The Taj Mahal

First off let me wish everyone "Happy New Year" and I hope you all had a great holiday period.

Now, to todays photograph! I have been asked a few times now, "What camera do you use?" Well for those of you that want to know, my main camera is a Canon 5D MkII. It's a great camera and does everything I need, it's one downfall though? It's heavy, big and bulky. Chase Jarvis, a professional photographer wrote a book called, "The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You" (and that is so true.) Some of my photographs posted on my website here were taken with a Nikon Point & Shoot camera and this shot was taken with a second generation iPhone. (It just happened to be the only camera I had with me.) Sure the quality is not great, BUT I got the photograph and with some computer work, got the photograph I wanted!

So to the tale of this photograph: Priya, one of my co-workers, was celebrating her birthday and invited a group of us to join her at an Indian restaurant for dinner. Kerri, the young lady in the photograph and another co-worker, happened to be sitting across the table from me with this bottle of Indian beer between us. And so this photograph was created. Hope you enjoy it.

The Windsock

You may remember last week I posted a photograph called Some Plastic Roses & A Teddy Bear. The place I took that photograph was the place photographed above. I actually stopped along this Forestry Road to take the photograph above of this windsock and the view of Lake Elsinore below, when I found the flowers and the teddy bear laying amongst the rocks. I'm really not sure as to why there is a windsock on the cliff edge at this location. Someone mentioned hand gliders to me, but really I have no idea. The one thing I do know thought, the windsock, the graffiti  and the view makes for an interesting photograph. Oh, by the way, Happy New Year everyone and I hope 2010 brings you everything you hope for.

The Glass House

This is another fun project that is located at Tio's Tacos here in Riverside. At first I thought it was just a building with an interesting pattern on the walls. Then I looked closer and discovered that it was a building made completely of glass bottles. All the necks of the bottles are visible on the inside. This guy really has a strange imagination to even think of doing this and obviously way too much time on his hands to get it actually built.

A Downtown View

This is a view of Downtown Riverside taken from Blue Mountain. For all you Brit's that wonder what Downtown means or is, it's the town or city center. To give you an idea of scale here, the blue glass building on the top left is the County of Riverside Administration Center and stands 13 stories tall.It also means that the freeway overpass in the bottom right is pretty damn high and gives a good view while driving across it. And in case you forget just click on the image if you want a larger view.

The Egg Man

I grew up in a small hamlet called Aingers Green. It consisted of about 150 houses and was about a mile away from the nearest village of Great Bentley. My dad was the local postman for 10 years, so he pretty much knew anybody and everybody in the village. One of those people lived just around the corner from us and we knew him as The Egg Man. He used to have his own chickens (lots of them) and we used to walk round to his property to buy our eggs. In his back yard there was this old hand water pump that just used to fascinate me. Just thinking that people used to get their water by hand pumping it out of a well was amazing to me. Anyway on Saturday we had a meeting of our newly formed (and very informal) Riverside Photography Club at a Mexican restaurant called Tio's Tacos. Out the back of the restaurant the owner has collected 20 years worth of junk and trash and turned it into some amazing sculptures and objects of interest. So while walking through all this stuff I found the water pump photographed above. As I was sitting at my desk processing this photo it too me back to my childhood and The Egg Man.

Here Comes Santa

Here comes Santa Claus, he's about to climb down your chimney. This is part of the display at the Mission Inn in Riverside. I would just like to thank you all for visiting the site and keeping me going. Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year.

The Dam Construction

If you remember a couple of days ago I posted a photograph taken from Lakeview Point of the dam at Big Bear Lake and the crane doing the construction work. Well when I finally arrived at the dam I had to stop and jump out of the car to see what was going on. I peeked over the side of the dam and this is the scene that greeted me. I am just amazed at how much construction equipment is in the bottom of the creek. Also this is the view of the dam I never bothered to look at before, so i found it kind of interesting.

Some Plastic Roses & A Teddy Bear

It amazes me what you can find laying in rocks at the side of the road. Yesterday at work Ben, a colleague at work and I took a trip to Elsinore Peak to check on some work that had recently been done. On the way back along the Forest Service road I saw a windsock on the edge of the mountain of thought it would make a great photograph. As I wandered around to find that ideal spot I found these plastic roses with a teddy bear wrapped in cellophane. So I decided to use some artistic impression and move them to on top of the rocks and take this photograph. When I was done I then pushed the plastic stem into the ground, standing the roses upright and giving teddy a view of the area. I have no idea why they were there, there was no cross or anything like that, but I'm sure someone had their reasons......

Lakeview Point

While my parents were visiting this past September, I took them to Big Bear to enjoy the scenery. We stopped at Lakeview Point to enjoy the distant view of the lake.  Imagine my surprise then when we saw one of those cranes that build high rise buildings amongst the trees by the dam. At first, I couldn't figure out what it was for. Then I remembered hearing talk about the replacement of the bridge that crosses the dam.  Once we drove down to the dam, we stopped and I went and peered over the edge to find a whole building site down there at the bottom.

More Snow

I have a friend back in England that just loves snow and mountains, so today I thought I'd dedicate this photo to her (Kirsty Ward), even though it appears they're getting plenty of snow of their own in the UK right now. Kirsty told me how she loves my photos of snow and mountains and wanted to see more. SO I told her I would dedicate the next one to her. This is Big Bear Lake on a chilly morning a few days after this snow fell.