One thing that I wasn’t really expecting to see in Southern California were a series of wind farms. With their quiet grace and purpose against the desert backdrop they are oddly beautiful.

I’m sure really sure what they point of these adverts were or what they were trying to sell, but they were all over Los Angeles. Amused me, anyway!

The bizarre thing about Los Angeles. No, scrub that. One of the bizarre things about Los Angeles is that it doesn’t really have a distinct centre or downtown area, just a bunch of nearby districts, some more noteworthy than others.

Despite only having a day I think I did pretty well. After a decent brunch I managed to visit Hollywood, including the famous sign¹, the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In the afternoon I went a little out of town and saw the Getty Museum — not something I would have immediately associated with Los Angeles but well worth a visit in hindsight. And then, on the way back to the airport, I stopped briefly in Venice Beach.

The airport, by the way, is called John Wayne Airport. I guess there are plenty of airports named after people but that one, for some reason, amused me. Does that mean that I didn’t completely internalise the Los Angeles vibe?

1. I did try to see it the previous evening but it clearly hadn’t been illuminated. [↩]

In the weakest possible sense of the word, these two images can be considered to be my tribute to Ansel Adams’ work in the Sierra Nevada.

While he had to lug huge cameras around and work with large format film I merely had to carry around my 50D¹ and play around in Photoshop Elements.

I find it a little odd that the thing that drew me to both of these pictures were the colours² yet there is still enough texture and shape to make them work in black and white.

1. Though many would complain about the size and weight of my DSLR! [↩]
2. The top photograph can be found in colour in my Yosemite post. The other you’ll just have to imagine. [↩]

Yosemite Animation

It’s at times like these that I feel that I have been short-changed with my 50D. Both the model above and below it have a HD video feature and mine does not. I’m not one to let these little limitations get in my way though…

With apologies for the size, here are a bunch of images I took in Yosemite stitched together into a single animated GIF¹.

Thanks to Henry for the idea.

1. Yes, I’m normally against animated GIFs too, but this was way easier than building a proper movie file. [↩]

What can you say about Yosemite that hasn’t already been said? And what can you photograph that there aren’t already ten copies of on Flickr? (Don’t even get me started on some of those people that used film rather than CMOS sensors.)

Having said that, it didn’t stop me trying. There is no two ways about it: Yosemite is an absolutely stunning location. Everywhere you look there is more beautiful scenery, forests, water falls.

I arrived on the Friday afternoon, checking into the hotel just outside the park and driving into Yosemite itself. The drive from the entrance to the visitors centre was longer than I was expecting but sunset over Half Dome was every bit as spectacular as I’d been led to believe.

The next day I decided to do a little more driving and went as far as Olmsted Point and then a little bit of the John Muir Trail until the path just petered out. This wasn’t entirely unexpected as the trail had only opened a few weeks previously and there was still snow on the ground in some parts.

On Sunday and Monday morning I decided to stay in the valley. I saw Yosemite Falls¹ and Vernal Falls on the Sunday. On Monday, before driving back, I decided to head to Mirror Lake which, despite its name, is not actually a lake. It does, however, resemble a mirror with some beautiful reflections of the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately I took the wrong path. I nick-named it the horse-poo path for good reason and didn’t go down the trail as far as I had intended.

Turning back I took a slight detour past The Ahwahnee, the only hotel in the national park. If I ever win the lottery² I might stay there. This time, though, I had to just pop in for a quick look around and then return to the car for the journey back to the Bay Area.

The only thing that I could really complain about was the food. It was invariably not great and overpriced but, frankly, with the scenery and my luck with the weather it wasn’t going to spoil my weekend. Next time maybe camping would be the way to go.

1. I’m willing to be corrected on the names. Although looking distinct at the time, the names have kind of blurred into one now that I’ve got home! [↩]
2. I’ve never bought a ticket so that seems unlikely. [↩]