Street--er, Park--Photography

SUMMARY: Festival at Hellyer Park.

Today I went out to an event at Hellyer Park put on by Santa Clara County Parks and Rec, "Festival in the Park." Lots and lots of booths and entertainment with a strong focus on health--the way you eat, the way you exercise, the way you live your life... it was pretty cool.

They had free kayaking, free bounce houses for the kids, free ice cream (well...ok, ya gotta do something with sugar in it to attract the crowds).

Plus they had a snowy egret passing through.

I went primarily to participate in a "flash mob"--we knew the four basic dance steps ahead of time, and at 12:15 when the Lady Gaga music started playing, we were all supposed to stop what we were doing, do the dance, then go back to what we were doing. I happened to be up at the front of the fair when 12:15 hit, so I didn't see what might have been going on behind me at all the booths and in all the aisles, but the people on stage seemed to think that there were a lot of participants. It was a good workout, anyway.

My secondary goal was to practice event, people, and "street" photography. The latter is apparently a specialized category that I just learned about this month. Read about it on Wikipedia. Basically it's candid photography, but you're looking for those really special moments, those really interesting, amusing, unusual, creative, one-of-a-kind moments. There are whole cadres of people devoted to certain types of cameras that are best for that, certain styles of getting the shots... in short, a whole 'nother way of photographic life, when all I thought I was doing was shooting candid photos.

I found this site with some amazing examples of the best of street photography--you might be entertained to browse some of those photos.

So, energized by a whole new perspective on taking random & candid photos, I went out there to try my luck.

Got captivated mostly by cute kids and dogs, though.

In retrospect, maybe I could've, say, hung out by the big sign that had the word "obesity" on it and waited for, er, robust people to pass by and take their photos, or other clever things like that, but it was fun to just walk around and look for nice shots.

See all the rest from today here on my photo site.

(Well, not ALL the rest--I took about 160 shots, posted about 80 of 'em.)