[Photo] Bolivia and Argentina Medical Missions 2013

Wow, I've been away for so long! Forgive me for my extended absence here. This summer, I took a two week trip to Bolivia and Argentina on a medical mission trip with an organization called 4 Christ Mission. A group of about 50 young adults/college students from all over the US and Latin America travelled with doctors and dentists to provide medical care and ultimately, just love the people of Bolivia and Argentina with the love of Christ. I went as a part of the media team and captured all the sights and sounds with my trusty 5D Mark II (still a very capable and rugged camera!). In Bolivia, we stayed mostly in Santa Cruz and the outskirts of the city, while in Argentina, we stayed around Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires. I can go on and on about the trip with my words, but I'll let my photos speak for themselves (and perhaps, interject with captions for context and other pertinent information). Here is just a very small sampling of the photos I took while I was on the trip. Because of the amount of photos in this post, I've opted to go with a gallery layout. Enjoy!

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[Photo] Through the Hipster's Eye: The Embarcadero

Here are some fun hipsteresque photos from around the Embarcadero that I took a while ago.

[Photo] Laundry Love April 2013

I've posted about Laundry Love Berkeley a couple times before, the first ever being in October 2011 and more recently, about their Cafe Night. I decided to take my camera with me again for their monthly event last night. Here are some photos I got. Prepare for lots of dog photos.

This is Michael. He's really awesome and he gives fantastic hugs, as seen above.

This is Lizbeth and she loves her coffee, just like I do!

These are some amazing guys, Nathan, Kenny, and George. Kenny's story is pretty crazy, perhaps you'll hear about it here or on the Laundry Love blog some time!

[Photo] A Trip to the City

About a month ago (yes, this post is a bit late), a group of my friends decided to trek into the City for a break from school and work. It was National Museum Day, so we got free tickets to the de Young Museum, wandered around, and ended up at Tartine.

[Photo] The Trumpeter

Sorry again for the lack of posts as of late. I have several planned in the near future. For now, here's a photo I grabbed on the streets of San Diego. As a musician, I love stopping to listen to buskers. This cat was great...and loud. We heard him from way down the street. Grabbing this shot right in front of his horn nearly destroyed my ears, but it was well worth it. You could actually see the volume in this shot. Just look at the amount of air in his cheeks. Ridiculous.

[Edit] So according to reader, Andrew, that's just bad technique in his cheeks. I don't play any brass or woodwind instruments so I wouldn't know. Thanks, Andrew! Do you have anything to add? Is Andrew right? Let us know in the comments!

[Photo] Rose Parade: The People

As promised, here is the second post on the series covering my time at the 123rd Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA. Today, I will feature the people of the Parade. Hopefully this will offer a slightly different point of focus than other peoples' coverage of the event. Above, we have some jolly old men on the Shriner's Hospital float called Soaring for Kids. Check out yesterday's post for another photo of the float.

Here we have the mounted rider my friends and I lovingly called "The Asian Cowboy (with a Fu-Manchu)." We really liked his stache.

Of course every group of horses was followed by an equally (or in most cases, more) exciting group of poop scoopers! Everyone loves these guys and gals. They get cheered on as they do their work in the wake of the horses. The woman leading this group was especially excited. Fight on.

Even if you camp out early to save a spot, it can be hard to see over the heads of everyone in front of you. Luckily we had primo accommodations and got access to some great vantage points. However, if you were stuck behind droves of people, you should take notes. These guys are actually on top of a ladder. Genius!

Now, if you don't know yet, I'm a photographer. Photographers tend to be a bit nosy curious when it comes to what gear someone else is using. Naturally, I couldn't help but notice what people were using to photograph the parade.

Here you have the oh-so-common iPhone. It takes great pictures. That's a fact, which is why you see people everywhere taking photos with them.

Next, I spotted a relatively small tablet sticking out of a crowd of iPhones and SLRs. It must be a bit awkward to take photos with, but oh well, it works.

Now, an iPad. It's just too big to be comfortable to use as a camera and frankly, it looks ridiculous. I'm not going to judge you if you do it, but others might.

Okay, this one just dumbfounded me. A Nintendo DS? Huh? What's going on? Yeah...I've never seen this before. I guess there's a first for everything.

I hope you all enjoyed my coverage of this year's Rose Parade as much as I enjoyed watching and photographing it! If you want more information about the parade as well as more coverage, check their website out here!

[Photo] Autumn Leaves and Good Food

In the midst of my busy week, I decided to take a short break and take some photos outside. I walked around for maybe ten minutes and got a few photos of the Autumn leaves and a nice little cafe around town. It was a very relaxing few minutes in which I got away from my studies and such. I hope you enjoy these photos, I know I enjoyed making them.

Here's my attempt at doing a faux Instagram effect in Lightroom. I'd say it looks pretty hip.

[Photo] Laundry Love October 2011

Last week, I participated (albiet, for a short time) in Laundry Love Berkeley. Laundry Love is an event put on by Christian students at UC Berkeley who show the love of God through the simple act of providing free laundry for the homeless. Through events like this, you meet people that you normally would never meet, and there really are some amazing people that show up. We typically think of the homeless as failures in society that ended up on the streets because of their lack of effort and motivation. This isn't always the case. I met some people with very successful careers and amazing life stories that just went through a series of unfortunate events. These are real people, just like you and I. In fact, I met a man named Curtis who studied guitar under the one and only Joe Satriani and boy, this guy can shred. Anyway, here are some photos from the event.

[Photo] The Fist Bump

This is a photo I took early this year on the streets of Berkeley, but I forgot about it 'til recently. I actually didn't notice the fist bump until I took a close look at the photo, it was definitely an accidental success. I especially love how all eyes, from the guy sitting inside to all the homeless people, are on the girl.

[Photo] Art in the Streets at the Geffen Contemporary

The Museum of Contemporary Art has free Mondays (11-5 pm) and Thursdays (5-8 pm) thanks to street artist Banksy. The exhibit, Art in the Streets, is located at the Geffen Contemporary and features all kinds of street art. If you are in the Los Angeles area, you should definitely check it out while it's around. Hurry up though, the exhibit's last day is August 8. Anyway, here are some photos from my visit. There is a slide show with a total of 44 photos at the end, so be sure to check that out too! The slideshow feature seems to be a bit buggy. I'm going to replace it with a gallery.

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[Photo] Oakland Chinatown Photo Walk

I went to Oakland's Chinatown with a few friends over the weekend for a casual photowalk. I know I haven't posted in a very long time, so here's a ton of photos! [slideshow]

Full resolution photos are available for viewing on my flickr page.

Feedback in the form of constructive criticism is always welcome, and please let me know if you prefer viewing the images as a slide show or if you want individual images or thumbnails instead.