Griffith Park Blog » Everyone’s a Photographer

Want to take good pictures?

Donna Barstow — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:15:56 +0000

If you like the photos you see on this blog, most were by me, with my little Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1K 5MP Compact Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) that I fell in love with! Even though it’s not the blue color I wanted! What’s not to like about the long lens, shooting styles, nice sharp focus…

I still love it. Not that I wouldn’t also love an SLR digital Nikon for Christmas, but, you know? Much to be grateful for. I went to Fry’s a month or so ago to look at new cameras, and the guy there said I still had one of the best, 2 years later!

And Amazon is offering the new Lumix DMC-ZS3 , now updated, with an even longer lens, for Black Friday week.

Shoot, can’t get the Amazon pic to show up here at all. If you can see the ad on the right, it’s the black camera at the bottom. Anyway, here’s the link for Black Friday stuff. (which lasts all week)

Taking good photos is how I get through the sludge!

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You could hug a Dalai today.

Rainbow over Atwater! And other celestial happenings.

Donna Barstow — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:44:51 +0000

The rain, one day’s worth on Monday, made LA a little more beautiful. Within a few minutes I took both pictures. The first is fog shrouding the top of Griffith Park, making it look like some exotic European country. You can’t even see the ugly ugly hillsides, the same soylent green that they’ve been for over a year and a half now.

(The idea was to stop non-native weeds from growing – they sprayed gunk on with helicopters. Okay, good intention, but it only works if we get rid of all the bad non-native plants already in the park. Any progress report on that, people? In our meetings, I was told it was by volunteers. All 800 acres. Sure would like to know how that is going, and more, how to get rid of this crappy green that isn’t helping anything.)

Broody, moody clouds over Griffith Park hills.

The bottom photo is a rainbow I spotted 5 minutes later! For some inexplicable reason, it bypassed the Americana in Glendale, just behind it – perhaps feeling it’s as boring as I do – and went straight to a modest house in Atwater. (I’m only guessing – perhaps there are riches within.)

These are on top of my great excitement to spot two shooting stars over Silver Lake late Saturday night! I couldn’t find any information about it at Griffith Observatory… and why, may I ask? Why does our huge observatory not have celestial events listed? So I called them, and the operator looked it up in Google, instead.

Space.com explains:

This week brings us what usually is considered to be the most satisfying of all the annual meteor displays, even surpassing the famous Perseids of August: the December Geminid Meteor Shower.

And Moxie saw them in Hollywood, too!

Rainbows and puppies enter Atwater.

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Great horned owls invade Los Feliz for Thanksgiving.

Donna Barstow — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:48:59 +0000

Thanksgiving in Los Feliz

I always look forward to major holidays in Los Angeles because it gets quiet! Even the freeways. All the roads. The quietest time of any week is Sunday evening, but holidays are blanketed as if we had the snow we never get.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, was that quiet. So quiet, that some of the wildlife got overexcited. Did those people LEAVE finally? It was only 6 PM, just an hour after sunset, when I heard two Great Horned Owls singing a duet outside my window!

This is NOT a great horned owl! It’s a Snowy Owl from Zurich, from Tambako the Jaguar. He’s at Flickr, and this is from Creative Commons. This is the BEST place to get photos by permission, instead of using Google images, which STEALS images all the time.

If you hear an owl anywhere in northeast LA, there’s a 99% chance it’s a Great Horned Owl. You probably won’t be able to see it, but the call is distinctive – WHO (pause) who who – so that once you’ve heard it you’ll remember it. The rhythm is compelling, and I feel that before the sound, like a jungle drum beating in Silver Lake.

When I lived on Vermont, just a block down from Griffith Park, I heard them all the time. In Silver Lake, a mile away, not so much, but a few times a year. So it was funny to hear them on Thanksgiving so early!

Of course then a rowdy family, 20 or 30 people, came down the street and they were gone. But later on, I heard them (the owls, not the people) near the 7-11 on Hyperion. They were having a great time, exploring new places in the hood.

Thanksgiving for vegetarians

In other bird news , I skipped turkey this year, and had a nice plate of salmon instead. I just don’t feel right anymore, celebrating a holiday where an obscenely obese bird is lying dead on the table, and is supposed to represent something good.

The Times had a good article here:

Not only do animal welfare activists abhor the killing of the birds, they take offense at the traditional ritual of making fun of the bird, even the presidential pardoning of the turkey on the grounds of the White House — “as if the turkey had committed some crime,” scoffed one.

Get this:

The federal Humane Slaughter Act, which governs how animals are killed, does not protect poultry — which constitute 95% of animals killed for food.

“People are shocked when they find out that chickens and turkeys are exempt from the humane laws,” said Dawn, whose recent book, “Thanking the Monkey — Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals,” touches on the gruesome details of slaughter.

I’m not a vegetarian, or a vegan, but this just makes sense to me.

More resources for owls

I did a popular cartoon for Slate about a Tofu Thanksgiving. Below are some 3-D pictures of owls, and the only Great Horned Owl Bird Guide on Amazon about Great Horned Owls! (Disclosure: I get a few cents, only if you buy something from Amazon.)

How cute is this snowy owl toy!

I found my fave: the Robin!

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Squirrel conquers Silver Lake AND the DWP.

Donna Barstow — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:37:43 +0000

Yes, that is a squirrel on the electric tower. He’s King of the World! Or at least, of Silver Lake.

I rarely see squirrels in Los Angeles. I’m not saying they’re an endangered species, but they’re nowhere near as common as skunks, or even coyotes around here. Back east they’re everywhere. (But I miss chipmunks much more!/whine.)

This guy is living life dangerously, as he is vulnerable to the many hawks we have in these hills. Does he think his trying to wrap his tail around the post, which isn’t quite long enough to even wrap properly, will keep him from flying off in a hawk’s talons? Oh well, LA attracts thousands of people who want to be actors, so optimism is a good quality here.

Yes, DWP, we know the tower is HIGH. Thanks for the sign.

Stay safe, squirrel.

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Two free things to do this weekend.

Donna Barstow — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:18:44 +0000

I liked this juxtaposition of the burned land in gp, and the lush river. Bring your camera!

And for very little gas money! (This part works better if you’re me.) I can see a glimpse of the LA River from where I live, and have been asking friends for YEARS if they want to go down in there with me, but there were no takers. It looks foreboding, cementy and maybe a little dangerous from a distance. The sliding slopes look distressing, like you could roll a body down there and no one’s the wiser. Not to mention all the pictures I’ve seen of ugly graffiti, trash, dead animals, etc.

I’ve always thought of it like the tag line from Alien : No one can hear you scream in ~~outer space~~ the LA River.

Now that I’ve whetted your appetite…

I want to urge you to try it out this weekend. Because I conquered my trepidations last month and went down there! The occasion was a group effort of Friends of Los Angeles River and the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council; a clean up day. There was ugly graffiti, but not where we were. It was calm, and pretty, and felt very very safe right next to the golf course. It was nice seeing the water, and next time I’ll get closer. It was hot. Really really really hot. It’s a channel, after all. But it looked like there was a little shade on the other side.

I’m not going to link to FoLAR, as for some reason their site crashed my computer twice, but they are certainly a worthy, hardworking group, and I plan to take one of their tours soon. I’ve had Nature Trumps on my blogroll almost since the beginning, however, and his work, writing, and photos are outstanding. He was doing God’s good work. How he put up with Garcetti’ disgusting do-nothing attitude about problems there is amazing to me. Unfortunately, Jay left last month to go to NYC and do more good work.

Nice view from the garage. Bring your camera!

The other free place to go is the Americana in Glendale, the mall by developer Rick Caruso, who gave us the Grove. Well, I don’t think the Grove is all that, like some people do. I mean, they make it an adventure, or something. The Farmer’s Market there is what it has always been, great for people-watching, and some good food. I like the layout of the stores at the Mall, the theatre, and it never feels too crowded. And it’s festive at Christmas.

But what was Mr. Caruso thinking when he set up the Americana? First of all, I have no idea what the name is supposed to mean. Second, how pushy to build a mall RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Galleria, which has been there for ages. Third, who in their right mind would want to live on top of stores at a mall? The Times puff piece says,

…the developer of an extravagant Glendale shopping center is betting big that luxury stays in fashion.

I couldn’t find any report on how they’re doing, but luxury stores? In Glendale? Houses don’t go for that much around there. I would never think of Glendale as connected with luxury. I want to go to the Tiffany store to window-shop, as it was closed when I was there, and I did go in the Kate Spade store looking for her perfume. I had tried it several times in Sephora, but when I finally decided to buy, they no longer sold it. You know what THAT’S like, ladies, so I did buy the perfume. The store was empty except for my friend and I.

Melinda is quite an excited shopper, and she had gone to the Americana 3 times in the first 2 weeks (“but one visit was really quick.”) We both liked browsing in Anthropology (or Urban Outfitters – what’s the diff?) I went in Kiehl’s to buy some lip gloss, and it was fun to have things in person to look at, instead of online. We walked around and got hot. No interesting restaurants that I saw, and the train seems to go only a few yards, not enough to bother getting on. The big crowds were at the cheaper stores. There was a huge line at a woman’s clothing store that looks like Forever 21, but it’s not.

Someone else gets bored shopping, too.

I guess my favorite part was the nice new garage, which has a lot of open windows, and I could see gp, even in the smog! Chris Erskine is usually somewhat amusing, but he couldn’t pull it off with the story of his overnight stay there. Ugh. Peter Viles talks more about the condos, and a lot of commenters wonder about them.

I would go back again and combine it with a trip to the Galleria next door.

Go forth, and make your own snap judgments.

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Waiting for Angel Bats in Griffith Park.

Donna Barstow — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:38:15 +0000

This is a preview of my Upcoming Attraction blog post on: Hunting bats in Griffith Park!

That alone is probably enough to get your blood boiling, but one of my fellow bat hunters, Gerry Hans, co-chair of the PROS committee, noticed something else, or 2 something elses, in his bat searching area. I’m not sure I would have seen these toads myself (though I hope I would have. Did I ever mention that I have night blindness? Oh, yes, tripping over every tent spike in Girl Scout camp, that is me. But of course that has NOTHING to do with why I like bats.)

Photo by Gerry Hans. Toad climbs tree, may fall down.

Photo by Gerry Hans. Another toad also tries a tree run. Best of luck to both of them.

Here’s what Gerry had to say:

I saw three different toads in Brush Canyon when we were there doing bat survey. Two of them were climbing up the very steep bank on south side of road, about 200-400 ft above Dan’s herp study spot. It was fun watching them climb. The big one fell and started over a couple times. Here’s a shot of each of the climbers. They were about 50 ft from each other, doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. Taken with flash ~ 10 pm, July 2.

(He is referring to Dan Cooper‘s animal searches from BioBlitz. I’m still really sorry I missed them, but that weekend was BookExpo.)

For the bat hunt & survey, there were about 15 volunteers, and we split up into small groups and went to various sections of the park with our Anabat recorders. These recorders pick up everything over 30 decibels, which is about the highest humans can hear. (not sure if I got that number correct, but you get the point.) Most of us didn’t see any bats. None of us heard them. But the recorders chirped anyway.

The quotation, “entertaining angels unawares,” kept coming to mind, so I looked it up:

Heb 13:2
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

I shall call these Angel Bats, and you may want to, too. More details to come.

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Water my plants while I’m gone, while you’re at it.

Donna Barstow — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:48:11 +0000

I’ve made so many new friends through blogging this year, and it is especially nice to get readers’ comments and emails. It’s great to hear from real people, instead of spam, or long chain letters.

I’ll be going on holiday for a couple of weeks. Could one of you please water my plants while I’m gone?

Pink geraniums do well here. Click for best image. (Contributed by a fellow cartoonist.)

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Fountain of youth in Fern Dell?!

Silver Lake herons in an alternate universe.

Donna Barstow — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:18:51 +0000

Another Silver Lake, another heron. Photo COPYRIGHT by the talented Michael S. Palmer. Michael took this in St Helens, WA. But I can see snow mountains like this (for a few weeks a year) in Silver Lake, and if they leave the Meadow alone, this could be slk soon, if dwp does what it PROMISED!

Because I usually hum along with the sing-song voices in my head, I don’t always pay attention to what the outside world is doing. For instance, I was delighted to find the signs about missing herons along the fence of slk one night, and went back to take pictures a couple of days later. It turns out I’m not the only blogger who noticed these. From CurbedLA:

Fresh drama in the battle over Silver Lake meadow! As noted, the decision to open the meadow around Silver Lake reservoir was decried by some residents who wanted to keep the area human-free and coyote-abundant. Now these flyers (pictured above) have appeared around the west side of the reservoir. What do herons have to do with the meadow opening? One member of the Committee to Save Silver Lake’s Reservoir (which supports opening the meadow), accuses “Save the Meadow” advocates of using the heron issue–it’s on next week’s agenda before the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Governing Board–as a way to stop the meadow opening. This is getting nasty. (sic)

Does anyone else think CurbedLA likes a little bit of nasty? I notice some of their commenters are racist, as in anti-white, like this one:

You are an asshole, and I wish you were standing in front of me so that I could smack you across your smug, white face.

Dakota’s post goes on to quote a letter from CSSLR to the slk Neighborhood Council.

…Two “Save the Meadow” advocates have encouraged their cohorts to attend the meeting and support the motion. They have also posted several “Missing: Great Blue Herons” signs on the fence near the old heron nests on WSLD. The rules to protect birds are that construction cannot take place within 300 feet of active nests, 500 feet from raptor nests… The Eucalyptus Grove is considerably further than that from the construction, which started before the heron nesting season began anyway.

Another Silver Lake, near St. Helens, WA! Photo COPYRIGHT by Michael S. Palmer.

I agree with the last part: it was the EMPTY reservoir that caused the herons to go missing.

But the CSSLR is obviously a site with an agenda, writing that a sign about herons (that dwp chased away) involves slk “cohorts” trying to stop their beloved park from opening. Frankly, I’m surprised that CurbedLA considers CSSLR reputable enough to quote. But it’s the title of Dakota’s post that is weird: Fake Heron Group Trying To Block Silver Lake Meadow Opening?

Huh? The heron sign is obviously innocent of the Meadow shenanigans. The photographer is J. M. Harrison, and it was posted, not surprisingly, at the street corners of Hawick and West Silverlake Drive. Doesn’t sound like propaganda to me. The pictures (two different photos on 2 signs) were obviously taken at least a year ago.

Yet another commenter noted:

Last night when I was walking around the reservoir I noticed that these Missing Great Blue Herons signs are still there but now have white notes pasted over them stating that this is misleading and propaganda. Made me smile and think of this thread… Nice job somebody!

I guess that’s why they were taken down just a couple days after I spotted them. Nice smear campaign, CSSLR, whoever you are.

But what happened to the photographer, J. M. Harrison? Is he or she as lost as the heron families? Alley, alley oops in free. I really hate to see a photographer sullied with homeowner politics.

The original heron sign, before it was defaced by slk bandits.

I looked for images of herons on Google, thinking hers might pop up with clues, but instead I found this OTHER Silver Lake Heron! Not our Silver Lake, however, nor our herons. But you know what, this could be us in a few years, if dwp gets up off its arse and gives us what it promised several years ago. There’s a 700 page report buried in the LADWP website, for your reading pleasure, and it includes plans to turn slk and Ivanhoe into wetlands!!

dwp, and your new prince of darkness, H. David Nahai, we have your promise in writing. Now, will you deliver, or are we going to have to come up there and get you? (That’s not a threat, is it?)

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