number ten thousand, the tide-pools flooded at high tide. The hardest part of taking both pictures was keeping the horizon level. Both photographs are complete and unedited. No cropping.

If you want to view my old analog camera work then visit http://www.photoessayist.com/. I'm especially proud of the work I did in Vietnam while serving with the Marines.

The New Look Of Main Street America?

The New Santa Ana

This is the corner of 4th and Main in Santa Ana. It's a rather pedestrain photo (pun intended.) I took the photo to show the Main St street sign and the old clock tower in the background. But there is something else going on in this photo. It's not obvious but it is unusual. No trash.

Look. You see any trash on the street or sidewlk? This could be Main St Disneyland, not a real street let alone downtown Santa Ana.

I lived in Santa Ana for 10 years and worked in the area for 20 years and nowhere would you see a street corner this spotless.

This is a changed city and we're going to do more photography of this town in the future.

Bowling Green With A Billion Dollar View

What with the dollar collasping a billion dollars really isn't out of line. The green is in Laguna Beach's Heisler Park. The park's western border is the Pacific Ocean.

Laguna Beach Icon

Laguna Beach's Main beach is one of the great beaches anywhere. The lifeguard tower pictured has come to represent Laguna Beach. We call it the Icon. It wasn't always a lifeguard tower. It started life as the office of the gas station across the street from Main beach.

Laguna Beach Fixer Upper Only 2 Million Plus

This is the main house. The garage with an apartment above is behind the photographer. The problem any new owner will have is that they will have to work with the existing foot print and gut the interior completly. Looking around it is hard to believe that any part of this structure is worth saving. One problem many of these old houses have is with the foundation. Add in the slow approval process in Laguna Beach and you could be looking at a 5 year timeline.

4th Street, Santa Ana

Very bright light. Contrast to much for the camera.

This photo was taken on 4th Street one block north of Main St. 4th and Main is the epicenter of life in this city. Saturday and Sunday this is one very busy place. Need to go back.

What's With City Daily Photoblog?

I signed up to be part of the City Daily Photoblog and apparently I don't qualify. Just because I live in Laguna Beach, post a photo from Minneapolis and chose Southern California as my city does this disqualify me?

I just dislike constraints.

Going into Santa Ana, CA today. Don't know if I'll bring back an acceptable photo - that is acceptable to me - but we'll see.

Sound Off: Nikon Digital Eats Batteries

I've had a great time using my Nikon D40X. Except. It. Eats. Batteries. Let me explain.

Whenever I transfer my photos in the camera to the computer I connect via USB port and wammo it's done. Now you must turn off the camera immediately. If you don't then Nikon will eat your battery.

Twice now I have forgotten to turn off the camera and the battery completely drained itself with the help of Nikon of course. These fancy new types of batteries cannot be completely discharged because if they are they will never get a charge again. $30 dollars up in smoke. Twice = $60. I don't like to use profanity in my writing but I'm pissed. At. Nikon.

They have an option in their camera setup for automatic shut-off. But not for low battery charge. They disable mirror lock-up if the battery is low. This means they can measure battery charge. They even show you battery charge on the info screen. But they don't have an option for shutting down the camera when the battery is low. Why not Nikon?

Nikon can easily add the option to shut down the camera on low battery to it's menu. It could even give you the option of beeping on low battery.

This request is not an option for Nikon. Just make the fix. Like. Right. Now.

Nikon please contact Photoessayist for the name and address where you can send the check for $60.

View From The Guthrie

Our favorite state is Minnesota. We visit as often as possible and the last time we were there we took in a walk along the Mississippi river in Minneapolis. Ending our walk at the new Guthrie Theater. Even though it was a Sunday all visitors were welcome to go up to the observation deck on the third floor. That's the famous cantilevered bridge.

The photo below is from the deck looking through one of it's view ports. A few facts about the photo. It's not digital but Fujichrome 200. The camera was a Contax G1 with the standard 45mm lens. No tricks were performed with Photoshop or any other graphics program.

If you're ever in Minnesota visit the Guthrie. It's a fun building.

LACMA Reflects L.A. - Good and Bad

After I posted yesterday's picture I looked at the rest of the photos I took that day. Looking at the first photo I realized the obivious - that there were several styles of archecture at LACMA. Even the railings in the first photo are of three styles. First is the concrete railing of the orginial Ahmanson building. Then there is the short section of concrete block(?) followed by a moden steel railing. Additionally there is four different outer skins of the two buildings. How L.A. is that?

The Pavilion for Japanese Art is classic L.A. archecture. It refuses to blend with the rest of the family but stands alone and proud. How L.A. is that?

Finally the pavilion that's suppose to unite the various pieces of LACMA. Now with the addition of the Broad Comtemperary Art Museum this pavilion will be regulated to has been. Uniting the orginial museum campus with the new buildings will be the BP Grand Entrance (Not shown.) Does this mean there will be two competing entrances? I think like most grand ideas from large egos the public will decide in the end. Now how L.A. is that?

In short LACMA is L.A. - constantly evolving, changing, and adapting to new needs and ideas. So L.A.

Note: I plan to get up to LACMA sometime this month and will post photos of the new entrance.

LACMA

This photo was taken in the Hammer building just before the exit of The 60s and 70s Art of Southern California. Just after taking the photo a guard came up to me to inform me I couldn't take photos of the art. The problem at LACMA is that some galleries photos are allowed and in others they aren't. That's OK but nothing is posted so how do you know?

I only had the Nikon D40X for 3 weeks then and everything was set on auto except exposure. I have always preferred aperture priority.

I have the advantage of being able to visit the museums of southern California during the week when visitors are few. I especially like to visit the LACMA. Unlike the Getty it has a restaurant that is open when the museum is open. The Getty restaurant has weird hours. I guess they reflect the Getty's themselves. Plus when you visit the LACMA you can go to the Farmer's Market. Still a great place.

The Surf At Laguna Beach

A lot of photo blogs like to give you the details in great detail. Me I'll give you the camera, Nikon D40X; and the lens, Nikkor 18mm-70mm F3.5-4.5 G AF-S DX. 95% of my photos are shot between 18mm and 24mm. I use aperture priority using to the highest possible f-stop while trying to stay above 1/125 sec.

The idea for this photo was to catch the Santa Anas blowing the water off the waves. I have others over at lagunabeat.com. Check out the screensavers while you're there.

I'm Still Here

I haven't abandoned this blog. I have been working on another blog - http://www.lagunabeat.com/.

I have been slow at upgrading this blog - I admit it. I want to make a complete remodel and have been putting it off because of the work required. The style of the new photoessayist.net will be similar to lagunabeat.com. This requires an almost complete rebuild. This new look will allow for larger photos to be posted. This is a photo blog after all and having visitors click a photo to view a larger image is not friendly.

Once the remodel is complete my prime discussion will be my experience at going digital. I have been using 35mm cameras of some sort since 1957. That's 50 years! You can see that work at http://www.photoessayist.com/. Now I'm been converted to digital. There have been some bumps along the way but on the whole I love it. I have had my DSLR since August 16, 2007. I use it every day and I get restless when I'm not out taking photographs.

So stayed tuned.

John S. Krill - Photographer (Yea I like that.)

PS: I was reading a past issue of Time magazine while waiting in the dentist office (Don't know which is more painful - reading Time or the dentist.) The issue was about America and Americans. One of the many lists was one rating jobs and how happy people were at their job. Photographers were rated less than 50 out of 100. I don't know who the photographers were but if they were that UNhappy why do they bother. I love photography. I could photograph a toilet and enjoy it. I mean waitresses like their jobs more than us photographers. Something is not right here.