I think I’ve taken that first seagull photo before. Nothing much here but a few pretty shots I took on a sunset stroll a couple weeks back.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the Burbank Airport

This morning I got up at 2:30, a time which is much closer to that at which I usually go to sleep, to shoot the arrival of the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the Burbank Airport. I covered this story a couple months ago (both times for the Associated Press) when things were quite somber. But today was the exact opposite as the pair from Al Gore’s Current TV arrived, along with their new hero Bill Clinton, in a private, Steve Bing-owned jet, to reunite with their families after 4 months without communication while they were being held prisoner in North Korea. As I’m sure you all know, the two had been sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp after being arrested for crossing the North Korean border while working on a documentary project for Current TV. That was, until 30 hours before their speedy arrival home following successful negotiations by Clinton for their release. I was trying to imagine how surreal it must have felt to be in the mindset that you’re about to be shipped off to a labor prison, and then without warning to have a door open and see former president Clinton standing there waiting to take you home. Hard to fathom. Despite the early wake up, and despite being part of a media pack that I usually try to avoid, it was a cool story to be a part of.

Something that caught my eye as I was walking home today. I was hoping they’d all fly away in unison, but the guy on the lower right wasn’t much of a team player.

Yesterday evening I went out for a walk along the beach and ended up shooting for an hour or two after being impressed by the colors of the sunset, a side effect from the smoke cloud hovering over the city as a result of the nearby wildfires. The haze over the Venice Pier made it feel like a surreal dream world. Something like the beach scenes in Dark City comes to mind, if that reference rings a bell. As I’ve just moved here I’m unprepared to go cover the fires directly, so I chose to sit this one out. But I may head up there in the coming days to check out the aftermath. One thing I’ll need to do this spring is build up a personal fire kit and possibly go through some training so I can get in there next season. Hopefully there won’t be anything as bad as these have been for quite awhile.

Last night, having no plans of my own, I headed out to West Hollywood to check out their annual Costume Carnival. More than 300,000 people, many in drag, converged on Santa Monica Boulevard to see and be seen. I had read that there would likely be a lot of Sarah Palin impersonators there, but I don’t think I saw one in the three hours I was there. Later I saw a couple interviewed on the 11 o’clock news, so I guess I missed them or left too early. Oh well.
About this gallery: PhotoShelter has recently developed a new widget that allows you to embed a photo gallery from my account. Clicking on the images will take you directly to my archive where the images can be purchased or licensed. So I thought I’d test it out here. For an added bonus you can click on the box with the arrow pointing out of it in the lower right to see the images full screen. – dz