January 5, 2008

• PhotoPost: USC and Exposition Park

  This PhotoPost contains 14 cream of the crop high quality 7.2 Megapixel shots from the USC and Expostion Park expedition, which produced the USC and Exposition Park and Los Angeles and Bunker Hill folders in my Webshots Gallery. Although I did present some of the photos from this photo expedition (the first real photo journey with the new camera, taken Dec. 26th.) in the USC slideshow, these are all images which haven't appeared on the blog.

  

  We start our tour around the Exposition Park area of Los Angeles at the entrance to the new California Science Center, which is part of the Science museum in Exposition Park, looking at the Coliseum across the street. I was hoping I could sneak into the Coliseum, but there were locks on all the gates.

  

  Here is a wide angle shot of the main entrance to the Coliseum, and you can see the fence which prohibits me from entering. The view of the field is extraordinary. Although USC and the city are quarreling over whether or not USC stays in the Coliseum or moves their home games to the Rose Bowl (along with crosstown rival UCLA whose team already plays there) when I attended college at USC in the 70s there were no quarrels, and I attended many a raucous home game here. I was even in the card section when we spelled out UCLA SUCKS on national television!

  

  Here is a jet displayed on the front of the older part of the Science Center, framed from one an overhang on the African American Museum. This shot is not doctored in any way. The sky really was that blue on Dec. 26th. It's a gloomy day today after last night's rain, and I hope that when the storm clouds pass, I get some beautiful blue skies and nice fluffy clouds to photograph with my new camera.

  

  Walking up Figueroa Street I took some photos of the brand new Galen Center, which replaces the old Sports Arena. I'm very pleased that a lot of the new construction on campus, and off campus but affilliated with the school, are buildings designed with the red brick motif that permeates most of the USC campus. The buildings from the 1800s are all red brick, in the Italian Romanesque-style (I looked it up, in case you're wondering) and the new buildings have usually reflected the same aesthetic. I'm glad they're keeping the tradition alive. This is a magnificent building, here framed from the entrance to the famous "Felix Chevrolet". (If you have the "snap" enabled, passing your mouse over the link will show you the photo from webshots)

  

  If you've watched an older Oscar or Golden Globes telecast, then you've seen the Shrine Auditorium. Here is the entrance with the shriner statue on Jefferson Blvd across from the USC campus. I wanted to get closer, but a guard shooed me away. They were setting up for some kind of affair, and I didn't have a pass.

  

  Since I already showed a lot of my USC campus photos with the logo slideshow, I'm only featuring a few here. I'm amazed at the quality flowers obtain with 7.2 megapixels. Also note that roses bloom in late December here in So Cal. It's neat seeing the flowers bloom yet all the deciduous trees have lost their leaves, which are all over the place. The fountain is in front of the Doheney library, where I spent many an hour between classes, and in the rear of the photo is Bovard Administration Building.

  

  The USC Religious Studies area includes this beautiful old Church, the United University Church. I've attended service within these walls if memory serves, although after I was attending school. In any case, I love the old brick buildings at SC.

  

  A photo of Mudd Hall at the southern entrance to Trousdale Avenue. The little dog statue, who has a pile of auto tires topped with a football and is in bronze, is sitting on a bench at the entrance. This is a new monument to an old SC mascot, George Tirebiter is the dog's name. He was so named because he used to bite the tires of the cars traveling down Trousdale Avenue. USC's current mascot is Traveler, the white horse which is ridden by Tommy Trojan.

  

  A shot of a beautifully shaped rose blossom on the outside walking path to the Exposition Park Rose Garden. This wonderful place is situated between the USC campus and the Coliseum in back of the Natural History Museum.

  

  Here is another shot in the Rose Garden, showing the old entrance to the Natural History Museum, now the back end, a bed of roses, and the fountain. For those of you in snowed in parts of the country, here's a little California sun.

  

  I couldn't resist displaying one last shot of the Rose Garden. I took photos of  a number of different styles of roses fronting the old museum entrance.

  

  After my feet got tired of walking around the USC campus, I drove north, with the top down, up Figueroa into downtown. I didn't get out of the car while in the city. I'd already paid 6 bucks for parking in Exposition Park, and didn't want to pluck down any more money. (I've been looking for "cheap" photo expeditions for over a year now!) So this shot and others in the LA and Bunker Hill webshots folder were taken from the open car while stopped in traffic. (Notice the red light)

  

  I did get out of the car in Bunker Hill, in a residential area on Bunker Hill Drive, to take a few shots of the skyline as a backdrop for the neighborhood, which seemed really nice. The street signs were in both English and Chinese. This shot says L.A. to me. Even though we didn't have the tall skyscrapers in the background, City Hall rose into the air when I lived in Highland Park, a few miles north of where I took this picture. Next time I go to the downtown area, I'm going to take another Subway trip so I don't have to worry about the car. And of course I won't forget to put on my walking shoes!

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