We (myself, Caroline, and Natalia) took a trip up to Mulholland drive to try and see some of Tuesday morning's Leonids meteor shower. Have to say, I was particularly struck by the idea that the two streams of particles causing this year's shower were from a comet's passing in 1466 and 1533, and so I decided to bring my camera along and see if I could capture anything. So, without building up the suspense any more than is completely necessary, here is my most recent attempt at photographing a medieval event:

It comes across pretty low-res here, so I highly recommend clicking through to the image itself, but that little streak above the horizon and just right of center is the only meteor I captured on film. Now, I don't mean to sound negative about this... I'm extremely happy and feel quite lucky to have captured anything, especially because we only saw about 10 meteors the entire four hours we were up there watching. Furthermore, this was the best one of the night, and I didn't even see it myself until I went through my photos!

Some pretty nice fish photos here, if I do say myself. Took some time to finally dust off my camera again and enjoy a day out and about rather than inside studying. I've been to the Aquarium of the Pacific before, and I remember being particularly disappointed with the experience. This trip was far from disappointing, and I really appreciated the variety of sea life as well as the obvious effort that went into curating the individual exhibits.

I was especially glad to have my circular polarizer on hand for this trip. On top of filtering out the glare from the top of the water on my sting ray shots, it proved handy in reducing some of the reflection when I found myself shooting through glass. I actually had to throw out a few ray shots because the water just looked too clear and the resulting diffraction was distracting. There were times when I just didn't have the extra light to spare while shooting indoors and through glass, and my solution was to be particularly aware of any reflections and try to reposition myself to avoid them as much as possible. One helpful hint: I wore a white shirt to the aquarium... When shooting in situations where glare could be an issue, wear a black shirt to prevent a little more reflection.

I might have tried to use a flash to improve these shots by pulling off a little catch light in some of my subjects' eyes, but I was a bit annoyed with all the people who were blinding everyone else with their point-and-shoot camera flashes. A quick cost-benefit analysis led me to decide it wasn't worth being the source of further frustration. It was poetic justice to listen to one tourist complain about her camera being broken because she kept getting a big white spot in her pictures.

Finally, this was my first shoot using my Lowepro Slingshot 100AW as my new camera bag. I didn't have to do any quick lens changes or stash my camera away for too long, but it holds all of my traveling gear comfortably and safely, and sits surprisingly nicely for a sling bag. I don't really have enough experience with it to justify recommending it, but this was a good first experience.

Hoping my Jabra BT-8010 will survive its impromptu bath, but it's not looking good so far. There's water leaking out of the microphone, an OLED screen that blinks off almost immediately, and a sloshing sound when I shake it... I'll give it a few days before charging it up and giving the squishy switch another try, but then it's dissection time.

At worst, I'll have to buy a new one online, which means I'll have a spare stereo expansion headset and charger.