snapcious logo

We all run around with our phones snapping pics and sharing the world as we see it.  Until now you either tossed onto social media like twitter or photo sharing sites like flickr and shared it with a few friends and that was it.  West Hollywood based F.8. Interactive just changed what you do with your pics via Snapcious.

Snapcious takes your image sharing to the next degree. It gives you missions to fulfill with your trusty phone cam and post onto the game.  From there other Snapcious review and rate your pics and the winners in many categories are announced each day. Each time you post a pic you get points.  You also collect points for suggesting missions, rating images and making comments on what you see.

The game is the brainchild of long time blogging.la contributor Mack Reed and a few others at F.8 Interactive.  Since its launch on iTunes a few weeks back it has picked up followers across the globe.  You can download it from iTunes HERE and join the fun.   Complete guide on points and how to play HERE.  Best of all…its a FREE app.

Unlike some of the other social media pic sharing places like, um say Instagram, you own the pics forever and don’t sign away any rights in the TOS.  Thats a biggy for me as you never know which images I will wind up using for sale that I want to keep control of.

There is a short video after the jump that explains the game and how to play as well.  Read the rest of this entry →

Its happening now, the space shuttle is slowly making the drive to its new home at the California Science Center.

Just my luck I blew out my knee and can’t stalk it as it makes its way to the CSC.  If you had a chance to see it in transit today please feel free to share links to your stuff in the comment section.

I am pretty amazed by the number of YouTube videos or flickr sets of the shuttle Endeavour’s tour of L.A. today.  Did you post any pics or videos today of the Endeavour?  If so please share the links to them in the comments section.

Because of whatever often-fleeting eye candy I might chance upon when venturing forth into the urban arena, I rarely leave home without some sort of photographic documentation device in hand — and that goes double whenever I find myself in the Arts District south and east of downtown. Case in point, discovered near the 6th Street Bridge and signed by what looks to be “dreb” near her left hip (click to enlargify):

Electron Salon Postcard

One of my most favorite art gallery’s in L.A. has got to be the L.A. Center for Digital Art.  Maybe because I drift into that realm with my own art often, but the images shown there  are technically at the top of that genre and media.

The current show that will run this month is the Electron Salon bringing in art from 24 different artists.  Its opening reception will take place in conjunction with Thursdays Art Walk at L.A.C.D.A from 7-9PM.

If you are planning on attending this weeks Art Walk and the Artists Reception at L.A.C.D.A take a train to Pershing Square and walk the 3 blocks or so to Gallery Row. It beats the hassle of traffic and trying to find parking in the area of this well attended event.

As a sidebar the folks at Occupy LA have apologized for what happened at last months Art Walk.  This was reported HERE in blogdowntown.  (If you don’t follow blogdowntown add it to your reading list as it is a great hyper-local source of info on DTLA). Another Occupy L.A. event likely won’t happen again at this month’s art walk.

Details: Electron Salon, L.A.Center for Digital Art, 102 W 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90013. August 9, 2012.  7-9PM  Map HERE 

This Saturday, CreateFixate will be presenting a photography show in downtown LA as part of MOPLA—”Month of Photography LA.” The event sounds like a good time, with art, music, video, and so on. Find out more at the Create:Fixate site or just read a snippet from an overly-long press release after the break.

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Mobile Pixels Poster click to embiggen

The images from the cell phone have evolved, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art has nearly 3 dozen photographers showing images taken with their cell phones. These promise not to be “instagrams” but rather documentation in an a sometimes digitally manipulated view of the world around us.

Mobile Pixels will run from April 12-May 5th 2012.  The show’s opening reception will coincide with the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday April 12 from 7-9PM.

Parking is brutal Downtown on Art Walk nights so I would arrive early if you must drive.  Public transportation is a better option given the lack of parking and traffic in the area, do yourself a favor and use the Red or Purple line to get yourself to Pershing Squares Metro station and walk the 4 blocks to this marvy show at LACDA.

Details: Opening Reception April 12 7-9PM.  Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, 102 W 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90013.  MAP HERE.

Click to embiggen..its the gallery invitation

This should be interesting.  7 local news photographers, 1 photographer/artist and one Disney artist are getting together to put on a show and reception this Saturday night.

Two of my favorite artists will be there.  Stephen Coleman a photographer and the Disney Artist, Rick Kess…pretty much ensures I’ll be in attendance.  Free food and booze doesn’t hurt either…sorta stimulating all your senses at once.

Deets: Saturday 7PM – 10PM, Paint n Play Art Studio and Art Gallery,  418 S Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia CA 91016  MAP HERE.

After the press conference this afternoon to celebrate the completion and opening of Los Angeles’ first-ever buffered and bright green Class II bike lane running on Spring Street between Cesar Chavez Avenue and 9th Street, the cyclists in attendance then inaugurated the wonderful thing with a bike ride upon it. During my second lap my timelapsing handlebar-mounted bike cam snapped the above shot as I passed great Los Angeles photographer Gary Leonard crouched as he snapped me. Of course I yelled “Take my picture, Gary Leonard!” while rolling by.

As seen last Sunday afternoon in Glassell Park. If you click for biggification you’ll better see the silhouette of a lone Nuttall’s woodpecker hanging inverted on the pole opposite the crosspiece.

Yeah, me neither. For being the largest close-approach asteroid in the history of history, 2005 YU55 wasn’t that easy to see when it zoomed its 1,300-foot diameter between earth and the moon through very clear evening skies November 8.

But a Flickr contact of mine, Edhiker, did. Ed’s both an awesome hiker, prolific photographer and a whiz with a telescope, and this is how 2005 YU55 looked passing over Los Angeles via 38 separate exposures made into a 40 second movie showing the asteroid’s movement from 7:20 to 7:23 p.m., 11/8/11.

If the embed’s broken, you can view it here.

Waiter: Will there be anything else for you this evening? Moon: No thanks. I'm totally full.

Coming in a close second to my deathless obsession with measuring rainfall, is my never-ending crush on the moon, particularly when it hitsa your eye like a bigga pizza pie, such as last night’s full version. So after this morning’s pre-dawn dog walk I situated my 60x spotting scope on the porch (illustrated after the jump), got my point-and-shoot all up in its viewfinder and managed to hold everything steady long enough to land this big fella at 6:31 a.m., juuuust before it got tangled up in the frontyard tree branches and power lines (click to enormify).

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When shaved-headed synthesized symphonist Moby released a book of photographs to accompany his album “destroyed“ last May, a number of the photos were sent on a worldwide yet very limited tour of art galleries. Moby’s photo tour hits Culver City’s Kopeikin Gallery this Saturday, September 10, through October 22.

Sayeth Moby’s website:

Destroyed introduces us to a side of touring that is often unexposed; secluded time spent in artificial spaces like hotel rooms and backstage waiting areas. The combined album and photo book provides an intimate look at Moby’s world and his creative process as an artist, both the music and photos were created in the same period and draw inspiration from the strange and sublime world of touring.

So … Linda McCartney meets Lost In Translation? Could be very interesting.

It’s been going something like this for summer after summer after summer: I’m in the backyard. A western tiger swallowtail swoops in and busies itself fluttering along the overgrown bougainvillea, never fully stopping at one bloom. I rush into the house, grab the camera, and by the time I rush back out, the elusive creature is either long gone or it lingers haphazardly just long enough for me to get one reeeeally blurry shot before it leaves.

Today it went exactly like that up until the last part where I got one shot that was as if the gorgeous thing decided it had enough fun playing with me and posed, and I offer it for your pre-Labor Day weekend viewing enjoyment  (click to biggify):

Hope y’all have a great holiday.

People often complain that Los Angeles is an ugly city with no character, which is not really true, unless you’ve had the grave misfortune at seeing the city from the monstrosity that is the Hollywood and Highland structure.  To see LA, you really have to dig in and look.  And that’s exactly what Kevin McCollister, aka East of West LA, does, one photo at a time.

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