March 31, 2006

• PhotoPost: Pacific Coast Highway Series

  Looks like I’m past due for a PHOTOPOST. The following pictures are part of my ongoing Pacific Coast Highway Series and can be found, along with another 100 or so photos, in the SECOND PACIFIC COAST WEBSHOTS FOLDER on my Webshots site. These were taken on March 12. As usual, clicking on the photos will bring up full size images in another window, which is the best way to view my photography.

   

  These graceful concrete ostriches flank the entryway of one of the many minimalls along the Highway. This one is near the turnoff to Torrance Beach.

   

  Here is the first glimpse of the Ocean from the Hollywood Riviera curve in Redondo Beach. The Riviera has nothing to do with Hollywood, which is about 40 or 50 miles north in the hills above L.A., but that is the name given to the small area between Torrance and Redondo Beach. The ocean can be seen peeking above the street. This shot was taken about 7am in the morning, right as it was getting light. The car driving up the street still has his headlights on.

   

  This is a view down Avenue F in Redondo Beach just off of PCH. I straightened the photo in one of my computer programs, but neglected to save it as a jpg, so I’m positng the jpg of the original shot, even though the horizon line is not straight. I like the clouds and the lone palm tree on the right side of the street. The ocean can be glimpsed in the distance.

   

  Here we are at the beach. This is the southern part of Redondo, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula is the hilly piece of land jutting out into the water. You can see one of the lifegaurd towers, and a concrete jetty. The lifegaurd towers were featured in the television series “Baywatch”. It’s winter time, and very early in the morning, so that explains the lack of people on the beach, however that morning there were lots of joggers and bicyclists on the strand, which is the concrete bikeway which hugs the ocean for miles along the Southern coast.

   

  Here is a wide angle view of the jetty. I really like the islolation in this shot. We had just had a rainstorm the previous day, and the next mornings are always the best times to take photos, when there is a sizable cloud cover to break up the monotony of blue overhead.

   

  About a mile up the road, and the road is actually Esplanade and not PCH, which is two streets further from the ocean, I am in a small park overlooking the horseshoe pier at Redondo Beach. The trees are all wind whipped toward the shore.

  

  Looking South along the strand near the Redondo Beach Pier. Palos Verdes is in the distance, under the cloud cover, and to the left is one of the many apartment buildings and condos lining the perimeter of the ocean.

   

  This building almost looks like the Alamo in Texas a bit, but is actually one of Redondo Beach’s branch libraries sitting in the park right above the water. I took some other striking shots of this edifice which are in the Webshots folder.

   

  This is down at the shore, next to the southern part of the horseshoe pier, which was rebuilt after major storms damaged it in 1987. The building is New Tony’s, one of my favorite seacoast restaurants, where I like to get a booth right over the crashing waves.

   

  From New Tony’s to Old Tony’s on the other side of the south horseshoe pier, looking through both sets of windows to the north side of the pier. I took about a dozen versions of this shot, with various exposures, and in some of them the liquor bottles are lighted better, but I liked the contrast of the dark shadows of the bottles in the foreground and lightness of the waves on the other side of the window.

   

  Longtime readers will probably know I always love to shoot seagulls when on the pier. This little guy has only one leg.

   

  For my 12th and last photo in this series, I’m shooting through a chain link fence toward one of the oil refiineries along the coast. I believe this is the one in El Segundo, but it could still be Redondo. In fact I know it’s in Redondo, because I had just photographed the King Harbor sign and liked the rows of postal trucks in the back of the Post Office. The ocean is immediately on the other side of the refinery.

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  • 8:33 am
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