Must Visit Blog - Good Photos

This is not my first attempt at recommending a Photoblog but it is the first time I have done it with a posting.

The blog is View From The Tundra. The photographer, name unknown, lives in Minneapolis. And he states that Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities, are two of the most under-rated cities in the US. I agree but does he have to broadcast this statement of fact. It's getting way to crowded. Expecially the burbs.

Like me he doesn't give a bunch a techie info just good photos. The reason I'm letting everyone know this at this time is the photo he posted of the St. Paul Cathedral. Take a look for yourself. Sunset over Cathedral of St Paul

Whale Of A Wall

This post is our unoffical contribution to the Picture of the Day monthly theme photo. This month it's Mural or Graffiti.

The current whale mural is the third version at this site. The first whale mural was painted onto the white wall below the current whale wall. That first version was the first whale mural that Wyland did.

A few years later Wyland (He uses his last name only.) reversed the painting with the whales pointing toward the sea. Then the owner of the lower wall, for whatever reason, painted over the second version.

Wyland, just prior to the lower wall being painted white, had purchased the building that the current wall mural is on. The owner of the lower wall wanted the same building and may have painted over the whale to get even with Wyland. Whatever.

Wyland, after remodeling the building, created the current mural. It's made up of hundreds of porcelain tiles. Each tile is hand painted by Wyland.

The photo is made up of three images. We used Elements 6 Photomerge Panarama utility to create a single image. You can click the image to see a larger version.

You Wish

We think they ran out of the number 3.

It's The Photographer Not The Camera

Some photographers believe they need the most expensive cameras in order to do good work. This photographer demonstrates that this isn't the case. He's using a Canon G9 PowerShot to take time-lapsed photos of a parade in Laguna Beach. He hopes to make a short and quick film showing the entire parade going by in a flash.

But Mom It's Just A Big Toy Why Can't I Play On It?

No Place To Eat Near LACMA

There was only one location where we could get something to eat that was near LACMA and that was a small diner that specialized in hot dogs. Why are there so few good resturants near LACMA? Like none.

This place has been closed for quite a while. Why?

Laguna Beach

This spot is just north of Main beach. The tide pools are just to the right. It was an overcast, wet, and windy day. This picture gives me the feeling that nothing good will happen here. In reality when people walk this spot they're usually on there way to Rock Pile beach and rarely notice what they're passing. Also at high tide this is all getting hit from the surf. We think if it had been a sunny day we wouldn't have notice this scene.

This Post Needs A Title

This bible was found on the sidewalk. We didn't touch it. But we did photograph it.

Can you help us with a title?

The Street Lamps Plaza

My only question is why is there a wall seperating the BP Grand Entrance from the main campus of the museum?

The Elevator To Nowhere

If you are a LA Times reader then you may have read the story in last thursday's Guide edition of artist Barbara Kruger's reaction to the art at the new Broad building. Ms Kruger is the artist that created the image you see behind the glass elevator that's directly opposite the entrance to the Broad building. Did you try the glass elevator? Did it go anywhere? If it did you where one of the lucky ones.

On the very same day the article was appearing in the Guide section we were visiting the new Broad building. After viewing the art on the third floor we got on the glass elevator. Then we waited. The elevator doors closed. Then we waited. The elevator doors opened. Then we waited. Problem: To many people in the elevator. Once the problem was revealed several of us got off. Then several more got on not knowing of the elevators problem. Elevator doors close. Those inside waited. Nothing. We left and used the outside stairs. We have no idea how many times the elevator doors opened and closed before it was happy with the load but it did finally make it to second floor.

Never saw Ms Kruger's art work that's behind the glass elevator and extends the entire three floors of the building. Maybe next time.

The photo shows the entrance to the third floor of the Broad building. The glass elevator is on the left.

BP Grand Entrance

Does LACMA want to make this the center of the museum replacing the upper level piazza? I hope not. It makes a good entrance but we prefer the old and grander piazza, the LA Times Central Court, that joins the main buildings of the museum.

The island state of Venice has it's entrance at the boat docks but the center and heart of Venice is St. Marks Square. We feel the same way about the BP Grand Entrance. It makes a good entrance from the underground parking and from Wilshire Blvd but it's not the center of the museum.

The museum calls the two ends of the BP Grand Entrance the North and South Plaza. We want to divide the BP Entrance into three parts: The Street Lamps Plaza, the Concourse, and the Fire Truck Plaza.

From this BP Grand Entrance visitors can travel to any of the museum's buildings. Be it the Broad building that's completed or through the Ahmanson to the LA Times Central Court and the center of the museum. In later posts we will discuss what's needed in the LA Times Square to make it a more inviting center for the museum.

The photos show the Fire Truck Plaza with it's Fire Truck and also the entrance elevator from the below ground garage.

This Is To You Mr Serra. Maybe Next Time

The Ahmanson Is Open!

The big plus with the opening of the Broad Building was the reopening of the Ahmanson building in January. Why is the Ahmanson a building and the Broad a museum? Ego? You think?

With the reopening of the Ahmanson the entire first floor is dedicated to modern art. Real art. Name an artist from the 20th century and you'll probably see an example of their work. It took us longer to visit the entire first floor of the Ahmanson than it did for all the Broad building.

I agree you should visit the Broad building once. When you're through then head over to the Admanson for a real treat. I promise you'll enjoy the tour.

So all this 20th century art at the Admanson why no photography? Oh, you of little faith. It's there you just didn't look in the alcove. This little, bitty gallery is the first place we visit. Last year we saw our first Bressons there. Only a few but worth it.

The photography department does put on shows during the year but no real gallery rooms to show the permanent works. Why? The Getty on the hill has half of one building for photography and they haven't reached the 18th century yet. Only kidding. The Photography department said it will be another 2 years before they have their own space. By then still photography will be dead.

Mixed Feelings For LACMA Additions

The new Broad building is fine especially the upper floor with the mutted sky lights. The rooms are large and well lit. Even with large crowds moving about the rooms the art was still accessable. The problem is the art on the second floor. Except for the Cindy Sherman works, which fills one large room, the remainder is boring.

Then we come to the first floor. Two large steel sculptures by Richard Serra fill the entire floor. That's from floor to ceiling. The result is very little light gets into the work. The postcard they hand out at the entrance to the Broad has a picture of one of the sculptures. Keep the card. It's the best view you're ever going to get of the work.

Overall the new additions are a plus. The outdoor art is terrific. The lamps, balloons, and the fire truck are fun pieces. To bad the kids can't play on the fire truck. The minus is the covered concourse of the BP Entrance. For an open space it's awfull dark and closed in.

I think the BP Entrance will really shine at night. We look forward to returning a dusk to capture the lamps in all their glory.

We will report more in later posts. For now here are the same two views that we showed in our previous post.

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.