Some good fortune at the Tuesday morning lottery (about 350 people vie for 100 available selling spaces) afforded me a prime selling location on the Venice Beach Boardwalk this past weekend. It was a good two days- I learned a lot, made some new friends, and went home with a killer flip flop tan. On Sunday, I decided to take my camera with me in case anything caught my eye, and of course, a few things did . . .

First, there was Rhiannon, the artist who was set up next to me. She's been selling her original paintings and poetry at the boardwalk for several years now and couldn't imagine doing anything else. Using primarily paint knives, Rhiannon tediously compiles multiple layers of acrylic paint into beautiful, abstract, pieces of art that capture the gamut of human emotion. She mentioned that she is currently building a website for her artwork and I offered to snap a few shots for her to use . . .

Okay, so I caught her mid-sentence on this one, but I just love the light!

Conveniently, we wrapped Rhiannon's shoot just as the sun was setting . . . I wanted to capture more than just a beautiful sunset, I wanted to tell a story about what I was experiencing . . . and it began with the bike path. The bike path was directly behind my space; I had watched people ride their bikes back and forth all day, and it was finally time to capture them. Keeping my circular polarizer on, I bumped up the ISO, exposed for the sky and dropped my shutter speed to get the slightest motion blur.

After shooting the bike path, I noticed a sizable amount of seagull feathers strewn across the grassy knoll behind me. The feathers had caught my eye several times before . . . there seems to be an unusual amount of gull feathers throughout the grassy areas of Venice Beach- probably because of all the people that lounge, eat, and leave their scraps around there. One particular feather caught my eye; while some people were riding bikes, others were packing up from a long day of work and many had stopped to admire the sunset, this feather was fluttering in the grass- about to be blown away by the ocean breeze. I managed to grab a shot of it before it blew away- looking at the picture, you would never know there was a beautiful sunset taking place on the horizon. Oftentimes, the most beautiful stories are overlooked in pursuit of the obvious.

While I was photographing the feather, a fellow photographer was capturing the sunset. Nick, originally from Illinois, has been travelling the country and living out of his truck for quite some time. He's been staying at Venice for a couple weeks and is not sure when he's going to move on. While Nick thought that I was shooting the same shot as him, he didn't know that I had my wide angle lens at 16mm and that he was my subject! Thanks for being a good sport, Nick.

It was getting dark and I decided that I should probably pack my stuff up and get home. As I began pushing my cart to go back to my car, the bike path caught my eye again. I knew that there was enough available light to capture the bike path, but I was curious to see how much of the twilight and cityscape I would be able to get. With my aperture wide open, the ISO bumped as high as it would go and my shutter speed at 1/15 (the slowest that my ninja hands can reliably hold), I began clicking away. In doing so, a couple passing by stopped to look at me; the expression on their faces had, "why in the world is that guy taking pictures of nothing?" written all over it. I explained to them what I was doing and asked if they would be willing to step in and pose for me- they kindly obliged. Thank you, Danielle and Horace. Danielle- send me an email so I can mail you your pictures!

And, so, that concluded my picture taking for the day.

These are the first of many stories to be told. As I continue to sell my photography at Venice, I will attempt to capture the people and the stories that make Venice Beach so special. The more time that I spend at Venice, the more I am consumed by it. Although I do not call Venice my home, I feel at home there. For now, I am an outsider, but I know that with time, it will become a part of me, and I with it.

I once had a college professor teach that at the core of every human being is a desire to know and to be known. With my time spent at Venice, I seek to capture the sunsets and the feathers in the grass. I am particularly drawn to the feathers, feathers that have been blown from all corners of the earth and come to rest at the same place. Check back next week for some more stories . . .