Camera

In spite of an almost five-year battle with cancer that began when he was 4, Sam Guinane, 8, has spent the past few months behind the camera, taking pictures of the places and things that make him “say cheese,” the popular expression a photographer uses to get the subject to smile, Those things include the ocean and sand at the beach in Corona del Mar. Local photographer Barbara Higgins is one of six photographers who became a...

Lolita Harper Each day of testimony regarding the authenticity of the digital videotape that captured an alleged rape in the Corona del Mar home of an Orange County assistant sheriff reveals more details, more possibilities and more legal strategy. Thursday was no different, as it was revealed that two video cameras were involved in the pending case and defense attorneys specified that San Bernardino Sheriff's Department officials were the culprits in their tape-tampering defense.

The Costa Mesa City Council will vote on whether to install red light cameras at four new intersections throughout the city at tonight’s meeting. Data from the four existing photo-enforced intersections in Costa Mesa shows that they don’t make or lose any money for the city. They have also been statistically shown to cause more accidents; however, they reduce the number of injuries sustained during the accidents. City officials attribute the increase in accidents to people stopping suddenly to avoid getting tickets, and subsequently being rear-ended.

Young Chang Richard Ross was looking at a row of glass lanterns in a Chilean church some years ago when the padre approached and asked what he was doing. He told the father that he was trying to put God into his camera the way the padre put God into his place of worship. The padre suggested Ross light the lanterns. For Ross, whose photographic God would have to be light, the suggestion allowed his camera to do what it's always supposed to: capture something spiritual.

When the volume of the crowd rises and the lights from cameras blare, Joesph DiGiulio tunes it all out. He just focuses on the tennis tournament he's playing. DiGiulio will use the same focus when he walks the halls of St. Catherine Catholic School in Laguna Beach today. The 10-year old tennis phenom will catch the eyes of all around him as he is followed by a film crew, which will be at his side through Sunday. DiGiulio, a Newport Beach resident, is being filmed for a documentary, along with three other boys' players from around the country, to capture competitiveness in its youth, with the story culminating at the Super Nationals in Little Rock, Ark. where all four will compete.

If you don't want to face parking on the peninsula or brave the rain expected this weekend, there's a new option for watching the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade this year: your computer. A recently-installed camera on top of the Balboa Pavilion provides streaming video of the harbor, including the procession of boats in the parade, which ends Sunday. Seven Seas Systems, which provides wireless Internet services and security cameras for yachts, put up the camera, said Charlie Smith, the company's president.

Chelsey Chesson stood Thursday in front of an audience that would terrify the average public speaker — a glaring camera, a scrolling teleprompter and a producer watching her every move through soundproof glass. The Louisiana native adjusted her toes to the masking tape on the floor as the technicians loaded her prepared speech — a review of the Diane Keaton comedy "Because I Said So" — onto the screen below the camera. As Chesson took a deep breath, the floor manager told her to stand still and move her arms as little as possible during the take.

Reality television can often be unsatisfying because although there is some measure of unpredictability, there are certainly some things that producers just won’t let happen on air. Still, people watch because it’s fun to be a voyeur — to observe something from the perspective of a fly on the wall — even if it’s not true reality. And soon you’ll get to see an unrecorded, uncensored version of America’s new favorite pastime at this year’s Orange County Fair.

If I had the space, I would write several pages on what it took to get this photo. It really just boils down to time and effort. I came up with the idea six months ago. After observing the osprey for months, I found a spot that it frequented that would be feasible for a photo. It afforded a nice view of the overall bay, had a clean background, was well-lighted and would guarantee a frontal shot of him -- the bird always liked to face into the wind, which meant that in the afternoons it would face west into the prevailing ocean breeze, into the sun and into the camera.

The Costa Mesa City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an upgraded security system for City Hall and a new one for Lions Park. City Hall's current system is 6 years old and consists of eight cameras and a digital recorder, according to a city staff report. Those cameras cover part of the lobby and the first floor's hallways. The new system would monitor areas of the parking lot and portions of all of City Hall's floors. City officials said the new cameras would not be monitoring employees' desk areas.

One thing I have learned in politics is that you can never predict who will oppose an idea until it's proposed. Certainly this is the case with the provision in Measure EE that would ban the use of red-light cameras in Newport Beach. The opponents of Measure EE say we should reject this provision because "it may preclude technological advances beneficial to our city. " They are wrong, and here is why. Because I am active in the League of Cities, I get the opportunity to see how issues are addressed across California and throughout our nation.

Newport Beach voters will have the option in November to ban red-light cameras from the city. The City Council voted Tuesday to include a red-light camera prohibition in the list of charter amendments that will come before the electorate this fall. The city has no red-light cameras now. Other cities have banned them amid complaints that they were merely a way to boost city revenue. The vote was the culmination of a months-long charter update process, where a committee sifted through about 40 sections of the city's constitution and recommended changes to the council.

Police are experimenting with temporary surveillance cameras and new traffic controls to further tame West Newport's infamous Independence Day parties. People on historically rowdy street corners now will be watched from a monitor at City Hall and by officers on street patrol. And, for the first time in 10 years, Newport Beach police will allow traffic to flow in both directions on West Balboa Boulevard. The idea is to end the Bacchanalia that city officials and homeowners have criticized for decades.

COSTA MESA — During Thursday morning's Bible study at Lighthouse Church, Danon Hellbusch sat on the floor between racks of free clothes, charging a slim red phone. The man, recently homeless and living in a cardboard box near the Department of Motor Vehicles office on 19th Street, said it was the ability to connect his cell phone to a power source that led him to his all-important job interview Friday. "It's very important when I'm working," said a clean-shaven Hellbusch in his spotless white T-shirt.

COSTA MESA - There's not much left on the stockroom shelves of Cal's Cameras & Video except for decades-old boxes of glass slides, now considered relics in this era of digital photography. The store at 1770 Newport Blvd. once boasted an inventory of more than 1 million units, overflowing with photographic paper, film and developing supplies, and annual sales of about $10 million, said Cal's founder, Cal Stilley, 87. "The wall used to [be] full of all types of photographic paper and chemicals," he said of his showroom's far wall, which is now lined by two digital print stations.

When I reached a magic milestone this summer and planted both feet firmly into geezerdom I knew I probably wouldn't like the changes in store for me. Sure enough, almost simultaneous with my birthday, the wheels began to come off - a little stiffness in a knee, a little skin cancer to be dealt with and the first whopper of a cold this year. However, I was not ready for the latest change - Cal's Cameras is closing forever! At the end of the recent City Council study session a friend, observing my ever-present camera, casually mentioned that Cal's was closing.

NEWPORT BEACH - Residents of a condominium complex near Hoag Hospital suspect that two men who look like Colonel Sanders and Ashton Kutcher are behind a series of bicycle thefts and car break-ins there. Villa Balboa residents say that some 15 bikes have been stolen from subterranean parking lots around the complex during the past four months. Using surveillance cameras in the garages, members of Villa Balboa's safety committee began reviewing taped footage of the alleged thefts and making DVDs - at $160 each - through an independent security company to send to police.

"The Great Picture" made its international debut at the Art Museum at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing on March 8. The world's largest silver gelatin print, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records, captures the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and future Great Park in Irvine. At three stories high and 11 stories wide, the photograph was developed in 2006 using a developing tray the size of a swimming pool. The muslin that it's printed on was imported from Germany from one of only two mills in the world that could create it. A hanger converted into a pinhole camera took the shot.

It's been around longer than the Rockefeller Center's tree lighting and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Among Newport Beach's signature events, this is one of those people plan their vacations around. The Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade lights up the harbor for the 102 n d consecutive year Wednesday, concluding on Dec. 19 with a fireworks show at 9 p.m. This year's theme, "Lights, Camera…Christmas in Newport Beach," celebrates the city and parade's cinematic history.