Prize-winning Peninsula photos

When I was in college, I bought Sierra Club engagement calendars every year, because of their remarkable photos. In between my scribbled, highly crucial appointments ("Meet Ed at flagpole," "Drop wretched statistics class") were pictures of curious birds and glinting snowscapes -- and autumn. What was autumn? I pondered this, peeling off another wool sweater in California.

When classes were dull, I flipped through the calendar pages and gazed into nature. It sure beat statistics. Funny how when you're a French minor you dream of going to Europe, and you miss the loveliness of Utah, which somehow seems so much more foreign.

The photographers who won the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District's photo contest surely don't miss what's close to home. First-place winner Randy Weber found autumn right here, in his "Fall Colors at Purisima Creek" (pictured above). Our California fall -- be it ever so subtle.



I was especially drawn to the second-place photo, "Foggy Descent" (above), because of its storybook quality. The writer's mind starts spinning: who is that person, why is he/she walking alone, where is Heathcliff. The photographer, Karl Gohl of Los Altos, also had other images get honorable mention. This one was shot at Windy Hill. Gohl says: "I was enjoying the moody light created by the fog, the pattern of the oak limbs and the lichen on them and I got that 'Oh, wow' feeling that makes me want to capture the moment in a picture."

Third place went to aeronautics/astronautics Stanford grad student Alex Stoll for "Sunset from Russian Ridge." Click here to see his pic and the whole contest photo gallery, which also includes a picture of a fetchingly pigeon-toed bluebird carrying a centipede, by photographer Jacob Osborne.

Winners of the open-space district's photo contests, past and present, also get a bonus: Their works will also be considered for the coffee-table book that the district plans to publish in 2012 for its 40th birthday. Photo submissions are no longer needed for the book, but the district is still seeking original poetry and other works of art, such as drawings and oil and acrylic paintings. Let your hikes inspire you.

Chattanooga to Cinequest

Comedy that makes you cringe: Who'd have thought it would find its niche? (Hello, "Curb Your Enthusiasm.") Palo Alto filmmaker Jarrod Whaley seems to be traversing that terrain. He bills his new feature flick, "Hell Is Other People," as a "comedy of awkwardness."

Apparently some people like 75 minutes of feeling uncomfortable. Whaley's film is getting its world premiere on Feb. 27 at Cinequest. Shot in Chattanooga, from whence Whaley hails, the film follows the seriously underemployed Morty (Richard Johnson), who can't seem to get it together. Still, this isn't a story about nothing. Morty plays psychiatrist to a passenger in his Jeep, tries to shake down his friends for cash, and gets a haircut.

"The characters are aimless, maybe, but the film is not," Whaley is quoted as saying on CQ Central. "It takes aim, I hope, at all those countless recent films in which nothing happens apart from privileged middle-class kids grumbling and whining about the banality which comes with their privilege. Beyond that, 'Hell Is Other People' is funny (I hope), even as it sows discomfort."

A few other local folks are lending their visions to Cinequest this year. Palo Alto native James Franco jumps from acting ("Milk," "Spider-Man," et al.) to directing with a five-minute drama called "The Feast of Stephen." It'll be shown March 4 and 5 as part of an international series of shorts. According to New York Magazine, Franco's film is inspired by a work of gay poetry by Anthony Hecht.

Meanwhile, local residents Jason Sussberg (Stanford University) and Brian Pahl (De Anza College) have their short films represented in a Cinequest student short competition.

Local artist's scene makes the silver screen

In the unlikely event that you can take your eyes off Meryl Streep when she's on screen, you might spot a product of the local art world in "It's Complicated."

Mitchell Johnson, an artist with a studio in Palo Alto, has three paintings in the film. One landscape hangs over the fireplace in Meryl Streep's character's home. (Click here to see it in the set.)

Thanks to Hollywood magic, the film is set in Santa Barbara, but the interiors were shot in New York, and the fireplace landscape depicts Meyreuil, France. No wonder Steve Martin, who's playing an architect, looks so confused in all the trailers.

Pictured: "Meyreuil," a 2003 landscape by Mitchell Johnson.