After nearly 3 years since my last visit, the stars lined up to where I had a spur-of-the-moment opportunity to come back to Griffith Observatory. One of my goals for this year is to carry around a camera with me almost everywhere I go so that I can be ready to record anywhere I am. I bought my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k in 2020 and have yet to properly record much of anything with it out in the wild. And yesterday was the perfect opportunity to test it out in a low light setting.

I managed to find parking up at the very top and made my way towards the main entrance. Enamored by the familiar scene of people roaming around taking photos of the Los Angeles skyline, I felt a sense of excitement that I haven’t felt since the last time I was here.

I went inside and walked around a bit before purchasing a ticket to the newest show at the Samuel Oschin Planetarium called “Signs of Life”. I made it inside the theater and sat in my preferred seat, which for future reference is the first aisle seat on the right after the handicap section when you first walk in.

The show was actually very cool and the CGI and narration paired perfectly with each other. The way they portrayed how other places inside and outside of our solar system could potentially harbor life with Earth-like features such as water and atmosphere made me excited at the thought that life could really exist elsewhere in the Universe.

After the show was over, I made my way outside and came upon a long line that led to a telescope pointed towards Mars that a local astronomer had set up for anyone to look through. He had a small screen with some of his previous photographs he had taken of other celestial bodies such as Jupiter and Saturn and the moon.

Soon after I decided it was probably time to go home. I felt a sense of accomplishment at how I decided last minute to hop off the 101 freeway at Sunset and drove up to Griffith Observatory. If I had continued on my path, I would’ve just done the same usual thing I always do, which was to go home and mindlessly work on other things. But I know that I need to make the effort to get back to doing some of my favorite things again.