I went and picked up my pictures from costco today. Sunday, Mauricio and I ended up riding around Pomona on bike, stopping to take some photos and look around. I wanted to try out the cameras that arrived. I remember now why I like digital photography, it is so cheap. But once I got these on the computer I think I could see a difference. They almost seem sharper. Since there is so much digital work these days I wonder if that sharpness is what makes them look old, because the color is pretty normal.
The better pictures came from the cuter camera. I am not sure if that is because I favored it, or if it really has a better lens. I really like it though. Even as just an object. The buttons are in all different places: you wind it on the bottom left and the shutter is next to the lens! Plus it is all rounded.
It is hard to be a beginner at something again, and to know I am probably cliche, akward etc. But at the same time it is very exciting. Almost all of my exposures were relatively correct (both cameras are meter-less rangefinders) which, despite there being few correctly exposed pictures I cared for, did give me something to be proud of.

I actually would like to photograph this again- I like the idea more than the picture. It is this row of shacks, and at the end this entirely free standing door in the place of a gate. It just looks so odd.

Last night we went on a midnight ridazz bike ride through downtown. It was excellent. Exciting to feel safe on the street and just to be with so many people in a moving mass. The only downside was the frequent breaks (well 3) apparently to smoke out. I was having so much fun riding that I was sorry to stall around.
The second stop we descended on a Shell station outside downtown. We were there for a while when the Shell tanker truck pulled up. Poor guy, he had people climbing all over the truck, trying to reach in a blow the horn. He could barely move. The people started yelling "we don't need your gas." I never imagined that I would feel bad for a gas man.
If I had no sympathy at all I probably would have thought the pirates (yes, most were in costume) climbing up the ladder on the back of the truck was pretty amusing. I did feel like I was watching some punk version of peter pan. I can ride, I can ride!!
Eventually Maury and I got tired of waiting and took off on our own. And promptly got lost. However downtown was magical and quiet and almost devoid of cars.
We did stop and ask for directions but I totally could not concentrate since the woman was convincingly dressed as medussa. So we got lost again. We spent more that three hours riding the bikes.
Today, after our ritual Saturday morning Hong-Kong-style-Kung-Fu-calisthenics with our land lady (I have to get picture of this) I pretty much crashed out.
Two more cameras (I bought of ebay for like 10$) arrived though, so tomorrow after I work on sketches I am going to try and test them. They are both rangefinders and my brain is struggling to remember how to calculate exposures, let alone distances. geez. Amazingly film is nowhere to be found. I can't believe how quickly it disappeared.

video from when we rode through the tunnel

this is just a break- but you can see how rowdy we were. And this is before jump-roping started. Also mauricio has a cute cameo.