Trying New Things

There are so many aspects to photography that I've recently discovered ie. street photography & 365 projects. On street photography I enjoy Eric Kim's blog since he is local boy in LA and he offers some interesting tips that are just enough to plant some seeds in my brain to try sometime soon.

I see all sorts of 365 projects where a photo is posted every day for a year. It can be a self protrait, theme of the day or whatever you come up with. I saw a guy on Flickr (sorry, can't remember his name) that used his wedding ring as the focal point in his photos, such as on the rocks by the ocean, on statues or anywhere. He is also a local but in the South Bay so it's neat to add a fun element to photography.

So that got me thinking...I would try to use some street photography techniques on Josh and Tyler to try and capture more of their personalities on a candid basis instead of my normal pose and smile. That is easier said than done but still lots of fun. I also have to "shoot from the hip" so my subjects are not aware that they are being photographed. So here are my first photo attempts.

The above photos are in the dance studio lobby while Tyler is in karate. Josh is goofing off with dad and playing sticks. I love that Josh is smiling and unaware of the camera showing those fun moments he has with Hector. :)

After karate, we headed over to Lucio's for some Mexican food. We read some good reviews on Yelp and it was just around the corner from karate. Tyler wasn't too keen on the idea since his experience with Mexican food hasn't been the best on his part but we convinced him that he might find something he really loves this time.

Lucio's is basically a hole in the wall kind of place but the waitress is friendly and fast. They had posole on the menu so Tyler decided to give it a go (he loves the posole from Liliana's).

Tyler trying his posole. He has such a mad look on his face probably from something I said.

Tyler realizing the posole is actually good and eating with gusto.

So that brings me to another fun project and that is photographing a 365 day project and I found the perfect subject....Monty Mole! He is a character from the Super Mario series and he pops out of the ground to take Mario out.
This little guy was out of a vending machine and I claimed him for me. He can be a cellphone dangler or if I want, I can unscrew the string from his head for some free form action. :)

So here are the first pics of Monty enjoying the food at Lucios.

Monty about to try albondigas soup. It is quite hard to balance this little guy.

Monty into the soup which was inevitable.

Monty with his chips and salsa.

Lastly we ended the evening with dessert at Fosters Freeze.

Josh with his chocolate dipped cone. I like how the shadow gives him that Phantom of the Opera look.

Josh enjoying the chocolate.