SGRT People in B&W (mostly)...

For all the little bit of area it takes up in the grand scheme of things, the San Gabriel River Trail along its roughly 40 mile length from mountains to sea, is quite a microcosm of society. On my last ride from Duarte to Burrito Jr. in Seal Beach, and back, I tried to take photos of everyone I rode past, whether they were walking, jogging, riding or just standing. But I didn't want to take a typical framed portrait; I wanted to leave things a little more to chance. So, I held the camera in my right hand while it rested on the top of the handlebars and snapped away, not using a viewfinder or screen, trying to time it just right as I rode by. Plenty of pics came out with no one in them, other times I got a bit of rear wheel, or the smallest bit of someone's face as they rode into the picture frame. Since my hand was always in contact with the bars, every bit of rough, uneven pavement is recorded in the photos. Some are crisp, some fuzzy, some downright blurred. In fact were you to see them all and were you familiar with the route, you could probably predict exactly which section of trail I was on at the time. Of course most of them came out at odd angles. Here are the best of the bunch:

Xross n' boots

Juxtaposition or contrast; perhaps not as harmonious as complimentary, but generally a more interesting composition. I like the juxtaposition of this photograph - the boots and the cyclocross bike. I took the photo at the UCI cyclocross races held in Griffith Park this past November, and unless you took the time to view the slideshow, am guessing you did not see the photo. Indeed, I like this one enough to have used it as one of the images on the back of some business cards I decided to have printed up. One set for my little blog here, and a second set for my fledgling landscape design business venture.

Trash no more...

When I took these photos I did not have my camera on it's "normal" setting, and they came out so absolutely overexposed as to be a white screen. You could just make out that there was something there. Rather than trash them though, which is what I would normally have done, I decided to play around with the adjust feature in iphoto to see what I could get. I have done so before in order to highlight a particular part of a photo, so it was worth an experiment. I must have adjusted everything possible on these, exposure, contrast, saturation, definition, highlight, shadow, sharpness and denoise, and the results ended up being somewhat interesting; the third one especially, almost looks like a faded polaroid from the seventies or so. Anyway, apparently it is possible to get something from nothing.

Framed photos...

Whenever the opportunity presents itself I try to frame riders using objects in the foreground of the landscape. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. A successful photo becomes dependent upon perfect timing, especially the more narrow the frame is, and being able to focus on the subject, rather than the surroundings. I attempted a few such photos while riding around town during the past week. The framing for this first photo was not really all that interesting, and that is where cropping comes in handy, although I don't think it did much more than bring the subject in closer. She is pretty darn cycle chic though, isn't she.

The second image was almost there, a fraction of a second later and the rider would have fit within that space just perfectly. This one is looking though an opening of a large metal sculpture outside the Honnold Library.

This third one I really wanted both riders between the trees, but snapped the shutter to quickly.

A couple final ones show blurred fore and mid-ground objects due to their distance from the subject, which I think is good, since it helps remove distraction.

CicLAvia, or Claremont Cyclist visits the Big City...

But before I get to that I want to offer my own BIG THANKS to all the CicLAvia volunteers and organizers who got this thing off the drawing boards and onto the streets. It was awesome, and you did a helluva job.

The question I seemed to hear a lot was "did you ever think you would see the day?"

Mama's, one of the many  popular food joints along the route

With no cars, kids will be hoola-hooping in the streets

Hollywood end of the route, the Bicycle Kitchen, and across the street, Orange 20 (one cool bike shop)

High rider

CicLAvia volunteers

Green hair

Families were everywhere

Dia de los muertos float (click to enlarge)

Singing, guitar playing, biking angel

Crossing the 4th Street bridge

East end of the route, Hollenbeck Park

Greenpeace Quit Coal marchers

the Police seemed to be having a great time too. And why not?

How many songs can you think of about legs?

Another tall bike

Bike themed rack at the Geffen

It was just about everything you would expect, such a diversity of riders, of bikes, families, couples, friends, old and new, little kids, old folk, Dutch bikes, utility bikes, racing bikes, townies, cruisers, unicycles, fixies, mountain bikes. Was anyone not having a good time? Not that I observed. I was expecting more spontaneity along the way, more music, dancing in the street, breaking of pinatas maybe. People seemed to be content just riding around. I think that as the event grows each year, as more people hear about it, we will see more creativity. That is the good thing about this event, it is not so organized that there is no room for people to make of it what they will. The grassroots nature of CicLAvia will help it to grow in a way befitting the creative setting in which it takes place.

Link to the rest of the photos.