The pier

Life I love you, always groovy.

Eyes, the boys as nose and the ray of light as a sideways smile.

I want to do a collection of kitsch images this week honouring the American "Spring Break" the secular holiday which is celebrated as a religious holiday back home, being the "Easter Holidays". Growing up a Catholic with a Convent education, it was installed into me that Easter is a greater feast than Christmas but that's hard to understand when compared to the warmth of singing Christmas carols as you walk home from Midnight Mass in the freezing night air. Good Friday with its 3hr service, was arduous and morose and witnessing the priest laying himself prostrate whilst carrying the cross on the altar was hard to bear. Yet I hope I can keep the true meaning of Easter in my boys' lives. Maybe I'll do a theme a week, maybe not.

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A pier is about as kitsch as you get in my books, something I avoid like the plague (other than Boscombe Pier in Bournemouth UK which I adore) so what better way to start my little project than at the Santa Monica Pier, recently refurbished in a host of contrasting dayglo colours. The boys are mesmerized by the rolling coasters, the tacky photo booth and the waltzer, the air hot and sticky as we breath in the scent of popcorn and our ears are arrested by the screeching arcade games. The Spring breakers spill out onto the beach beside us as the boys, ever inquisitive of the polka dot bikinis, peer from the pier.

Technical note and question: interesting. When I imported this from iphoto to PSE I noticed the framing was broader, being apparent because I could see parallax on the left hand side of the frame and an additional 2 electric blue lengths of fence which weren't there on the iphoto version. How does that happen?. And I must say, I was delighted to have my wide angled Big Fella lens back on today despite the sand causing lens contact errors. Missed ya baby. Don't worry, the Nifty Fifty is just my latest fling. I'm gonna go back and shoot this a few more times. The midday sun was the worst element.

PS Can someone tell me how to lessen the brightness just on the boys. They look as hot as the sun (which they could well have been).