Yosemite and snow

Came out of Fresno (where?) and headed up highway 41 on Dec 27. Had no idea the highway was closed all day on Dec 26 cuz of a huge storm.

Figured it out when the nice sherrif said I needed chains to go any further. $80.00 later I had non returnable chains from Kragens rip off auto store.

The panoramic is a 360 degree view of the valley from Sentinel Bridge area. 12 photos stitched in photoshop. Shot with a tripod, Canon 5d, 20-35 canon lens. So easy.

The trees on the each side of the photo are the same trees!

My old tennis club

I cannot help obsessing over the "products" my old tennis club has in the locker room. Now, this is a nice club. First class in most ways. Cept when it comes to "products". Oh, we have some real goodies. Names from old time commercials you haven't seen in years. Skin Bracer after shave. Clubman special reserve. Lilac vegetal with "masculine fragrance".
Scope - handwritten in pen.
Vitalis hair tonic--- what is hair tonic?
Brylcream hair groom-- a little dab'll do ya.

I love the fancy tennis club.

Philberon.com

Big green prefab house

Built a big prefab architectural green house.
Got it into a fancy magazine as the Wired home of the year. Many parties. Cool gadgets.

Green green green. Recycled this and solar that.

Built in a factory and put into place by a big crane.

Adrien grenier had a dinner party there when done.

blah blah blah


It is a really cool house though. Ray Kappe was the architect and it had a lot of fanfare.

Greg and Doria are living there. I get to do yoga on the poured concrete floors and make a latte in the cool built in latte maker.

Hard to imagine the house was airlifted by crane piece by piece. Each 50,000 pound module was craned 100 feet in the air.









Green as can be. The wood on the ceiling is recycled cedar and the wood on the outside is recycled redwood from a bridge in the Pacific NW.

The kitchen is by Valcucine and is pretty space age cool. Needs a few more cabinets though. Best part is the kitchen faces the back yard and is zen master peaceful.





I was thinking about it today and how (at times) it was so much fun to build this house. At times.

Medical photos

People always seem fascinated by the medical photos. Why? Could be the images take us into a place we don't normally see.

Or we are fascinated with the body. Or we cannot believe the reality of what can happen to a person when sick.

Or it is just cool to see humans in picture form - in cat scan form - with stuff that is hard to imagine for healthy people.

Take our friend up above. He is likely a smoker. The pure black areas are his lungs. On the right side of the picture there is a big gray mass taking up a large portion of the lung. That is a lung cancer.

This is not a non smoking blog but it couldn't hurt to quit--right now! Please.


Brain tumors tend to scare us - a lot.
And with pretty good reason. The brain does not like to be messed with in terms of pushing, crowding, pressure, anything. Our next patient has a problem most people can see without my explanation. It is a large white mass in the center of his brain.



Here is another view of the same patient. Believe it or not, there is really not much pain - rather brain functions start going haywire and that is what brings it to our attention.

Poor balance, forgetting, falling, personality changes, weakness in an arm, seizure, so many things could happen here.





Thought I'd change it up a little and come down the body to the pelvis. Male pelvis. See those dark spots? That outline is the prostate. And those dark spots are tiny metal radioactive seeds that we put in there to kill the cancer cells in the prostate.

Mighty effective treatment. Outpatient procedure and in the right person is 85-90% curative. .

Hope you learned a little and thought my little medical venture was fun or fascinating or whatever f word is appropriate.

Walt Disney Concert Hall Shines

I haven't been in a snappy (as in pictures) mood lately. But I feel remiss if I"m not blogging with a few photos so I dug into the 2008 archive tonite.

I went downtown to the railroad tracks in the fall with my friend and we shot the trains, the tracks, the graffiti. We stood on the tracks like idiots thinking we'd get "the shot".


We got some damn impressive very average shots. Very average.




On the way back I decided to drive by the Walt Disney Hall - always a cool place to stare and wonder. You might wonder what crack pipe Frank Gehry was smoking when he dreamed this place up. Or you might wonder how they made it so shiny.






I was there when they were building it. And I was there when they were putting the shiny skin on the wild, skewed beams. Back then I had a thing for construction sites - I still do-- and this one was so Dr. Seuss. Crazy angles, impossibly curved girder beams, shiny metal.


These guys were the happiest workers. Posing for us and smiling and all around good guys. Imagine that!






















So we spent some time taking pictures of the shiny metal. I hadn't looked at them since. Forgot about them. But the shiny metal is really beautiful and I thought you should see it.

Prop 8 demonstration down Wilshire

It was one of those days where I just was trying to get home in LA traffic on some side roads thru Westwood. Coming up Ohio I ran into a blockade at Westwood Blvd. Got off my Vespa to take a look cuz I saw tons of cops and tons of people. Hmmmm, wish I had my Canon 5D and not just my iphone. But my iphone is all I had. So click on each pic and it will look way better, bigger, and more interesting. Promise.

The crowd was loud and so were the motorcycles, helicopters, and boatloads of sirens. I had wandered into the response of the community to the Yes vote on Proposition 8 banning gay marriage. I was so upset when this BS passed and these people were even more upset and it was an incredible sight.

But then the crowd moved on toward the Wilshire and Westwood intersection and before I knew it there were tons more police showing up. And I mean tons more. Imperial storm troopers coming down the road.

As the crowd passed the boys in blue moved in fast. They were doing an excellent job of crowd control and it was tough. Tons of traffic on Westwood Blvd and thousands of people. They were not fooling around.



And as the crowd crept closer to Wilshire you could sense the excitement of the crowd. The chanting was louder "equal rights NOW".



I looked back up Westwood Blvd and
saw this.
Hard to see but behind the
CHIPS are a battalion of police and a healthy supply of police cars and some special fellows. Click on the pic and you can see the multitudes of cops behind the bikes.

These guys showed up next and I started thinking this was gonna get real interesting real fast.

This was the scene as I got to Wilshire Blvd.


It was chaos for a while. The police had the intersection blocked off. There was not really a good place for the crowd to go. And you could tell where they wanted to go. They wanted Wilshire Blvd so bad. You could start to hear the calls out loud. "We want Wilshire, We want Wilshire".
Then they just started going for it. And once it started there was no stopping it. It was damn impressive.



I had to walk in support and take pics ---very fun and inspirational all in one.






















All of a sudden the crowd had to stop. LAPD put up a serious roadblock on Wilshire and the crowd was jammed against a line of motorcyles and police on bicycles. And they were not giving an inch. No one got thru.


They were patient - both the police and the crowd. No one was rude and no one got hurt that I saw. But they were not going to let one person pass. And there were a lot of people to control.



Even the police had to videotape the incredible sight. And still no one got thru. Until one man came up on the police truck and spoke into the megaphone. And he said some cool words to the crowd.


He said he had just spoken with the Mayor. And the police were going to move the motorcycles and everyone was going to march right up Wilshire all peacful like. The mayor said so. The mayor said it was OK..

And damn if the motorcycles and police didn't just move away - without a word of protest. And it was so cool and so peaceful and so happy. Horns were honking in support and that made everyone yell and yell and yell.



Not sure who this guy is and what he's doing on Wilshire in the yellow suit/thing but I love the fact that he thinks there is some great pics to be had and I think he is a great pic to be had.

Who are you?



Oooohhhh we are getting close to my neighborhood. How cool. Wish I could just walk home when I was done here, but my Vespa is way way way back down the road.

As the crowd moved further into Beverly Hills I started my journey back to the bike. And Wilshire going East was empty. It had been closed down for the heroes of the story and it was bizzare to see no cars going East and bumper to bumper going west.

Until I saw something else weird coming my way. As if there wasn't enough already happening to keep me precoccupied.

I heard it first - it was loud. And then I saw another boatload of police cars coming fast down Wilshire- all with sirens blaring--loud.

This was the final pic. My iphone was giving up for the day. I am proud of my iphone cuz I asked a lot of it today.

Every car and every light coming at us in the picture is a cop car with lights on and sirens wailing. Blow it up- click on it and it looks great.

Kind of a cool end to a meaningful evening.

Fun driving home from Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes California

What do you get when you combine some photos taken in a speeding car, corrupt digital files, and plenty of photoshop?

You get these.

I've driven to Mammoth a lot. Just love to ski and that mountain rocks. I took these a couple of years ago while my buddy was driving and I was bored. It's a 5 hour drive and after the first two everyone gets a little bored. Till we remember why we are going!

Honestly these pictures were a little flat. And when I opened two of them they were corrupted with that boxish stuff on the lower half. Uncool.

So I used apply image, curves, highlite shadow, gradient, some masking, and these came out. On the funky one in the middle I filled in the sky with a custom jelly brush I made. How to make the brush is in Sept 08 Photoshop User magazine. Something different anyway. They used it to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Feel free to leave a comment on these. I'm not sure these are good, bad, or whatever--but they were fun to make.

Not as much fun as actually skiing on Mammoth Mountain!

Ferris Wheels make all the difference

After a long day I decided to write a post and wax prophetic. But after trying to find a serious, good picture my mind kept saying "keep it light" and "not so serious tonite".

My searching the crazy organization of my hard drive led me to Ferris wheels at night on the Santa Monica Pier. Perfect for the mood I"m about tonite. Nothing says lighten up and don't take yourself so seriously like a Ferris wheel.

Hard to hate your neighbor if you're sitting next to him on a ferris wheel. Hard to be in a funk with your GF if you're riding in a ferris wheel. Hard to argue politics if your flying high in a ferris wheel.

But it sure is easy to relax, smile, laugh out loud, be in awe, and enjoy on one.

As always, click the pic to make it real big. Bigger is better when it comes to ferris wheels!

New York City skyline 3 different ways

The view from the Reebok Center on the 67th floor is not one I get to enjoy that often. But I did for 4 nites last year when a trio of us from LA went to conquer the NY triathlon.

One of my very connected friends scored us a sweet pad with views like these and of Central Park. Heaven for the tripod shooter in all of us.

The in focus colored one will join the subway trains from the next post on the wall of the Perfect Exposure Gallery in LA for a Dec 6th opening. Yeah!

Yes, we all finished the triathlon. I've not done one since. But will again.

All shots taken with a Canon 5D on a tripod with a 70-200 2.8 IS lens.
Plenty of photoshop of course.

BTW, Scott Kelby is coming to LA Dec 4 for his lightroom tour. Not to be missed if you want to learn a ton from the man who writes the books.

New York City subway trains

The US Open is one of the greatest events to attend. Period.

Little did I realiize the US Open would be responsible for my most popular picture.

As I was walking in to the Open from the train in Flushing Meadows I spied this scene looking over the bridge between Shea Stadium and The Open.

I made a mental note to take a picure on the way back. My friends and I were in a hurry and they would have been n no mood to wait while I whipped out my camera.

On the way back turned out to be almost midnite. I feared the shot would be gone since it was so dark. At that time I was shooting with a Sony digital that had a night infrared setting. I clicked off two shots.

The response to the picture has been so great. This picture will hang in the Perfect Exposure Gallery exhibit starting November 6 and into January.

I'm told by a New Yorker that you can tell which train is which by the shape of the window in the front. Round vs that odd shape. More on this later.

Yellowstone National Park

Sometimes when your heading for the picture you think will be "the one" you stumble into another picture you end up liking better.

My friend Andrew and I were hiking in Yellowstone to a famous spot call the Grand Prismatic.

We had finished shooting when Andrew dove into this meadow and I saw a wonderful opportunity.

Click on the picture to blow it up and see how rich the grass is and how cool Andrew looks.

Selective focus, good sunlight, interesting place.

Yellowstone rocks.

Santa Monica Pier at nite

I found myself in Santa Monica the other nite having dinner with an old friend. I brought my Canon 5D and a tripod thinking "maybe, just maybe after dinner I'll take a few nite shots" I've been thinking about nite shots since looking at Julia Deans's class roster and wanting to take the cool nite class offered tonite of all times. But can't take the class-got other stuff.

Decided to hit the pier and see what or who was there. Quite a few fisherman, one angry man, a worker who didn't like my tripod (too bad), couples kissing, gangs, tourists--you get the idea.

The picture was facing north and set on aperture priority at f11 about 10 sec exposure. Little fussing in lightroom and PS3.

Hey, don't miss lulurose's blog for great pics and some true entertainment. Click here.

Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson is the guest writer for Scott Kelby today. He is such a fantastic photographer and teacher I thought you might like to read what he has to say.

Here is the link.

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1659#comments

I mean, come on, he is after all a Canon Explorer of Light. I think that means he's damn good and it sounds really cool too.

A new trick

Mobile blogging! Sent from my iPhone. Very cool.



Philip Beron 

Philberon.com

 310-709-4604

It's raining

and because it's raining it reminds me of living in Michigan where I grew up.  Since it rained so much we had to modify our lives around the sun. When the sun came out we scampered outside as long as possible; we just never knew how long sunshine would last.

Bad weather can be a great thing; it makes me much more productive.  I never would have made it through medical school with high marks if the beach was 2 miles away--as it is for UCLA.

In California I have the opposite problem.  We are outside all the time.  We have to look for reasons to get stuff done inside. 

That is why I smiled when I woke up today and it was raining.  I just knew I'd be getting stuff done today.

To honor Michigan todays photo is from West Bloomfield.  Just off the side of the  Drake Road.

I used selective focus.  In photoshop I converted to LAB color and used apply image to pop the greens.  This was followed by a medium shadow hilite filter.

Best reasons to visit and photograph Israel

Well, there are a lot of reasons to visit Israel.  Here's a few of mine followed by a photo from a helicopter above Jerusalem.

1. You'll meet some great people
2. You will feel like a part of history
3. You will be where so much history has happened
4. Strange and beautiful coincidences happen every day
5. Terrific light
6. Awfully interesting landscape, people, culture
7. You'll probably discover something good about yourself

This photo was taken from a helicopter above the old city as we went up to the Golan Heights.  You can see the Rock of the Dome, the Western Wall, the perimeter wall of the Old City (at bottom), and the sheer density.  

How to get this shot:

Rent a helo and take a boatload of pictures and hope one comes out.

Monday tid bit

Would you like to fix your photos in photoshop and make them sizzle?  Check out NAPP-the national association of photoshop professionals.

The chief editor and main guru is Scott Kelby and just about everything he does pretty much rocks.  He can teach so well and his books are some of the best selling on Amazon.  Check out his blog right here.

You can get to some great sites from his blog.

Since we are talking about photoshop I added an obviously photoshopped pic..  This is a street performer from Barcelona.  I originally shot her against a brick wall.  I added her to a simple product background that Scott Kelby taught us to make in about thirty seconds.  It doesn't always have to be so hard.  Thanks Scott.

A vision

I've been told by so many that I need to focus in one area-become an expert in one thing.  Trouble is I'm pretty good at lots of things and not great at any one.  Been that way my whole life-in business, art, sports, you name it.  

I was just told this again by Aline Smithson (see above post) regarding my photo website philberon.com.  Her completely correct point is that my photos are scattered in content and I have no consistent bodies of work.

I've gotten to this point because so much interests me and I hate to be bored.  I went from landscape to homeless people to fashion to macro.  And I love it all! But this process does not serve me any longer.

Going forward I will concentrate on a few bodies of work.  Watch for them.  It can only make me a better photographer.

Todays photo I took in Santa Fe NM.  I saw this scene from the car and had to have it.  I wizzed into a dirt parking lot.  Aimed at the bewildered young boy, fired, and left.  Had to.

My first post

I believe one great photo or one great fun idea learned is worth so much.  Therefore,  this blog will attempt to bring to you one of the above each day (or as often as I can manage).

I'll share cool photographer's sites, great gear, contests, classes--whatever I feel will be of use to you or fun for you.

Let's get started.

I'm taking Aline Smithson's fine art class at Julia Dean School of Photography in Venice CA.  Aline is a gifted teacher and world class photographer.  Check her out at alinesmithson.com

The photo on the right was taken in Jerusalem and is a fence encircling a huge construction site.  The woman is a famous actor.  Or cardboard.  Yeah, cardboard.

See ya soon.