August 12, 2007

• PhotoPost: Ocean Blvd. Long Beach Part 2

  

  CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO SEE LARGER IMAGES IN ANOTHER WINDOW

  

  On Sunday, July 22nd, I posted the first part of this PhotoPost. These shots, taken along Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach, CA, where I work (although I work about five miles north of this area.) show some more of the mix of old and new architecture, along the boulevard. Most of these came from the “Ocean Blvd” folder I put up in the Photos section on this blog but I know people rarely search out anything on blogs that aren’t on the “front pages” as it were, so I’m going to “repeat” my walk for you with some different views. Above is looking southeast along the lawns of one of the condo projects.

  

  From the ground to the sky, with the sun peeking over the corner of this 20 story condo building. In order to get my “signature” shots from the ground, I frequently place my camera right on the pavement in front of whatever I’m shooting, and then experiment with the angle so that I get exactly what I’m looking for. Sometimes I want to dig a hole in the ground in order to get the camera “lower”. I believe I was standing up for this shot. The building is large enough as it is.

  

  Here is a piece of artwork on the lawn of another condo project. One of the things I like about L.A. and environs are the public art installations. Sadly, in some parts of SoCal, murals and artworks are soon vandalized by taggers, but there isn’t a lot of that in downtown Long Beach these days. This piece looks more impressive in “real life” than in any photograph. Someone can walk through and under the piece, which is about 15 feet tall.

  

  A few of the ubiquitous seagulls frolicking about in the fountain in front of the Performing Arts Center. I got lots of video of these guys and their friends. The guy on the right is either “landing” or “taking off”. I can’t remember which.

  

  This shot, looking southeast along the shore, shows the Performing Arts Center on the right, and a line of condos and apartment buildings along the left. Only the “round” building farther along the shore is an older structure. The others were all constructed over the past four or five years. This part of the boulevard is pretty much built up. Farther northwest, opposite this shot, more construction will yield yet more apartments and condos. The “housing bust” which has been caused by sub prime lending doesn’t touch these projects much. You have to have a pretty large paycheck in order to live along the beach, and yet, these new buildings fill up fast.

  

  A view of the fountain in front of the Arts Center, with the Breakers Assisted Living building on the left, and the International City Bank on the right.

  

  Whenever I can, I like to get flowers in the shots I take somewhere, and these are some azalea blooms in a tree planter over which I’m shooting one of the intersections showing yet another bank.

  

  A short hop over the footbridge on which I’m standing to take this photo, and you find yourself in “Shoreline Village”, an outdoor mall collection of shops and restaurants. This area is where our company usually has it’s Christmas parties, at one of the restaurants in Shoreline like the Yard House, which is slightly to the left of this photo, out of view. Some of the large cranes used to unload container freight in the Long Beach harbor can be seen in the background on the right.

  

  Here are a couple of harbor cruise ships, on which tourists and locals can take a short half hour “cruise” of the Long Beach Harbor. Most of this area, to the right and across the water from Shoreline Village, pictured in the photo above this one, is relatively new, built up when the Aquarium opened a few years ago.

  

  This is a shot (from the ground, with wide angle lens) of the pavement in front of the Long Beach Convention Center. The Wells Fargo Building is in the background. The Breakers apts. is in the center. And the Convention Center itself is along the right.

  

  The convention center with an agapantha bloom in the foreground. These banners are really colorful, and this photo doesn’t do them justice. While taking this photo, a guy came up to me and we had a conversation about my photography. He’d lost his bicycle and was looking around the area for it. I wished him good luck.

  

  An older hotel on First Street which is right behind Ocean, again, with the wide angle lens attached and camera as low to the ground as possible, in order to get the full height of the building in the shot. The diagonal yellow sign on the antique lamppost shows the trolley, which crosses the street immediately to the south.

  

  Lastly, I shot this photo from the “Pike” mixed use project, which is brand new and largely unoccupied as of now. The top of the ticket booth area for the old Ferris Wheel can be seen in the center of the shot in the parking area. On the left I liked this shade of a guy wailing on his horn in the window of this newer building.

   

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