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I spent a nice Saturday afternoon at Kenneth Hahn Park in Culver City. I had my camera with me, and you can see a few Park photos. I’m happy to say I finally managed to get a shot of a humming bird. It isn’t great, but I did get it, so that’s something.

I took my camera up to Descanso Gardens to photograph some spring flowers. It’s weird. I haven’t been to Descanso in about 5 years, and I remember it being a lot smaller. I don’t know if my memory was playing tricks on me or if I didn’t fully explore the place last time. It was a nice day though.

With all of our recent rains, the desert is in full bloom, so I drove over to Joshua Tree to check out all of the wildflowers. I was really kind of surprised at the variety that I saw. It seems like whenever I see wildflowers on TV, it’s just fields of yellow flowers (I think poppies). There were plenty of yellow flowers, but there was also red, white, purple and blue flowers. I did the hike to the 49 Palms Oasis. It was a nice walk with plenty of steep and uneven rocks to teeter over. The oasis itself was shady and peaceful, but not very beautiful or interesting.

Here are a few of my photos of Joshua Tree Wildflowers.

I headed up to Chinatown today to check out their New Year Dragon Parade. It wasn’t nearly as colorful as the Doo Dah parade I went to a few weeks ago. It seemed a lot longer — particularly with all the city and state officials that turn out for the thing. Still, it was interesting and provided some prime photo opportunities. The sun was definitely trying to cook the year of the rat before it even got started. I got a bit burned, and the glare and harsh lighting conditions played havoc with a lot of my photos. Still, I did manage to make a few keepers, so here are some of my Chinese New Year Parade Photos.

A colorful bunch of characters get together every year in Pasadena, CA to put on the Doo Dah Parade. It’s a crazy scene with a synchronized nap team and a marching hibachi band grilling and passing out hot dogs and every other stripe of freak that you could possibly imagine. I figured with all that fabulous lunacy there’d be plenty of opportunities for photographs, so I went up there today with my camera. You can see my 2008 Doo Dah Parade Pictures.

My dad was in Orange County for business, and my mom came down with him, so we spent a couple of days sight seeing. We went to Laguna Beach, the mission at San Juan Capistrano, and Newport Beach. You can see some photos.

The Getty has an exhibit of photographs by Graciela Iturbide, so on Saturday, I headed up there to check them out. I didn’t care for her portraits very much, but some of her earlier work, particularly some work with birds was really great. It was almost grotesque and surreal in a way that was interesting to see captured in photography.

I got there a little later in the day, and so was able to spend a bit of time strolling through the gardens as the sun set. I had my camera, so you can see some pictures. Sadly none of these images are grotesque or surreal. I need to work on seeing the world from a different perspective if I’m going to make photos that I can be proud of.

I drove down to the San Diego Zoo today to make some pictures of the animals. It was a little chilly, and it was a little rainy, which I wasn’t expecting. I spent the latter part of the day with my camera wrapped in my shirt trying to keep it dry. Still, all things considered, it was a nice day.

About a year ago, I heard about this place, Oak Glen, up in the mountains just outside Los Angeles. They have a bunch of U-Pick apple orchards, and trees with leaves that actually turn colors like it’s fall. I’ve been wanting to check it out for a while, and since October is apple picking season for them, this weekend, I finally made it up there.

It was fun, and interesting. Not quite as cold as I was hoping that it would be, and there were just WAY too many people to deal with, but the food was great (apple cider, apple pie, barbeque strangely enough), and it’s worth checking out if you’ve never done it. You can see some Apple Picking photos.

Since I was already going to be in the area, I decided to take advantage and head back to Joshua Tree. I actually went to the desert the day before the apple picking and then grabbed a hotel in Palm Springs. I wish that I could have explored Palm Springs a little bit more because driving down the main drag on Saturday night looked pretty nice. I was just was too tired after running around the desert to do much more than grab an insane amount of Mexican food and collapse at the hotel. You can see my Joshua Tree Photos.

This morning before starting off for Oak Glen, I did have an opportunity to go exploring at Indian Canyon just outside of Palm Springs. Actually, I took the Andrea Canyon loop, so you can see some of those photos too.

Newport Beach held their 46th annual Sand Castle Contest today, so I drove down to photograph it. These things always have this weird mix of really privative children’s creations and reasonably elaborate carvings. I think I may have liked The King Has Two Thrones the best. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the toilet humor.