What Does 20,000 Steps Look Like

I had read a story recently about how “they” are increasing the daily steps recommendation from 10,000 to 15,000.  That seemed like a lot, but I had some time on Sunday, so I decided to go for it.  After, I got to my destination, it became clear that I was going to go over, so I amended my goal to an increased 20,000 steps.  To make the experience more “me”, I decided to go make it as much of a photo walk as a fitness one.

40 of the images I took were included in this post on Facebook.  I hope you enjoy them.  Please let me know which, if any, you connect with.

Please let me know if YOU decide to do a photo/fitness walk, so I can see a bit of YOUR world!

I still think 15k steps is a bit much for most people, especially considering this recommendation was IN ADDITION to your exercise.  I do think that every once and awhile a long walk like this can be great.  I hope to do one of these epic treks about once a month. Â

Credit Notes:
My fitness wearable is a Garmin Vivoactive HR.
My phone that took the pictures is a Lumia 950
The cities in this are West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Century City (Los Angeles).

Photography Tip: Stop. Pull Over. Pay Attention.

Today’s photography tip doesn’t require you to buy any special equipment of grasp any concepts or even practice to get it right.  I just want you to slow down in life, notice what’s happening around you and find things you want to capture in your photography.  Sometimes when you’re driving, you might want to pull over and park, because you see something that you want to take a photo of.  You might want to walk a new area or even your own neighborhood, to seek out interesting subjects.

When you get in this mindset, you’ll see photo opportunities everywhere.  While you’re doing that, you’re also training your “eye” and your photo framing will get better and you’ll find interesting perspectives.  Don’t worry about any of that now, just remember: STOP. PULL OVER. PAY ATTENTION.

The past few days, I’ve been doing just that with my Lumia 1020.  Let’s see what I found! 🙂

Lumia 1020 Photo Roundup

It’s been a while since I’ve done a entry that’s just about photography on the Lumia 1020.  It’s not that I’ve stopped taking photos, but I’ve settled into a posting them in a places with a built in photographic community.  You can regularly find my pictures on my Flickr account and my Phonetogaphs Blog and in the Fhotoroom community.

The picture above is one of my favorites from this device. I love the contrasts of color and texture.

OK, let’s dive into some more…

A PureView of the Pacific Design Center

I took a little walk and thought that I’d share the Pacific Design Center exterior with you.  Enjoy the campus of modern buildings and fountain in a garden style setting.  Obviously, I used the Nokia Lumia 1020 to capture it all.  It’s all handheld and I wasn’t being particularly careful so the Optical Image Stabilizer was working hard.  Also, you can see that the microphone works really well…almost too well for standard host-style speaking, because it picks up everything.

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1020 Test – A PureView Mini Tour of Sal Guarriello Veterans’ Memorial Park

This is my last video test of the Nokia Lumia 1020 before I start doing scripted  videos.  You will see that the phone did a good job with both audio and video.

This little park is at the bottom of my hill. I walk through it just about every day as anyone who follows me on Foursquare will testify to.

Keep following along to see the video…

Zoom Reinvented

41 megapixel + optical image stabilization = awesome!

Check out the beautiful full image and then see how Nokia’s Pro Camera app on the Lumia 1020 allows extreme zooming with great results!

My Walk With Nokia Lumia 1020 to the Movies

I saw TWO screenings of films today.  I just got back from seeing “Captain Phillips”.  That’s an intense ride based on the true story of ship raided by Somali pirates.  Earlier in the day, I saw the documentary.  This one, you may not have heard of, but trust me…it’s excellent.  This film is an example of film and music coming together to make something great.

The picture on the left here is the actual theatre of the Director’s Guild of America, where I see these films.  This picture was obviously taken by the Lumia 1020, currently in my care and I used the Hipstamatic Oggl app to capture the squared off wonder.

I took 1020 with me and I walked to the DGA.  Back when I was a Marine, we would call hikes, “humps”.  I guess I took the hump on a short hump. Cue the Beavis and Butthead chuckling.  Along the way, we stopped and took notice of things and more importantly we captured them in 41 megapixel glory.  Don’t worry, I’ll share some of the good stuff, after the break.

My 1st Nokia Lumia 1020 Video Test

No, the pictures to the left are not from the video shoot.  I did a photo shoot in Venice and those are some samples. Nice, huh?  I know, you came here to see some video footage, but wanted to share that with you as well as a couple of “phone” bits of info:

* One thing that I miss from the 920? I miss the wireless charging. I’m so in the habit that I still place the 1020 on the wireless charging pad for no reason.

* One thing that the 1020 has that 920 doesn’t?  The wrist strap. I know I mentioned that already, but I feel so much more secure with that thing on.

I promised to chime in on non-imaging issues/observations, so that’s that for today.  Now to the video, after the break.

Finding Creativity/Beauty/Opportunity EVERYWHERE

Since I started my phone-tography blog… What?  You don’t know about that?  OK, stop what you’re doing and bookmark http://phonetographs.wordpress.com.

As I was saying, when I started my phone-tography blog, I knew that I was going to need to keep the content fresh.  That means that I would need to find things to shoot wherever I find myself.  This scene here seems pretty uneventful and not a likely subject of a photoshoot, right?  Well, check after the break for what I was able to find in this spot.

DalyDose of…WEHO Biking

In an effort to reduce my carbon footprint and to be a better person in general, I decided to do all of my local errands by bike.  You’re not buying that are you?  How about this:  Due to economic conditions, I have decided to save gas money by doing my local errands by bike.  Yeah, that sounds more like me!  How I decided to give this a go is a bit more complicated.

Catalyst #1 – My last roommate left me her bike and there is nothing like a new toy sitting there to get you motivated to do something.

Catalyst #2 – Google came out with bike directions.  I am not planning on going anywhere that’s far enough from home to need directions, but the fact that GOOGLE was pushing the bike thing got me a little more excited.  In case you’re interested, here’s the video.  You can keep reading after…

 

The excitement was there and I needed to do a couple of errands around West Hollywood.  I was ready to jump in the saddle and start this new life.  First, my bike enthusiast neighbor Joe gave the bike a looksy, hooked me up with some air in the tires and sonsabiscuits, we noticed some problems with the gear shifting.  Oh well, I wasn’t going far and it was mostly flat terrain.

I set off down the hill to go to 7-11 for some cash.  Since I was going downhill I couldn’t hardly pedal fast enough to make a difference.  When I got to the bottom the pedaling got significantly more difficult.  I get to 7-11 and pulled the cable through the back tire and around the frame.  I went in, did my business and came back out.

Now we were off to Bank Of America for building business.  I wasn’t sure of the law regarding riding on the sidewalks so I stayed mostly on the street.  Now, I was on Santa Monica Blvd. and the stretches of road with street parking are…uh…exciting to navigate.  When I got down to Crescent Heights, I needed to turn left so I busted a move and got into the left turn lane.  For some reason, that made me feel like a bad-ass.  That was until I realized that in whatever gear I was in, I was not going to pick up great amounts of speed from the start.  So I’ve got a couple of cars behind me while my legs churn in an attempt to gain momentum and speed…not so bad-ass.  Grrrr.

I lock the bike up and do my bank biz and then head out with every intention of going to the post-office to mail a DVD of my short film “STUCK” (What, you haven’t seen it? CLICK NOW) to a friend in Northern Cali to air on their access show.  Somehow, I’ve passed Barney’s Beanery…TWICE…without stopping.  Maybe it was my discipline; maybe it was the poverty!   Maybe I didn’t even notice where I was because I was in fear of the Metro bus bearing down on me, or the couple who flagged down a cab that stopped in the bike lane right in front of me.  This wasn’t as fun as I thought.  Is this really a HEALTHY activity when you are sharing the lane with public transportation behemoths? 

When I got to my street, I saw my neighbor Joe driving and I waved and smiled like I was a fellow biking enthusiast.  I turned right and headed up the hill, I was gonna power my way up the hill with the bike in very much a non-hill friendly gear…BAD ASS.  I made it 3/4 of the way and realized no females were around to impress…END of bad ass.  I walked the last 100 feet or so.  Phew…home and alive.

Instead of going to the post office, I went up to my apartment and researched the postage rate for a DVD in a cardboard mailing sleeve. I put it into my building’s outgoing mailbox.  Yeah, it wouldn’t get postmarked until the next day, but my adventure was over.  The good news?  I still  held my head up with pride that I didn’t drive. 

To keep up my integrity and bragging rights, I will either have to learn the rules and get the gears working right so I can still bike locally OR find a way to make my errands less “local” and just drive!

Stay tuned and stay out of the way!