[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] Rose Parade: The Parade

First of all, Happy New Year, everyone! Today was the 123rd Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA, and for the first time of my many Rose Parades, I was able to attend in person! Thanks to some generous friends of friends, we had access to a penthouse and street view of the whole parade. What a great way to experience my first in-person Rose Parade. As we watched, it was really strange not hearing commentary from Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards like I'm so used to. I realized how clueless you are watching the parade without commentary. I had no idea what many of the floats were, but I still enjoyed it. Today I will be featuring photos of the parade itself. I plan for another post tomorrow on the people of the Parade.

Here is this year's Grand Marshal, J.R. Martinez.

The parking was pretty ridiculous, as one could imagine.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Be sure to check back tomorrow night for another post on the people of the Rose Parade!