found in north beach, san francisco.

heading back from north beach with reese we photographed some of the bikes we saw along our path. this was my last 6×7 shot of the day.

pentax 6×7, 90/2.8 lens. shot on ektar 100.

after 10 years of dating and 3 years of engagement, eillenil (my step-sister) and mark got married this month. the ceremony was at mission santa clara de asis, on the santa clara university campus. it was nice to see a formal tie between the sudarios and the dimalantas.

it was such a hot day then, i wished i was wearing a barong tagalog like the goomsmen. dealing with the heat and suit made lugging a pentax 67 not too bad.

in may of 2009, our friend jonathan decided to plan a trip to yosemite to hike up half dome. the time finally came around and six of us took a friday off and camped in the north pines campsite and eventually made our way up.

i’d never actually been to yosemite before and it had been a long time since i’d done any proper camping. it was so fun, and the park was amazingly beautiful in every way. on our first night, galen grilled up some steaks and veggie packets and corn. we had a large delicious meal before packing it up and going to bed early.

the next day we woke up at 6:30am and had another sizeable meal, and headed off on a 4-5 hour hike to the half dome site.

i won’t try to trivialize the hike. thousands of people do it every year. you start at a high elevation, and you go higher (a gain of 4800ft). you hike through the woods, up over two waterfalls, and up large rock steps for hours. then you can see the half dome site.  that means you must again climb the last very steep rock steps up to the rock face. at that point, you need to make a go-or-no-go decision to actually scale the rock face.

at the base of the rock face there is a pile of gloves. you put on a fairly well matched pair because you will be slowly ascending the rock using cables that have been installed on the rock. it’s slow, because people are taking their time, or taking a break, or panicking and turning around and descending. it can take 20-25 minutes to get up there if you decide to go up the “outside” of the cables, or over an hour if you decide to stay within the cables like most folks.

once you are up the rock face, you are at the top of yosemite national park, 8842ft elevation. you have a panoramic view of the valley, and a chance to relax with everybody else who has made it to the top. i was so exhausted and breathing such thin air, that i was wheezing at first until i relaxed a bit. at several points along the hike, i didn’t think i could make it and was formulating back-out plans in my head. i’m so glad i pushed forth and went all the way. in light of foot/hip problems i’ve been dealing with over the past couple years, i feel very accomplished having done this.

at the top of half dome, you are cooling off from the breeze and taking in one of the most amazing sights i have personally seen. the bad news is, you have another 5 hours to hike back and are racing to get back to your camp site before it gets dark. i paused along the way back, wondering how the hell did i go *up* all of this??

hiking half dome was quite awesome and i’m so glad i did it.

notes:

• 2 litres of water is not enough for this hike. filtering fresh water to replenish your store should be done
• eating a granny smith apple on the way down was AMAZING
• if i were doing it again, i would start the hike much earlier and before sunrise.
• having a good flashlight is essential for the trip back

all images were shot on arista premium 400 at iso 6400, developed in rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes. shot with a widelux f7.

ice is forming on the tips of my wings
unheeded warnings, i thought i thought of everything
no navigator to find my way home
unladen, empty and turned to stone

a soul in tension, that’s learning to fly
condition grounded but determined to try
can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies
tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, i…..

one of my favorite songs from david gilmour of pink floyd.

one reason is its nod to the story of icarus, in which the son of daedalus was too anxious to fly with his wings made of feathers and wax. ignoring the warning from his father, icarus approached the sun which melted the wax and destroyed his wings, so he fell into the sea (the icarian sea, off the coast of icaria near turkey).

i don’t know quite what it is about this song.. i can put on some headphones and listen to it on repeat at full volume and i won’t get tired of it or get a headache. it just works.

(image: daedalus and icarus, fredric lord leighton)

i shot both of these last month on a small excursion with gordon and cindy. gordon showed me his recently acquired horizon perfekt swing-lens camera. it had been so long since i shot sheet film, so i had my shen-hao 4×5 with me and shot a set of hp5+ sheets.

both images on hp5+ 4×5, with a nikkor 210mm lens on a shen-hao camera. rodinal 1+50 for 11min.

last week i attended vmware’s annual conference, vmworld 2009. since i am doing so much shooting this year, i decided to bring my widelux f7 camera with me to the conference. by carrying it with me, i managed to meet a lot of photographers there, including many who shoot (including one 4×5 guy!). the conference ended up being a good venue for shooting, despite the low light levels.

after registration, you walk down moscone center’s wonderful staircase down to a long line of shiny new infrastructure that is running the show.

the keynotes were large productions. giant projected video screens. the large video cameras looked quite sophisticated. i took a peak in one that was near the stage. on the screen it artificially marked all hard edges in the scene.

the camera operator and the attendee behind him both noticed my camera, and i talked to them both about my widelux. the attendee had a horizon camera (also a swing-lens panoramic) but didn’t think of bringing any film cameras to the conference. i don’t blame him. it was at this point that i realized i must be the only one of 12,800 conference attendees carrying a light meter.

the first lab session i attended was vSphere 4 – New Features, Best of, Advanced Features. there was quite a hiccup in the lab infrastructure and a lot of time was wasted. this of course started a flurry of bad things being said over twitter and blogs. vmware managed to solve most of the problems and had late-night repeat sessions for those who wanted to repeat labs that had broken. the gentleman i paired up with for the lab was a manager and didn’t seem to be interested in much hands-on experience, so i was able to drive and go pretty fast through the material.

this is dan chu, vp of emerging products and markets, from vmware. he’s about to start a panel discussion about extending information technology beyond the traditional data center (the cloud). a bit too high level for me.

the scale of vmworld was pretty immense. this is the self-paced lab room, a huge room full of thin clients with a row of supporting infrastructure up front. the conference staff was nice enough to let me in specially to take pictures.

one of the meal rooms. i estimated about 1,500 seats in this room.

these guys are david baldwin (our technical account manager) and martin klaus (my speaking session owner). they’re stationed at the lab manager kiosk in the vmware booth. in the evening, the expo area was catered as people scatter around learning about new products and getting their badges scanned to receive more information (in exchange for gifts like tshirts, stress balls, and ball-point pens adorned with logos).

by the end of the conference, there was a day/evening of relaxation. retro game stations, air hockey and shuffleboard, food and drink, and rock climbing. the conference ended with a live performance by foreigner.

i’d never imaged taking a picture at a concert with the widelux. i had a few frames left in the camera, had my light meter with me, and thought.. what the heck. meter the stage, hold the camera pretty high, and burn the rest of the roll and see what happens.

all images are taken with the widelux f7, on arista premium 400 rated at iso 6400. developed in rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes with agitation every 3 minutes.