Reader Photo: Best of Southern California Moments for May 2014
Everyone says the weather is the same all year in Southern California, but those of us who live here know better than that. We know how to tell the seasons apart and we know that May is perhaps the finest month to live in SoCal. The deserts aren’t too hot yet, the beaches are just warm enough and in the city, the jacarandas are in bloom.
This month’s photos start off in the desert, with David Sanden’s outstanding time lapse of the night sky at Joshua Tree National Park. Apparently this was his first attempt at shooting star trails, and the image was made from 209 separate 30-second exposures, but he goes into more detail about the process on the photo’s Flickr page.
Photography isn’t always about fancy techniques though; sometimes it’s about what’s right in front of you. Our next two images are examples of that, with Pablo Unzueta’s image of a woman holding her handcrafted bracelets up to the photographer’s lens, and -- possibly one of my favorite photos of the month -- a row of vacuum cleaners up for sale on a sidewalk in Panorama City by Tim Melideo. You really never know what you’re going to find when driving or walking around in the city.
There was also a juxtaposition I appreciated in this month’s images, one of a skater performing a trick at a skate park by Wade Hewitt, and the other of a person in silhouette captured mid-leap by Rinzi Ruiz. Both images are from Venice Beach, one in black and white and one in color, and it’s interesting to see the similar, yet different approaches the two photographers take. Freezing objects or actions, especially in mid-air, always seems to really emphasize the magic of photography and it’s ability to preserve a moment that we may not perceive as it flies right in front of us.
Feel as if there’s a photo I left out, or one that doesn’t belong in the set? Sound off in the comments. See you next month.
Submit your photos here or to our Flickr group. You can also hashtag your photos #SoCalMoments on Instagram or Twitter.
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