A Mighty Dense and New Place to Play

dense |dens|
adjective
closely compacted in substance : dense volcanic rock | swirling, dense smoke.
• having the constituent parts crowded closely together : an estuary dense with marine life.
• figurative (of a text) hard to understand because of complexity of ideas.
• informal (of a person) stupid.

Some good news. I have been hired as a staff photographer once again. After seven months of 'furlough' (laid off) from the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, I have been re-hired back to LANG to lend my full-time photojournalistic skills to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, The Pasadena Star-News and the Whittier Daily News (The San Gabriel Valley News Group). After a few days of intensive self-imposed training including: studying the coverage area on the map (that area will take about a year for me to get the lay of) finding, organizing, typing in and programing the emergency frequency codes in the scanner and most importantly, learning the ropes of my new gear. After shooting Nikon gear for 20 years I was handed Canon gear. A bit of a learning curve for the level I need to shoot at right out of the gate.
This area is dense. The basic footprint of our coverage is the Los Angeles County area from Pasadena to La Verne to Diamond Bar to Cerritos. I am finding that it takes time and patients to get from A to B in constant road-rage, L.A. traffic using a lot of surface streets.


Union Pacific Rail Road workers clear the debris of a Penski rental truck after it was struck by a freight train at Nogales St. and E. Railroad St. in the City of Industry, Friday. Aug. 21, 2009. SGVN/Staff photo by Eric Reed
Muslims gather for afternoon prayer to mark the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan at the Islamic Learning and Practicing Center in West Covina, Friday. Aug. 21, 2009. SGVN/Staff photo by Eric Reed