FATHER'S DAY/BALLET RECITAL

Father's Day and Sylvie's Ballet Recital have come and gone. But I guess it's never too late to share a few photos. She did so well. Amanda and I are both so very proud of her. I'll get the video together at some point, but don't hold your breath.


Backstage getting ready!

Practicing with Ms. Shawna



Susan & Amanda

My favorite photo of the day!

Last looks before taking the stage


100s of Eyes
A surprise trophy from Papa!



Sylvie & Rodrigo

Glenda & Sylvie

A secret we'll never know!

SANTA MONICA PIER

We've been up to some crazy shit the past few nights...so why stop now. We continued the mishegas last evening by going to the Santa Monica Pier and then to dinner at Shutters. Ya know, easy drive to Santa Monica, just valet at the mall, hop skip and a jump to the pier and shoot over to Shutters.

In theory, should work fine, right? Well, valet didn't pan out as 600 other people had the same idea, got honked and yelled at as I pulled into the parking structure up the street - had no idea all the cars in the right lane weren't moving so cut around everyone to only get my head chewed off by some dude probably from Hyde Park taking his girl on a big date. To my luck, of course the elevator stopped on floor 5 and he and his girl got on and road with us to street level! We walked along Ocean Ave aka bumb row, and entered the pier which was like the Minnesota State Fair on steroids. Sylvie had her little heart set on a ride or two so we got tickets and did a couple - she was overwhelmed of course - but made it through like a star. Shutters wasn't far away so we made a res and walked along the beach sidewalk, stepped over a nice smelly doggie poop, and arrived.

It was a great evening and perfect time to shoot with the sun setting. Love these long days and long shadows, lots of color and the pier provided a lot of eye candy. Boy do I love my M9 with a sick 35mm Summarit f/2.5!
Sylvie is not in this picture! Susu hanging on to Sylvie for dear life! Amanda can't believe this is happening. My favorite! My other favorite...

HOLLYWOOD BLVD

We kind of had what you would call a crazy interesting evening - fun dinner at The Grill at the Hollywood & Highland complex, out on the patio so we could get a good view of the whole place.  Sylvie had chicken fingers, Susan the shrimp pasta, and me, well the ahi tuna salad and a cocktail...yep.

But to really make an evening out of it we hit Hollywood Boulevard like we were fresh off the boat and ready to do a little "tourist" action with all the nut bags, crazies, loonies, and people who just want to see a bunch of freaks out front of Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Little Syl was flabbergasted - I don't think she knew exactly what was happening, in fact she was quite frightened just with the sure amount of people in one place.  But I'm proud of her, it's like a rite of passage to go to Grauman's, put your hands and feet in the cement left by famous movie stars over the years...she did good and by the end, was laughing and giggling like her good old self.

COLDWATER CANYON PARK

At Coldwater Canyon Park in Beverly Hills with Alyssa & Isaac Sapire.

SYLVIE DISNEYLAND VIDEO

When do I have the time? Seriously... The entire video was shot on my iTouch which I'm so glad I put in my back pocket before leaving that morning. I haven't been a video guy the last few years, but when it comes to those touchstone moments, there is nothing better than the moving image. So with that said, here is two or so minutes over the course of the twelve hour day we spent at Disneyland accompanied by Sylvie's favorite song. All I ask is that you watch it full screen and TURN UP THE VOLUME!

 
Disneyland Sylvie Visit 2012 from Andrew Calof on Vimeo.

BLACKBIRD REFLEX CAMERA

About a year ago, I bought a Blackbird Fly Reflex 35mm Camera to mess around with. I was excited to get that old fashion feel and experiment with a format that is outside my comfort zone.  Sadly, I've only shot two rolls of film since then and it's taken me over 365 days to get those rolls developed.  Amazing right?!! We live in a digital age, what that key word being "instant."  We are so use to taking a picture and seeing the results on an LCD screen less than a second later.

When I bought the camera, I began taking it with me to work each morning, hoping to get some interesting shots in and around the Paramount Lot.  As I'd run back and forth between digi post where I was cutting three films worth of dailies each week, it made for a good excuse to grab the Blackbird off my desk, stop, frame up a shot, and click the shutter.  I'll admit, I'm still trying got get the hang of it. It takes some skill to estimate focus distance, frame through the viewfinder and see everything up-side-down, get your brain to think right is left, left is right...it's fun though.

Knowing how much I love photography, you can only imagine just how excited I was to finally drop off my film at Samys over the weekend and to rush over Monday afternoon to check out the results. It's always so anticlimactic...there are a few good ones I guess, the retro color and actually shooting on film was a fun experiment.  I went through the roll and found, well, what I think were some decent exposures. To all my Paramount friends, these are for you.