A View from the Swamp

As I was awake anyway, I picked up my camera and wandered outside.

Moon through clouds

Pre-sunrise sky

A full moon hangs over the Fairmont Inn

After a few days playing, I think I now manage the basics with this camera.  I’m now operating with highlight tone priority enabled, and can change white balance and colour saturation when needed.  Sadly, this just exposes my poor image composition skills . . .

Last night, I thought I’d play with my camera around sunset.  As I was a) lazy and b) tired I just walked out of the lobby of the hotel and into the car park.

The Fairmont Inn, Newport Beach

Yucca and lamp post

Sunset through trees

Palm trees

Sadly, I missed getting a plane into that shot . . . the flight path from Orange County airport (aka John Wayne International – no kidding!) runs directly behind those trees.  I waited for another, but patience ran out when I realised my beer was getting warm.

Yesterday I had planned to visit the Joshua Tree National Park but that didn’t quite work out. Instead, I did a huge circle taking in the Mount Palomar Observatory and the Anzo-Borrego Desert State Park, then passing the Salton Sea, Palm Springs and returning to Irvine via more desert / mountain scenery.

Because the final stretch of road to the observatory, that climbs 5,000 feet in a long series of hairpin bends, was built to transport the 200 inch mirror for the telescope, it has a good surface and perfect camber. And speed racers love it!

A mad biker

Another mad biker, in close-up

It may not look it from the photos, but these guys are screaming round this bend – an accident black-spot.

The observatory was a slight disappointment. The dome is impressive and the setting marvelous but the public viewing of the instrument (at 200″ the mirror was huge when completed in 1948) is very limited.

Palomar Observatory

The Hale telescope instrument bay

After Palomar, the landscape started to dry out. Lake Henshaw was the last open water I saw until the Salton Sea.

Lake Henshaw

Badlands near the Salton Sea

I love the desert, but to experience it you need to walk into it, get far from roads and people, and feel the isolation and the heat as it sucks you dry.  Driving through, with cars, people and roads – which is all I had time for, is just not the same.  Landscapes are hard – you need the time and patience to find a location and wait for the right light, and I had neither.  So, I took endless shots of parched, blasted landscapes, but they are boring and could be anywhere.

I did wander slightly from the road (about 100 yards!) to find some of the local flora.

Yucca and rocks

A cactus

More cactii on a rocky slope

After a few days with little sleep in Seoul, I’m now in Los Angeles. I got to my hotel on Friday at around 1pm, fully intending to do something – I’m not sure what – but something. Accidentally falling asleep at 2pm quickly put paid to that idea, and I spend the night wide-awake in jetlag hell. I mean, what is there to do when America is shut?

The sun eventually crawled over the horizon to a grey start, and after a slight detour to satiate my appetite for gadgets, I headed for the coast to test-drive my new camera.

A Tall Ship at docked at Dana Point

A seal basking in the waves

A Pelican in Flight

After lunch, I paid a visit to The Getty Museum, which is well worth the $10 parking fee (but there is no entrance fee).  Oh, and I tried a few more photos.

Reach for the sky!

City-scapes - natural and built

Cactii in gravel

I won’t bore you with endless shots of exhibits, but the museum is fantastic.  Not only the collections; the building itself is magnificent and shows that not all modern architecture is bad.  Cheap architecture, whether old or new, is usually bad.  Remember: only the expensive old stuff survives.  The medieval equivalents of the ’70s concrete monstrosities were torn down centuries ago!

Overall, a pretty good day.