Barren Month

I managed to go all the way through April without posting. Nothing. Not one single post. I guess I felt disinclined for some reason. It's not like nothing happened. I ended March and slipped gracefully into April while at the Palm Springs Photo Festival, the brainchild of one Mr Jeff Dunas. The Festival celebrates the spirit of fine art photography, mostly, with a little photojournalism thrown in too. It's a nice way to welcome the spring with temperatures in Palm Springs being up in the 80's by this time of the year.



Photographer, photography historian and founder of the Palm Springs Photo Festival, Jeff Dunas, at the Korakia Pensione. April 2009.



A tree silhouette reflection in the pool



Me shooting me in the gloriously orange bathrooms of the Annenberg Theater, Palm Springs, CA

I returned from the Festival with an extra creative spring in my step and set about riding my bike, finally. I bought a couple of pairs of shorts. I bought a helmet. And I started riding. I started slow, riding out for the first time on April 5th. I covered five and a half miles at a staggeringly slow 12.7mph average (back in the day I was covering a 10 mile time trial in about 22 mins, averaging about 27mph). This first time out I barely made it through the 5 miles.



I went flying with a friend of mine in Monterey a couple of times... First time out, flying down the coast over Bixby Bridge, Point Sur lighthouse and Big Sur. Second time out we crossed Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz and up to Pescadero before being turned back by the enormous fog bank over the coast heading north towards Half Moon Bay and San Francisco.



Cessna 172, Monterey Airport, CA

I shot my first Major League Soccer game (San Jose v LA Galaxy, 1-1, Oakland Coliseum).



I had a great time driving around San Francisco with an awesome photographer called Jeremy Cowart who just happened to be passing through on the Britney Spears 'Circus' tour.



By the end of the month I'd ridden over a hundred miles - actually 117 and my final ride of the month was a 'blistering' 10 mile ride covered in 36mins at an average speed of 16.5mph. Not a bad progression in a month. The riding feels good, the bike feels good and my body has a righteous ache.

So, as I said, I've done a bunch of things, I've been out and about. I've ridden like a crazy beast and watched many games in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I also started teaching a small photo class at work.

But I just didn't feel like writing about it...