Friday - Box Dinner

I am a subscriber to their slogan. In-N-Out is what a hamburger is all about.
Fresh ingredients, friendly service and a family owned business who still care about
the food and not gimmick's to draw people to eat there.
Took this image Friday after work while in the drive-thru to get my cheeseburger and
fries with a large Dr.Pepper - in a box with a lid of course.

Lunch Time Image - Sat. Nov 29 2008

Took my lunch at the Golden Arches of Hwy 138 while up in Cajon Pass last Saturday. Grabbed this from the drive-thru.

Michigan Park - Whittier, CA - 10.22.2008

Another year, Another birthday for the little one, Another day spent at Michigan Park holding party tables at 7 am in the morning.
Last year there was a damp fog over the park in the early morning which provided a nice ambiance around the trees. This year it was not so - but there was a slight mood to the park. It was much busier there to say the least and I think I prefer the park on a Sunday morning instead of a Saturday.
My subjects were much the same as last year, though one of the benches I liked last year was vandalized during the past year and did not make any of my images. Here are the ones I saved for posting. Thanks for looking.

Chris

Lunch Images - Series One

Trying to see how well I keep this going. Taking an image during my lunch break at work when the mood strikes me. Wednesday the 26th I was undecided on where to go so my car drove me to the nearby Starbucks Coffee. I ended up going in for a cup of White Chocolate Mocha, my favorite on the menu.. and despite much inquisition by the barrista or whatever they want to call themselves still was undecided on spending any more money on food. The $6 sandwiches did little to wet my hardly existing appetite.
I did however decide that I like it inside this warehouse / airplane hanger style Starbucks and plan on coming back with the laptop for another cup - and maybe some food in the near future. It sure beats the drab over tropical noisy breakroom at work. A place I would rarely consider eating my lunch in .. but current paranoia state of managment has barred us from enjoying our lunch at our desk, which I normally did.. anyways - to many dots and I am off track on my train of thought.

End Ramblings of a somewhat tired and bored Chris.
That up there is my first in hopefully a series of images to contribute to the blog.

Olvera Street & China Town - Part One

Last month myself and two friends took a train into Los Angeles and then an urban hike through Olvera Street and on through China Town. Our main interest was photography and exploration as none of us had wandered around in China Town and all had an interest. It was an exciting, exhausting and interesting few hours.

Starting with Olvera Street, the culture is overwhelming, and I found it very similar to walking through an indoor mall in Tijuana. What struck me the most were the colors everywhere. I was hopeful that my "from the hip" shooting was capturing what I was seeing. I did not want to draw attention to those around that I was taking photos as I did wanted to capture as much of what I was seeing - as I was seeing it.

This last image was taken of the foilage around a fountain on the outside of Olvera Street and filtered through Photoshop Lightroom to simulate infra-red.

I will follow this blog entry with the first part of my China Town experience which rendered a lot more photo opportunities.

Catching up with life

Been way to long since I did a blog posting, so here it goes.. been busy with life and other projects that never seem to get off the ground either much like working on this blog. Being a husband and a father takes a lot of time and dedication.. and well for good reason this and other projects will continue to be side projects in life.

Here are some images taken during the last few months with my new camera (Nikon D60)

The Pedestrian bridge that leads over the railroad tracks at the Fullerton train station has been a subject of my lens many times during my weekly jaunts. This image shows the north (station side) of the ped bridge elevator shaft. Ran through a few filters in Photoshop Lightroom for some color tweaking. Fullerton, CA - June 2008

From the same photo session on the bridge, this one shows the stairs down the south side and the new "Hip" slow selling condos that line the south side of the station. Fullerton, CA - June 2008A couple gulls hang on top of this large rock and shale pile in Commerce, California - June 2008

A ring of razor wire lays on the ground on the edge of the Union Pacific's 4th Street yard doing anything but keeping people out. Los Angeles, CA - June 2008

I call this one "Old Brown Shoe" for obvious reasons. Image taken at Lemon and 15th Street. Los Angeles, CA - July 2008

One in before the End of May.

Figured I should get a post or two in before May passes us all by. May has been a slow month for me photographically speaking. A lot of focus has went into getting a new home in order and getting married.
It has not been all void of camera action - just nothing I have to share at the moment.
April came and went - moved into a new place, had an eventful trip out in the Mojave desert and got more psyched up for marriage.
Here are a few random images that I had sitting in my Blog Image folder awaiting posting.
First is an image from the said trip out in the Mojave.
This is an annual event that I very much enjoy and it takes place usually in March or April and consist of a weekend camping adventure with many of my railfan friends and comrades from Fullerton and usually a few from other area's. This years event was full of forgetful moments for some and unforgettable moments for others. None of which I will elaborate on here other than to share this image of a train approaching us out in the vast desert near a place called Klondike.
Next image comes from downtown Los Angeles in another one of my "Im Bored and photographing old boring buildings again" jaunts through the area.
This particular one is located on 7th and Santa Fe near the LA river.
Lastly is an image from May .. hay, how about that!! I purchased a new camera on Friday the 23rd so Saturday the 24th, I hit the town with some sort of unfounded inspiration that never really materialized. I had a great time driving around solo and looking for things that I had photographed before with my old camera as well as new things to capture with my new Nikon D60. Cloudy skies and unpredictable weather led me astray much of the time and I found myself wondering around looking for things. This one was taken to the east of China Town along what used to be known as the SP Bull Ring (I think) back in the day with the Southern Pacific Railroad had a rail yard here. Would have liked to capture this with some rail in the foreground, but alas that is not possible any longer. So .. here is the downtown LA skyline under a few somewhat threatening clouds.

Some More Black & White Images

I have been showcasing about 1 railroad related image per post it seems... so here is my one image for this post. This is a profile image of the signals which protect eastward and westward movement of the Union Pacific Railroad & BNSF Railway as they enter and exit the Alameda Corridor which takes trains from Los Angeles to points in Wilmington or Long Beach, CA

The next two images are sort of railroad related. They are both the west and east sides of Pabco Paper which resides in Vernon, CA. Vernon is a mostly industrial zoned city and this paper mill rest on the southern edge of the city alongside BNSF's Malabar Yard.

That is all I have to offer right now.. thanks for looking.
Chris

Random Images

I have been sorting through the images of the last year as I prep them for archiving and well .. came across a few from February of this year that I felt like sharing.

First is an image taken in downtown Pomona, California. Somewhat spanish style train station bridge converted to black and white and cropped to my liking.

Second in my offering is from that same day but shows the reflection of the sun and a stack train off the passenger side of my car. I like to play with reflections at times.

Lastly is another image from February of 2008 - but taken in Los Angeles, CA. This is the Sears building from the east side (Soto Street) loading area no longer utilized.

Also of further note is that I have been adding more links to the What is Music .. section on the side bar.
Came across the new disc by The Wood Brothers this evening. Great Folk/Blues/Jazz/Traditional Country sound going on here. Already a fan of Medeski, Martin and Wood and stumbled across this one thanks to iTunes. One of the Wood Brothers happens to be Chris Wood who is the Bass player for MMW. Highly recommend their latest called Loaded as well as their debut disc put out in 2006 called Ways Not to Lose.

. Chris

Small Update to the Blog..

Just a quickie .. added some images below from my last camping and railfanning trip down south in San Diego. Also threw up a bunch of links under the sidebar title of ... What Is Music. Just a bunch of bands that I am into and wanted to share, so check em out if you want.

More Black & White Images

3 Months ago I joined up with the Orange County Railway Historical Society. It consist of a moderate size group of people from all walks of life and a wide range of ages. Our common interest of railroading history brings us together on the 1st Monday of each month for a couple hours of video's, slideshows and socializing.

It has also given me a new area to explore photographically. The last blog posted had an image from inside the Santa Ana Transportation Center where we hold our meetings. Here are a few more images from the outside of the SATC and some taken from our 5th floor meeting tower room.

While awaiting the official start of socializing I was sitting near the tracks in my car enjoying a hot coffee - though a tad to strong for me - my eyes wandered on this walkway. So when it came time to get out of the car, I stopped for this image.

Once I got up into the tower room, I discovered I was rather early. Just one other member was there. It was a clear night outside so I used my mini tripod and poised it on the window ledge to capture some of downtown Santa Ana from this perspective.
In this image we are looking northwest (relative) at a group of new in vogue townhomes that are suppose to entice new people to the downtown area. Unfortunately they do not seem to be be selling all that well - afterall who wants to live downwind from a recycle yard, near a train station/bus station and interstate 5 freeway 200 yards away.This is looking out the opposite side of the tower at the parking structure which holds most of the commuters and city worker vehicles. The recycling plant that I mentioned is just the other side of this structure.On the way out after the meeting, we stopped (we being some guys from the OCRHS) and conversed a bit in the main entrance hall. I snapped this image of the phones for some reason. I like the lighting on the tile I guess. It is slightly out of focus for being handheld at 3 seconds, but our lives are not always in focus - take it for what it is worth.

That concludes this post .. thanks for looking!
Note for the purist - All images were taken in color and converted to Black & White with Adobe Lightroom and additional enhancements in Adobe CS3.

To the Top of the Tower

Here is an image taken on Monday the 4th from inside the Santa Ana Transportation Center. I was there for a monthly meeting with the Orange County Railway Historical Society. I took several more images which I will share in other post.

Tree's, Snow, Train's, Friend's .. Aint' That Enough?

I spent Saturday the 26th of January 2008 up in Cajon Pass with friends and photographing trains. During times between them the camera wanders to people, mountain's and shrubs. A few spots where I perched myself had tree's that were more or less dead and not much of a tree.. but for this post, I will call them tree's.
Above are two of my favorites from Saturday.
We had friendship...
Trains to photograph...
Clean Air...
Snow on the surrounding mountains...
And a wonderful Sunrise...
So with that I offer up the music track that spawned the name of my blog
Teenage Fanclub - Aint That Enough

Also of note - there is now a Playlist of music at the bottom of this blog page that you can listen to.

Time For a Railroad Photo Favorite of 2007

I have been going through my railroad images of 2007 the last few weeks and doing sorting and tagging in prep for archiving them. Also pulling aside favorites for my annual favorites slide show presentation.
This image of ATSF 3751 shoving through Amtrak's Redondo facility in downtown Los Angeles, CA is on that list of favorites. It was taken shortly after sunset from the Olympic Street bridge over the Los Angeles River as the SBRHS's pride was shoving back to the Redondo turntable after a exciting run from Fullerton to LA. It was in Fullerton over the weekend of May 4th through the 6th for the "Fullerton Railroad Days"
I will share more favorites as I come across them.

Johnie's Broiler - Downey, CA

One of the many attractions I find when following railroad tracks through unfamiliar towns is that I often come across old buildings that are forgotten pieces of history.. some not so forgotten such as this place on Firestone in Downey, CA.

I snapped this image on January 10th 2008, which happens to be just over a year after this illegal partial demolition took place (January 7th 2007).

I had recalled reading about the events last year after they had taken place, but until I went following a local train into South Gate I had not realized I was passing the actual building. Strange is that I had been by this location at least 4 other times, and three of them were prior to it being in it's current state. Yet I had never stopped to taken a photo, nor really noticed it.

There are many sites dedicated to this car hop, though most of the ones I came across only paid attention to the Broiler while it was current news, and have provided no further updates on the status of the action taken. I did find one that listed there being a city council meeting about it sometime in early January 2008, and another listing a Ghost Cruise for a few hot rod clubs .

Here is a link to one of the sites that has information and links to what took place and some history.
http://www.roadsidepeek.com/preserv/2002/johniesbroiler/

I think my next time down there chasing the Union Pacific local train I will incorporate the broiler into the grade crossing photo... or at least attempt it.

Los Angeles Transit

Trolling through the warehouse area's of downtown Los Angeles while scouting for railroad action provides a lot of non-railroad photo ops.. as long as you look around.

This is one of the old bridges over the Los Angeles River. Pretty sure it is 6th street.