December 2, 2007

• Photopost: Santa Monica and the Pier

  A PHOTO TOUR ALONG OCEAN BLVD TO THE PIER IN SANTA MONICA

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  There are 20 photos in this PhotoPost. I know that's a lot, but I think you'll enjoy this liesurely stroll along Ocean Blvd. in the city of Santa Monica, CA, from California Street to the famous Pier. In case you don't think 20 is quite enough to enjoy the "virtual experience", I've got another 30 (or more) high quality photos in the Santa Monica Dec. 2007 folder in my Xanga Photoblog section. I also uploaded all the photos I took during the "expedition" to Webshots, and there are 84 photos in Part One and 116 in Part Two.

  

  Over the long Thanksgiving weekend I didn't get out of the house at all. On Friday, Nov. 30th, we finally had some much needed rain in SoCal. About an inch fell throughout the southland, and although a sudden rainstrom in L.A. always causes lots of auto accidents, and some flooding, for the most part we're relieved and hope that this winter is a bit wetter than it has been in the past two years. We certainly need the rain. As is common with our coastal rainstrorms, they pass overnight and the next day, instead of our usual cloudless skies, there are bright blue skies filled with cumulus clouds. I love photographing cloudscapes, gas prices are down a bit this weekend , and so I hopped in my convertible, braved the winds, and drove out to beautiful Santa Monica to take some pictures.

  

  Santa Monica is located west of L.A. You get there by taking the 10 Freeway (San Bernadino Freeway West) as far as it goes. Known for the 3rd Street Promenade shopping district and the famous Santa Monica Pier (entrance of which is shown in the first photo), the city is also the home of Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh) on ABC's Wednesday night hit "Private Practice",

  

  I took off from the Torrance Lomita area, where I live, about noonish, after lunch. First I took some shots along Santa Monica Blvd. in town on the way to the beach, where I was briefly stopped by Ed, a car salesman for Santa Monica Honda, when I stood on his car lot taking photos of cloudscapes. I really hadn't gotten too many good shots yet, and we had a talk about my website. After I drove all the way down to the beach, I parked my car on 2nd Street, in a residential area where I didn't have to pay for parking, and proceeded to walk from California Street down to the Pier. Here is the beach shot from the end of California Street. The sun is obsrtucted by the cloud.  

  

  Walking along Ocean Blvd, which is on a high bluff above Pacific Coast Highway, shown in this view, I had to steady my hand, especially for the video footage, as the winds were quite strong after the daylong storm. Although chilly, the day was bright, sunny, and clear. If you travel north along PCH to the left there, in the distance you can see Malibu, where some pretty bad fires blazed this year and every fire season.

  

  Quite a ways from the pier, I shot this photo with my telephoto lens. This shows the expanse of sand leading up to the Pacific Park area, which has a ferris wheel and roller coaster, and was built to resemble the old carnival piers of the 20s and 30s, which dotted the South Bay along the coast from Malibu to Long Beach. Because of the angle, and the fact that I used a telephoto, you can't even see the acre of parking spaces in between the beach and the pier.

  

  This is looking south on the footpath towards the pier, almost imperceptable in the distance. There is only a wooden fence between the pedestrian and the cliffs which front Pacific Coast Highway. One drawback of having a rainstorm so soon after the fires is the tendency for mudslides (Yes, we call it "Mudslide Season") to occur, which did happen along parts of the coast, although happily not in Santa Monica.

  

  I rarely photograph "models" or even have my shots popluated. I usually take great pains to keep people out of the picture, but sometimes kismet is at work, and I get a shot like this, which sums up the day perfectly, for me. Here a Santa Monica bicyclist takes a break, staring out into the ocean while listening to music on his headphones.

  

  A statue of the Virgin Mary (I believe, I didn't check for references regarding this statue) in Palisades Park. I experimented with focus and exposure to get the proper aura of "halo" behind her head. The "halo" of course is the sun itself. HERE is another version of the shot.

  

  There are also multiple versions of this shot available in my Webshots Gallery Folder. The tree is very interesting, and overlooks a promontory right before you arrive at the footbridge over PCH, which you can see in the lower right hand portion of the shot. The ferris wheel is more discernable. I experimented with shots highlighting it better, but I like this one with the full view of the tree with it's exposed roots the best.

  

  The footbridge over PCH. I also put some more shots with different angles and have an interesting shot of the beach through the concrete "window" at the other end of the bridge in the Xanga Santa Monica Folder. I shot lots of video while on this bridge, and hope to get some interesting results when I make the internet movie.

  

  More people! I saw the boy and his grandmother from the distance, set the camera on the ground alongside the bike path, and then waited for the right moment. I should have set the auto shutter to get a dozen shots in a row, but I made do with my manual "sense" of when to click the shutter, and got this shot, which I think is quite good.

  

  Here we are, finally on the Santa Monica Pier. The sun is right behind the building to my right. It isn't great to shoot right into the sun, which causes glare, but it was after 3pm by the time I got these shots, and I took photos of the ferris wheel from both angles, into and away from the sun. This shot would have been better taken in the morning with the sun behind the photographer. In the video, I have shots of the wheel turning while cars on the roller coaster whiz by overhead. It's "free" to walk around, but you have to buy tickets to get on the rides.

  

  This is a shot across the beach from the bike trail next to the pier. I like the east coast slat fencing.

  

  Here we are shooting the ferris wheel from (almost) the end of the Santa Monica Pier with the sun behind our back. Santa Monica is not my favorite SoCal pier, even though it's one of the largest. I'm partial to the Huntington Beach Pier, which only has one restaurant on the end, because I spent most of my youth at Huntington Beach. I favor Redondo Beach's Pier, a "horseshoe" pier which was mostly destroyed by storms in the 80s but rebuilt, because I live closet to it. Santa Monica's pier has always been an active part of SoCal life, and makes a fantastic daytrip.

  

  Another shot of the ferris wheel framed by a telescope. I stood at this spot for many minutes trying to get shots of seagulls flying overhead. The seemed to appear before I was ready to shoot, and then of couse they'd fly away when I clicked the shutter. This shot doesn't have any birds, but I liked the composition.

  

  I should have stayed around for an hour to photograph the sunset, since it would have made a fitting close to the photo shoot,  but I had only worn my thin soled slip on shoes and not "walking shoes" and my feet were hurting (not to mention what the extreme weather changes do to my artificial hip) so at about 4 or so I began walking back to my car, which was quite a ways up the street. Here is a shot of the historic Georgian Hotel with a large cannon in the foreground.

  

  Turn 180 degrees and you're looking at an ocean sunset. But this could be a shot of any street in the L.A. area. I think the best thing about living in SoCal is the diversity of place. The "city" is more "centralized" now that downtown is becoming gentrified, but L.A. is a "city " of neighborhoods. Mention "Santa Monica" and everyone knows exactly where the neighborhood is and how to get there.

  

  After getting back in my car, I drove down Ocean through the neighborhoods of Venice Beach and Marina Del Rey. This "river" runs into Marina Del Rey.

  

  I'd already driven almost to Culver City when the sun began to set, and I parked the car long enough to snap this shot at about 5 or so p.m. The day was fantastic. A perfect day to get out of the house and go driving. Stay tuned for the "internet movie" coming soon!!

  

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