8 days in a week...

...well 8 days in LA.


 So I've finally finished looking through the thousands of photos from my brief visit to LA, and decided to split it up into 4 posts...


We finished up in lake arrowhead, with a pleasant breakfast, and a whole bunch of goodbyes; before driving back down to the city.

beautiful hills

just a little too-cold for a swim

the big red car

fog in the valley

yup, you don't want to block! a fire-road

sitting back here in Australia - looking over these photos - I realise, I MISS MOUNTAINS!




We made it back to the city, and I dropped Miguel at his hotel, before traveling to my new accommodation, and prepping for a week of touristy-stuff.

First-up, a local-ish Steadicam equipment manufacturer was having their open-day; so I headed north to the GPI-PRO factory to have a little sticky-beak and see some different equipment.

Had a great time, flying a totally different set-up to what I'd been practicing with all week; meeting some new people, and even bumping into another steadi-student (chewy). 

We headed down to santa-monica to try out "the best burgers/beers" in LA.

I got to play-up the ol' aussie accent, making it much easier to meet new-people and share their table in the over-crowded little bar/restaurant/pub/what-would-you-call-it?

The beers were great (dark-chocolate beer? I'm there!), the sweet-potatoe-fries were awesome, and the burger was indeed, spectacular... sadly I've completely forgotten the name of the place (isn't that always the way?)

Spent a day of recovery on the sunday, then made a quick set-visit to a TVC on monday, before catching a couple of films = weirdest self-made double-bill ever. Jiro dreams of sushi (doco) at an upper-class art-house theatre followed by the amazingly patriotic (and idiotic) Act of Valour at the B-movie theatre down the road...


Tuesday was spent, driving around, and hitting up some museums/tourist hot-spots.

the old Grauman's Chinese Theatre, downtown Hollywood baby.

the old Kodak (no, wait, it's the Dolby) theatre...

natural history museum of LA

with fighter-jets indoors...

...and one of the Apollo capsules

view-port

small piece of moon-rock

replica of the wright-brothers first flying machine

contrasted by a full-size jet outside

had a Philly cheese-steak under the colourful pepsi billboard, before going dino-hunting...

...I guess this'll have to do

these here americans love them some dino-saurs

even the little ones

grrrr (you better believe I had that sound running through my head while looking at all the dangerous, yet strangely anorexic creatures)

the museum is big on making it seem like the only thing dinosaurs did was attack each-other. What about the quiet moments of contemplation?

I guess it was up to the mammoths to do all the standing and posing.

...and the bears

...and the antelope

...and the elephants. Damn - did any of the "wildlife" round here do anything other than stop and look?

...thank-you mr honey-badger; much like the anteater - he just don't give a f#ck.




So that's part one of four. I know what you're thinking; that was a piss-poor re-cap...

Ummmm... it's been a while and I don't remember details that well anymore. Look, just focus on the pretty pictures and it'll be fine.


Part two up soon - it's got more mammoths

nine-years...

...of sunrise photos


here's the latest batch



obligatory driving shot






mt coot-tha view

first-light







may 3rd 2012






through-the-view-finder






my pick of the bunch






brisbane sky-line






looking to the South-East






heading home

Bonus - Video of the shoot.

as an extra-special bonus - from 2004



sunrise may 3rd 2004


Promise that I am working on a re-cap of my LA adventures, but for the moment - it's off to the bridge for a tour-guiding shift.

Ian

eewee...

...the steady?

been wrestling with how much detail I should go into, recounting my experiences at the Steadicam workshop.

my gut feeling is that too much detail will be boring for the vast majority of those who view the blog, so I'll just leave it at the following:

"it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I've found a skill that encompasses almost all of my interests (bio-mechanics, precision, intuition, etc) with a never-ending requirement for learning and self-improvement. I was born to do this"


lets move onto the photos.

before we pick-up on the snow, lets see what the view looked like on the ride up the mountains





ok, more snow - this is outside our dinner area





waking up the next morning revealed a few solid inches





guess we're not going to be using the pool anytime soon...





...or driving our cars anywhere





not because it'd be hard or dangerous, but it's so darn pretty: I wouldn't want to destroy it.





split 20 students into 5 groups, which we kept for the rest of the week





functional design can also be beautiful





pre-breakfast practice session





one of the communal vests (tape indicating length of Y-spar)





my group at work *(2 students act, one operates, and trainer supervises... while I kick back and watch) :)





Aim the camera at the cross (through the red "window") - now keep it there as you walk in/out





Ruben's got the tango; Garrett, the smoothee





Jerry plays with the tango





random night-time photo





Trainer Chris is so professional that even when the "actor" is completely sh!thouse, he's still on the ball...





Trainer Ruben demonstrates hand-dexterity (and cutlery abuse)





6th Annual Lake arrowhead Classic Steadicam Workshop class of 2012...

yep, it was life changing, and totally worth the expense, effort and planning to attend.

since landing yesterday morning, I've been photo-editing.

looks like I'll need at least 3 blog-posts (perhaps 4), to show my selects from the LA portion of my trip...

later