Neon Sanctuary

Another neon sign from California in America in a tourist spot. Felix the cat- not necessarily one of my favourite cartoons as a child I think that humour was a level above my little toddler mind. I liked the neon signs of that place and the way there were all together and the giant American flags are car dealers and balloons of colours red, blue and white.

Kings of Neon

I love taking photographs because it's like a reminder you can keep for your memory; I haven't thought about this photograph for a while since I looked through my photographs taken on my holiday at the start of January 2011 for two weeks. A tourist spot was a lot of shops all clustered together close to Universal Studios all light up with neon signs everywhere and as far as the eye could see. As I remember, my friends and I ate at Johnny Rockets and the burgers were big and mean with a whole lot of flavour.

A city full of light

It may not be the city of lights Paris itself but when we travelled around by limousine and stretch hummer around the gorgeous city of San Francisco on our last day of staying in America and stopped at a few different places to swap vehicles, a few trees were strung up from root to branch full of gorgeous fairy lights. There were more decorations of them then a Christmas tree set up in the city for the Myer windows back home at Melbourne. 

A water fountain light up by lights brought a lot of attention to the dare devil boys among the group; daring to run across the width of the water feature and risking getting soaking wet for the next hour and so and putting up with the shame and soggy trophy of wrinkled clothes.

This is what dreams are made of

Last year my ex-hippie and eccentric Literature who my class suspects of once coming to teach us young impressionable youths while under the influence of some illicit drug (and who might have forgotten to teach us a few times due to this troubling problem as well) while lecturing us about Edwards Scissorhands gave us all this little gem of wisdom: Every village square, in every corner of the globe sees the life of an actor on screen and aspires to have the life they lead and live glamorously and comfortably. Of course due to my memory mimicking that of a goldfish (I don't even remember what I did three days ago) and the fact that anytime she lectured our class on anything we had difficulties comprehending what she was saying and I am paraphrasing; she had a point. My short little tourist stint in Hollywood taught me three things: there are many eccentrics and weirdos in Hollywood, the people in costumes expect money and can get aggressive and that some of the most beautiful houses are in Hollywood.

King Kong

When going past a miniaturised set of King Kong which just had the basic landscape and the boat, I was caught off guard by some of the things that directors choose to do. I never really think about these things in too much detail; my main folly is that I over analyse things and predict what will happen in a plot and ruin in for myself since I don't stop and take time to enjoy it. Nevertheless I really enjoyed taking a great photograph of the miniature island from King Kong (the new version). We weren't going past all that fast but we didn't stop moving either and my digital camera managed to instant focus within an instant and captured it. I was very pleased; the reflection of the window of leaves makes it also look like a double exposure shot on film cameras; very cool indeed.

Jaws

The thing about movie sets is that they can seem large when you shoot at various locations but some of the more important places where the action takes place can be really small; all about effective use of camera angles and shots to create and bring to life the creative imagination of the director I guess. One of the favourites of mine on the Universal Studios tour was the Jaws set, but my timing was off for some of the photography where I've missed the shark snapping at our tour shuttle and only gotten the tale. The one that got away in a manner of photographic and maybe fisherman senses. I was feeling a little sore about that but the fantastic colour and distortion effect of the explosion and fire using natural gas is one of my favourites since all the colours are bright but the silhouette of the oil drums and stuff on the deck gives it that unnatural industrious mood to it.

Fish out of water (Girls out of water)

A few weeks ago was my friend Jess' 18th Birthday so she took a bunch of the girls down to a Rye to enjoy the warmth of the natural springs and have a good soak. The only problem was that at the time it was Winter so it was fine once we had plunked ourselves down into the soothing warm water but if we wanted to move in search of a better spot to soak then we had to endure the stings of a Winter breeze and watch the steam our off of our bodies as we walked with our arms crossed across our bodies; hugging ourselves for warmth. It was a relaxing day and I felt sleepy until two days afterwards and it was also nice to see her quaint little holiday house decorated with family pictures collage into one massive heaps on the walls. I also feel welcomed and relaxed by homely things - what does that say about my own home life really though? I always love to take a picture of the cake with the candles as well as all my beautiful friends.

Lights, Camera, Action

Universal Studios, front entrance. Taken in January 2011 in California America. On holiday for G'Day USA student exchange from Australia to America for 20 days.

Shoelace String Fries

Obviously I felt so very super proud of myself when I bought super size fries that I just had to share it with the world and take some photographs. I like the second photo a lot better but I'm not sure I printed it off, though really should have done so. Would look even better in a brown bag and the light not bouncing off the container but Maccas in the USA doesn't swing that way I guess.

Flags of Patriotism

Every day at least there would be the American flag as well as the California State flag spotted somewhere on our day of sightseeing and tourism. Compared to Australia where your lucky to see them around the suburbs... There might be more in the inner city and places of interest to tourists but I don't really seem to catch sight of them.

Fishermans Wharf

Considering we were down at Fishermans' Wharf in San Francisco, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of colour I could find around me and the contrast. The carousel with the the red topped tip and stripey cover like a circus tent. The bright orange of a crab on a sign as well as the three dimensional statue for a restaurant of a one armed, one eyed pirate frying up a mint coloured fish with a beard. It's always nice to be delighted in places where you expect everything to be boring.

Nautical Nonsense

White life preservers, and a bright yellow coloured boat. Beats me why the life preserves are white when the ocean is blue and when it gets icy I'm sure there will be cold bits of frost and frozen over ice blocks. Then again, it could just be a way of advertising a restaurant down at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

Vessels at Sea

To my delight when we took out ferry ride around the San Francisco harbour which was part of our "visitation" to Alcatraz there were a few other boats and sails on the sea. We didn't even set foot on Alcatraz, instead we went past it twice and got a better look of the Golden Gate Bridge than the famous island prison.But there were some colourful sail boats and a motor boat breaching the water to photograph, obviously I like the colourful sail boat the best because it reminds me of a sample photograph from the Kodak Encyclopedia of Photography on 'How to make Colour work for You'.

Golden Gate Bridge

By the amount of photographs I took on the ferry trip going underneath and around the Golden Gate Bridge you might begin to think I am either an architect fanatic or that I was just bored and wanted something to photograph while on holiday of something that will be far, far away from my home. I think I was just taken by the mood since everyone else had their cameras out as well and I wanted to get in on the action.