Snarky Social Commentary

Snarky Social Commentary on an Actually Very Enjoyable Event

Located in Los Angeles (the city of angels) California

Called Design for Humanity

Sponsored by Billabong

Including Photos!

When you grow up in the midwest, you learn from the television and magazines that red carpets are very very big deals and that only very important, glamorous people walk on them while complete strangers shout out their names and try to attract their attention.

 Here is what really happens for much of the time on red carpets:

girls eat sandwiches.

The event is sponsored by Billabong.  It includes an art auction.  I was really excited to see what kind of art would be going for such ridiculous amounts of money.  Here is a picture of my favorite shot of the art gallery:

So, it wasn't really the BEST art in the world.  but hey, it was going to a good cause.  

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and what, you might wonder, was that cause?  judging by the 2 minute emotionally stirring video they aired before the fashion show, here was the cause:

Children are obese.  And this is terrible.  As remedy or some sort of comfort, a series of nearly naked and most certainly eating disordered women paraded in front of us for the next ten minutes.  maybe it was supposed to be some sort of proof that although children are obese, there will always be unnaturally thin people to balance the scale.  although children are obese now, at least some percentage of them will grow up and be able to fit into billabong bathing suits.   we all took pictures as evidence.  see:

i mean, to be fair, not all of the girls looked completely unhealthy.  some even had muscle tone.  the whole thing was just a little funny to me... like most things involving sexuality.  if you really think about it, a huge group of people were just standing around cheering and taking pictures of some people walking around in underwear.  funny humans. 

as a new photographer, i was really excited for this part, though.  i kind of wish we could have kept cheering for those girls in underwear for another half hour so that i could have had more time to practice around with focus and lighting and whatnot.  

a lot of my favorite pictures from the fashion show ended up being:  out of focus (which is why i ended up liking them) or  muddled by the ENORMOUS FACE of a man that looked like ray's brother from Everybody Loves Raymond (who can ever remember his name?)  or marshall from How I Met Your Mother.  Here is evidence:

In nearly half of my shots that were in focus, his enormous head was floating right next or overlapping the model's legs.  And most of the time, he was turned around, smiling that enormous face smile or staring off into space.  Even when he was actually WATCHING the show, he usually found a way for his enormous head to block what would otherwise be clear shots of the model.

I can edit the CHIPOTLE signs off the sides of buildings (you didn't even notice, huh?)... but my amateur photographer self does not have the program or the skills to edit out that kind of nonsense.  moving on.

there were many great bands at the event (not an ounce of snark there.  that was just serious).  here's one that i plan to check out.  The Lumineers:

and when you get to be really good and played on the radio and you are a man and if you happen to be mildly attractive or at least have some amount of swagger/stage presence, here is the reaction you can expect from women:

there were a lot of really beautiful women there.  a lot of men pretty enough to be women.  so many beautiful people, in fact, that you kind of forgot what beautiful was after awhile and started noticing things like the fact that 70% were wearing ridiculous heels or that those bright red carpet lights make people beautiful from a distance, but are absolutely unforgiving up close.  that's what you start noticing when everyone is beautiful and everywhere.

so, all in all, it was a great time.  we inspected people in the art gallery.  we reminded ourselves that even though children are obese, there are women with eating disorders to strike the circle of life balance.  we swooned to some great music.  

and, as must end EVERY SINGLE TRIP YOU WILL EVER TAKE TO LA FOR AN EVENT,

we got caught in highway detour and heinous traffic on the way home.  

consider humanity designed.

the end.

OH!  i also saw this guy from glee: