My second photographer is Daniel Boczarski because he is a band photographer. I love bands, I have friends in bands, and I love taking pictures of bands. I like his work because he seems to catch them in a special moment. One of the things I love about bands are those little moments and he seems to catch them. There are so many photographers out there who take pictures of bands and they are so bland and uninspiring. Photographs are meant to catch the special moments for memory sake and so many photographers out there don’t catch those moments. This photographer is inspiring to me because his photos convey exactly what I mean when I talk about those “little moments.” In this particular picture below is William Beckett, the singer for the band The Academy Is… He is a very expressive performer and often times has these excellent moments I’m talking about. The picture below shows one of those moments captured. It is pure, simplistic, excellence. and I love it.

This was actually across the creek from where I was. For some reason I have this fascination with the burned trees. They were burned in 2007 and it looks like the fire happened not too long ago. The charred trees are so beautiful to me. I went sometime after we had the rains and it was really lush. I’ve been through there before when the grass was brown. 

This was from the preserve. Thankfully I didn’t have my dogs with me at the time or I wouldn’t have been able to take the pictures. This tree was a little ways down the road. Instead of going in through the main entrance (where you have to pay) my friend took me to and entrance down the road from my old middle school which I didn’t even know existed. We walked quite a ways and I’m glad I had my friend because he walks the area all the time and I had never come through it on that side. The preserve itself is huge and I’ve been though maybe 100th of it.

For some reason I’ve had this attraction to these flowers. It might be the purple (since I have purple in my hair) or it could be how pretty they are and yet how you don’t want to touch them. It is hard to think that pretty white fuzz will be painful if you touch it. I went through a phase where I would get all prettied up but I did it for me and if anyone wanted to mess with me, I planned on kicking their butts. 

This last picture was actually at Rattlesnake Canyon. I managed to get there just as dusk was approaching. There was this little bird that kept flying around and I managed to catch him in this tree so I took a picture before he ran off again. You can just make out his tail and body in the twigs. My dad used to go to Death Valley a lot and take pictures of the trees up there so I think from that I have this appreciation and love of leafless trees. Both were very fun places to go and I will continue to go back.

This was perhaps the trip that was the most plant intensive. In addition to the names of plants (which of course I can’t remember) we also learned about their habits and growth patterns which was interesting. I know some about the plants that we have at my house but those are not wild California native plants. As we continued on, we learned about the wild sage which was cool since I actually knew about it already. Well, I didn’t know the species name but my mom and I use that for cleansing all the time. When I told Zane he looked at me like I was crazy. It is amazing though because it really is helpful especially after being in a bad/negative environment or being overloaded. It helps me reset. I can’t explain it. Anyways, we got to the the big rocks and me being the person I am decided to go explore them instead of just stay on the ground. Of course people follow suit like Matt. I got this really awesome picture of him up on the bigger rock and some other ones of him around the rocks.

I wanted to get up there too but apparently we weren’t allowed. Opps! Its ok though. I still had my camera and all that and Emily was already holding Matt’s camera. We finally came back to real ground and learned all about the coming of age ceremony for the young women. It was cool to hear about because I took and anthropology class at Mira Costa and learned all about different Native American Indians and their customs and lifestyle. It was nice to get this information and see how it aligned with what I had learned before. I love learning about old ceremonies and customs mostly because I like learning about people and their lifestyles. We had also learned about how the site came to be built, preserved and take care of as well as the tagging from local gangs. It is sad that gangs would tag the rock because it has such a strong cultural importance to a group of people and it has been degraded because of the tagging. I’m not opposed to graffiti because it can be an art form and really pretty to look at. Once our learning time was over, we walked a little bit down the way and everyone made a feast for us to eat! I felt a little bad because we didn’t really do anything to help them and I almost felt undeserving but the food was good. There were sandwiches of turkey, ham, and roast beef with all the fixings. There was also pasta salad and potato salad and regular salad. It was awesome. After sitting and enjoying ourselves, it was time to call it a day. This was probably my favorite class field trip we took and not just because of the food. 

I know a lot of us, myself included thought this was the beginning and end of our journey but it wasn’t. We got back on the bus and headed off for another destination. We arrived at a little pool of water with grasses and brush all around.

We walked up a ways and came to some really cool huts that had been built. I really liked the texture of the deergrass that was used to make these huts. A little further upwards we came to their houses made from wood which looked like the classic teepee but without the tent or animal skin. The grass was so lush and beautiful up in that wooded area. It felt like a space from the old carefree days before we were slaves to technology. We walked around some more and saw handprints and drawings on a rock which was really cool to look at. Its hard to imagine that the pigment Native Americans used was so basic but stood up to all the elements. Along the way we learned about deergrass and how Native Americans used it in their lives. Kai and I were cold and getting tired of standing so we sat on a rock and listened while taking pictures of the longhouse. The longhouse was really interesting to look at just from an angles standpoint. Granted, the longhouse was built bigger than what it typically would have been, but it was still really really cool. Further along the path we came to bunches of deergrass. It was really quite pretty. 

We cruised around some more and looked at this other thing (though I don’t remember what the purpose of it was. I think it was for drying out things) and I remember the huge wooden looking mushroom that was there. I thought that was the end of our tour but we ended up at the firing pit for clay pots. I like the one sitting on the side and all the broken ones inside looked cool too. The fact that the pit was in the dirt reminds me of Hawaiian food because of the kahlua pork because the pig is roasted in the earth.

I was starting to get restless and only half payed attention at the next thing Willie showed us which I’m really sad to say. Once again we got back on the bus and made one last stop. We ended up at the greenhouses which was really cool. It was cool to see all the little baby plants. I didn’t go in the greenhouse though cause it was cold outside and hot in there and I didn’t want to get cold again when I stepped back outside. I remember looking at the watering system for the bigger plants and being really impressed. The way they used the hose and made holes for each pot and turned it into a sprinkler system was genius. However, I was tired and cold and wanted to get back in the warm car that had awesome taffy Carrie brought. After the greenhouses we got back on the bus and went back to the cars and called it a day. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Rincon Reservation~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For this expedition Carrie drove since we needed the space for shovels and she did volunteer to drive us. This time we had some awesome gummy worms to snack on for the drive up. This drive was long. I was navigating we missed an exit cause I wasn’t paying attention at the time. But we turned around and got back on track in no time. We arrived at the reservation and man was it bright and hot. The syllabus said to bring something warm to wear. It lied! Anyways, we stood around and listened to Kristie Orosco talk about the different plots of land and how we were going to plant different things in each area. There were four different plots and as such, were numbered off one through four. I ended up in the desert plot which was arguably the smallest and had the least amount to plant. It was nice because most of the group was from our class and there were only about 3 from the other class.

My mom is the one with the green thumb in the house so I know almost nil about what plants are what and where they should go. After sitting around for a bit, we finally decided to get to work. For the most part, we just put a plant at any spot that looked good but we decided the oaks would run the perimeter of our space. After getting it all laid out and getting everything approved by Kristie, we started digging. I guess I’m used to digging deeper holes because my first plant was almost halfway underground so I had to put more dirt back in the hole. Getting them out of the pots was a bit of a drag since some of them were spiny and liked to bite you if you didn’t handle them right. I mostly planted this one particular succulent just because I thought it was pretty. We were told that desert plants like rocks near them so off Carrie and I went in search of cartable rocks. Needless to say, we got a lot of rocks since Carrie used her sweatshirt old school style to carry them all. In what seemed like no time at all, we were done. After looking around and realizing we were the only group done, we walked around and then sat around and sat some more. Someone had a genius idea to help the other groups but I was taking pictures at the time. It was hard to get a good shot because it was super bright outside so it took me longer than normal to get what I liked. Finally two more groups finished and Deb took us on a little trek out from where we were. It was cool going exploring around the grounds. I remember Deb telling us the names of a lot of the plants but I can’t remember much in the way of names anymore.

We came to some really tall grass and childhood urges took over so I sat down in the middle of the grass. It was wet! The damp jeans were totally worth it though. We headed back after adventuring for a good 10+ minutes. The other class left and then for some reason Kristie started talking to us about the plants which confused me since we were just the media. We had a slight glitch on our way out since Kai left Carrie’s shovel somewhere and it had vanished. Turns out it was put away in their shed. The shovel was recovered and that was the end of our adventure at Rincon.

“Just got finished watching a short movie on the photographer Sally Mann. I was really impressed with the fact that she still used film and on a very old camera which looks like one of the first cameras ever made. She still uses chemicals and mixing on glass slides.Her mad desire to have the perfect print is very admirable. My dad was similar because I would see all these prints that I thought were amazing and they were all trash because something wasn’t just right. I love the simplicity of her photos and the fact that you can feel what she feels through her photography. I think her daughter was right in saying that she was able to express herself without words through her photography. 

Zane took  my camera and shot some pics of me on the farm equipment. We rejoined the group just at things were starting to get interesting. There seemed to be more to take pictures of as well. We dug up some this vegetable kohlrabi and those of us brave enough (myself included) tried it. Reminded me of cabbage but apparently it is related to the turnip.

Our guide Jonathan was very knowledgeable and it was interesting to hear about the different vegetables and the seasons. The broccoli was flowering at the time but there were still little pieces we could eat. As we wound around we came upon some carrots and dug some up. I tried my best to get the dirt off (thank goodness this place uses no pesticides!) and it was one of the sweetest carrots I have ever had (and trust me, I have had some really bad ones). 

It was starting to turn to dusk and I had to change my camera settings. I wish I had changed them before because I had it set on inside light. However, the pictures didn’t come out the worse for wear which was nice. I’ll admit that I had a hard time with this because I haven’t done plant photography for awhile and I prefer to take pictures of people and shows. I’m sure I’ll get back into it as things progress. I haven’t had time to manipulate the images much. I was watching the house, 3 dogs, and 4 horses while my mom was out of town this weekend. I will update as I can.

The reason I ate what I did was because I was craving sushi and I figured it would be something quick. I didn’t feel particularly like a burger, fries, or any other greasy food. That is probably because I went to D.Z. Akins on the weekend and had an awesome hot sandwich and cheesecake. I have also been craving Thai food for the past week but sushi was as close as I could get. I knew where I was going and know the people there so it was an easy choice. 

I’d like to think I am fairly conscious about what I put into my body. Sure my vices are sweets, potatoes (in any form), pasta, chips and salsa, and mexican food in general but I try to eat healthily. For example, when I have mexican food, I eat at a place I know is fresh and healthy. I usually have chicken or fish with some rice and a salad at night. If I have pasta, I make my own sauce which isn’t full of salt and preservatives and my pasta is wheat or flax instead of white. Like I said, I try to eat healthy alternatives so it is better for me.