Tag: Photography

May 5 – Quick desert escape before the Fair

Took the opportunity to escape to the desert house out on the Colorado River for a few days. It’s already hot enough in Parker, Arizona, to feel like summer. I wanted to relax a bit before the actual summer activities of the area begin–mainly boating, beaching, and day-drinking in the scorching hot sun. The area becomes a family vacationers and swimsuit-clad party animals looking to get tanked. I like to escape to the quiet.

We’ve been a part of this little desert community now since the early 1990s, when my grandparents bought what eventually would become their post-retirement home. When I was a kid, it felt like we were being dragged out there. The weather on the weekends we’d go out there would be unbelievably hot and my grandparents wouldn’t allow me and my siblings to watch TV. We were, of course, instantly bored and saved only by the prospect of going down to the water to go swimming. As an adult, I appreciate the little family house we have here much much more. It is both a refuge and a gathering place for raucous family gatherings.

My mini-cation was short-lived, as I had to book it home to start my month-long engagement with the LA County Fair. This is my second time with the Fair, though I’ve done many events with the Pomona Fairplex since. It’s one of my favorite events of the year, and I feel privileged to be one of three photographers on staff for the month. The fairgrounds covers whopping 487 acres, making it the largest county fair in the nation. What I remember the most is feeling like this was an endless visual feast, quite literally sensory overload. I grew up going to this Fair, and somehow I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of stimulation. Thankfully, we started out with a Fair food preview day to ease into the experience.

Once the food preview was over, we headed into the first Fair weekend. What’s amazing is that this massive event is created and organized by a rather small office of staff. And of course, there’s a practical army of food and shopping vendors, sanitation staff, volunteers, security, artists, and many, many, more. I can’t show much of what I’m photographing here out of respect to my contract. After clocking in about 17,000 steps on my first day back, I am reminded that for some reason I really enjoy working these gigantic events.

April 28 – Busy season, photo credit, and LIFE

As the busier season of my year continues, I’m starting to see the longterm effects of my chosen path. How my days off are more like days “off.” Meaning, I don’t have a pressing engagements to get to, but I have just as much correspondence to take care of. Emails, invoicing, thinking about this ongoing blog that basically nobody reads… I keep writing these posts for reasons I’ve elaborated on before. The Meta-owned app has now introduced an AI search feature that I find annoying and seems to further sink the user experience of a once exciting creative community. If I want to post my photography anywhere, it’ll be over on Foto app (still in beta testing.) Keeping my own space on the internet, not dependent on algorithms has become more and more important.

Do what you love and you’ll never stop doing admin a day in your life.

I found out that my photos from an event were being used in press with the wrong photo credit. That kind of thing is so distressing, but we as photographers have almost no recourse. I reached out to the sites but there’s not much I can do about it at this point. This kind of thing can really affect my business. But, as with most things in business, I have to take most of the responsibility. It just means I’ll have to be more direct about photo credit moving forward.

I’m gearing myself up for one of my favorite clients of the year. Starting this week, I’m back with the LA County Fair as one of three official photographers. Even though I grew up going to this Fair, last year was my first as their photographer and it was all things exciting and overwhelming. The event itself is the biggest I’ve ever shot in terms of scale. It’s about the size of a small city, and it truly is an endless visual feast. Sensory overload. This year, I’m working on a more focused approach. I’ll be trying to capture more classic images, stuff you’d see emblazoned on a billboard, with a strong central focus that still captures the essence of “Fair.”

For research, I’ve been looking through a photo book called Life 75 Years: The Very Best of LIFE. It’s a huge coffee table book I’m lucky to own. As I was flipping through, I found myself almost bowled over. No one takes photos like this anymore. And rarely do we see photos in print like this anymore. The word “iconic” is so terribly overused online, but these photos truly are iconic in that so many of them became emblematic of their time. We’ve sort of lost that in the digital world of endless scroll. Yet, I also realized that the aspect ratio of LIFE is similar to the smartphone screen, only much larger.

I might make more effort to direct traffic to this blog, seeing as I enjoy making this more of a weekly update of my goings-on now.

April 7-13, 2024

This has been one of the busier weeks of the year for me. Event photography is my main business and it tends to be seasonal, so now is when many spring gatherings and galas tend to be underway. Starting out there was the California State Thespian Festival, an annual gathering of high school theatre students from across the state. There are competitions in acting, singing, dance, and technical theatre. There are dozens of workshops, performances, and leadership opportunities within the California State Thespians.

This was a favorite festival of mine back in high school. In fact, my theatre teacher has since retired but is still highly involved in the Educational Theatre Association, which helps theatre educators continue to provide good programs to their students. She is one of the several familiar faces I got to see there. I saw many more friends and colleagues who were teaching workshops during day two of the festival.

Anyone who knows me knows that my background is in theatre. All my artistic endeavors seem to start there. And I can’t emphasize enough just how important arts education–particularly theatre arts education–is for young people. This isn’t just a chance for kids to express excess energy. This is hands-on learning skills that apply across all career fields, including those elusive “soft” skills that are so hard to teach (empathy, listening, being present, etc.). A particular bonus is all the technical skills learned in the theatre arts. It truly is a head start in a rapidly changing world.

There was that little eclipse thing. There wasn’t much excitement here in SoCal. I noted the little crescent moon shadows in during peak eclipse time, then watched the live coverage on TV. I agree with many others that there is something nice about thousands of people coming to view such a major event.

The rest of this week has been essentially a marathon of photo days. (I resist the term “shoot” more and more as I continue working in this profession.) I could say more, but out of respect for my clients, I try to keep quiet until I’m done editing photos and delivering them. There are so, so many to edit and process. Thankfully, I’m pretty fast in that department.

This has been such a change of pace from the first few months of the year when all is essentially dead. When I seriously begin to doubt my choices while the days are still short and spring still seems far away. It’s definitely a good reminder of the seasonality of life. Right now is more of a harvesting season, as I see the fruits of several years’ work of planting seeds, nurturing relationships, developing best practices, and following through. Come summer, the harvest will slow and I’ll have to embrace a new season.

Eclipse Day In SoCal

It wasn’t as exciting in our neck of the woods. But I do remember the phenomenon of the light making little crescent moons through the trees.

Some people use a colander. I liked this for some simple black and white shots.

Matt

Photo Diary: January Windstorm Aftermath

The first month of the year has been eventful in many ways. For me it hasn’t been very eventful photographically. I’ve had jobs cancel due to pandemic worries. I’ve found myself once again preoccupied with household chores and projects that somehow never got finished during the actual lockdowns. The camera has been down.

Last night, however, the Santa Ana winds came through–hard. I was born and raised here in Southern California, and never have I experienced winds like these. Gusts of over 60 mph blasting through my quiet little suburban enclave nestled up against the Angeles National Forest. I didn’t sleep well as I witnessed helplessly the winds tear apart my backyard, moving furniture and toppling pottery. I’ve always taken comfort in knowing that on the hillside below our home are very old and very tall trees that protect us from the elements. Imagine my shock when I looked out the window during the storm to see that several had fallen into a neighbor’s property, damaging their fence and crushing their patio.

In the morning, all seemed to be still as I woke up from a few hours of sleep. I photographed the fallen trees above.

Today meant a lot of clean up and some rest. I heard crews around town cleaning up the destruction from last night. Later on I stopped by an old park that I often photograph. Several large old pines fell in the winds, completely uprooted. Several folks stopped to see the massive roots shoved above ground.

A Garden in the Rain

A closeup photo of seed pods in the rain

” ‘Twas just a garden in the rain

Close to a little leafy lane

A touch of color ‘neath skies of grey…”

A Garden In The Rain (Carroll Gibbons / James Dyrenforth)

A very rainy week or so here in Southern California. One of my favorite times to take my Leica outside. Carefully, of course, as droplets are still dripping off of things.

I haven’t posted anything since last year, but feeling a sense of re-focus on creative pursuits. Pandemic life and political crises have occupied my mind almost non-stop since who knows when.

I know we aren’t in a clear space yet, but it’s nice to feel a storm has come to wash away and refresh.

A very familiar sunset

A beautiful sunset over the Colorado River in Parker, Arizona.
Sunset over the Colorado River in Parker, Arizona.

I wish I could be dancing in the streets right now after a very tense week of election stress. I’ve always found elections to be stressful but this one, of course, nearly pushed me to the edge.

I’m at the Arizona house to de-stress. Yes, that Arizona. And here watching a very familiar sunset again over the River. These sunsets that I’ve been watching since I was a small kid.

Sun setting over a dark and troubled time. Sun rising over a new day where the work is only begin. To heal. To begin anew.

Wildfire damage in natural forest land.

Photographing Damage From The El Dorado Fire

A few weeks ago I made my way up to a special place, a place I’ve thought of as home since I was 14. A place where I still return to every summer to work with a small arts non-profit (www.campbravo.org). A place that was nearly burned down by a massive wildfire.

Camp de Benneville Pines is a small UU camp located near Angelus Oaks, CA. The El Dorado Fire started in far away Yucaipa and was allegedly started by careless people setting off an explosion as part of a so-called gender reveal stunt–in a dry grassy field, during a record heat wave.

The wildfire raged into the hillside directly above camp, but the camp itself was spared. Thanks to many hardworking firefighters who skillfully fought the blaze even as it entered camp in some spots. The very thought of this special place burning down due to such carelessness was enough to have me spiraling.

Reading that they were seeking local volunteers, I drove up there to donate some photography hopefully to help illustrate just how bad the damage is, and how badly this tiny camp needs extra support in order to stay afloat during such impossible times. The camp executive director took me up the hillside to the fire damage is. Where once was a beautiful, lush forest hillside now stands an ashen waste land.

Thankfully, there are some trees still standing. But the destruction this fire wreaked spans tens of thousands of acres.

Growing up in SoCal, I knew about earthquakes of course. I knew about fire season. It’s only been in the last 10 or 15 years that fire season has become something else entirely. Months on end of endlessly destructive wildfires, apocalyptic skies, and terrible air quality.

My hope is that a few of the snapshots show just how badly we need to address our current climate crisis and its effects. In the meantime, if you would consider visiting the website for Camp de Benneville Pines and supporting them with a small donation. On top of being a small business having to navigate being shut down all year, they are now having to manage soil erosion and mudslide risk.

A happy cabin and tall trees spared from any fire damage.

All images are Copyrighted by Matt Lara (Matt Lara Photography) and may not be reproduced without permission.

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The Lonely Street Photographer – Bowlium and Bobcat Fire

Bowlium Lanes in Montclair, CA

I realize my posts are pretty heavy on the black and white images, when normally I enjoy vibrancy, bright colors, lots of contrast. The truth is the last few weeks have been a doozy for me personally. Much of where I’m feeling mentally has been marked by a sense of melancholy. The bleak skies of Southern California during fire season. The tilt of the earth as seasons change and shadows lengthen. On a fairly decent day, one that was still blazing hot, I took my camera out near my old hometown of Ontario and snapped this vintage bowling alley, Bowlium. Only to realize of course that the Bobcat Fire had sent up a new plum of smoke and seemed to be heading toward my home.

All is well at the moment. My main objective in a very chaotic time is still a lot of self care.