August 16, 2010

• PhotoPost: Expeditions with Liz 2005-2007

  

  I've been healed for quite a while now, and a new Photo Expedition is looming on the horizon. I realize it's been half a year since I've taken any new pictures. A lot of my new readers probably don't even know I'm a photographer. To add insult to injury, my status on Webshots,where I haven't updated any of my photo galleries since December of last year, has been upgraded. I'm now listed as #8 of over 15,000 users for California photos.

  I was recently thinking of the best Photo Expeditions I took, and they would have to be the ones I took with Liz, back when we were hanging out in 2005-2007. I thought I'd choose some selected photos from most of the Photoshoots I attended with her. As usual, the photos I present here will NOT be the ones I posted on the blog. I'll provide links to the master files on Webshots and on the original Xanga PhotoPosts, some of which I had to update by providing new copies of the photos since some of the early Xanga image files are corrupted! 

  

  The day I met Liz (The Queen of Swords) in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, where she lived at the time, I stopped by historic Evergreen Cemetary, and got some early morning shots of the gravesites. Evergreen Cemetary is the oldest in the L.A. area, and contains gravesites dating back to the 1800s. HERE is a link to the Webshots gallery.

  

  Liz didn't accompany me on this shoot, which presented images for my April 4th, 2005 PhotoPost, but I met her for lunch after I took these photos, and we began a friendship which still hasn't ended. She is one of my closest friends, even though we live many miles apart right now. This is the Japanese section of the cemetary.

  

  Before I left Los Angeles, I took one of my signature shots through barbed wire on the Sixth Street Bridge over the L.A. River.

  

  The first real Photo Expedition we took together was later on that month, when we visited the Aquarium of the Pacific in the Long Beach harbor, and took a harbor cruise. I work in Long Beach, and yet this was the first time I took a boat into the harbor! The Webshots Gallery is HERE and the Xanga Photopost is HERE. Above, visitors to the Aquarium enjoy a close encounter.

  

  I lied. I did feature this photo on the Xanga PhotoPost, but it is the best one I took of an oil tanker in the harbor. There is a pleasure boat scooting in front of the tanker, which are so large, they are way out in the water, and the oil is pumped to one of the "oil islands" which are pumping stations disguised as islands in the middle of the harbor.

  

  In July of 2005, Liz and I visited Catalina Island on a PhotoPost. My Webshots Gallery is HERE and HERE, with over 100 photos. I posted a PhotoPost on Xanga on July 18th. This is a scene right after you disembark from the Catalina Express ferry, which sails the 26 miles from Long Beach. (Oldtimers might remember the song by the Four Preps: "26 miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a waitin' for me, Santa Catalina, the island of romance.")

  

  One of many shots I took of the historic Avalon Ballroom, where they used to broadcast the big bands on radio shows back in the 1940s.

  

  In 2006, Liz and I visited both Universal Studios and Knott's Berry Farm, two popular theme parks in the Southland. Both expeditions gave birth to more PhotoPosts. HERE is the Xanga PhotoPost of shots taken at Universal Studios in February and HERE is the Webshots gallery of Knott's Berry Farm from August. Above is a bunch of bones from the first Mummy attraction at Universal Studios.  

  

  Here is a shot of the Psycho house, from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 terror classic "Psycho" shot from inside the tram on the backlot tour. I didn't get any good photos of King Kong before he burned down, sadly, but probably have some footage on video somewhere.

  

  Late in the summer of 2006, in September, we booked a hotel in San Diego, and spent three wonderful days touring the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, and Coronado Island. There are Three Webshots galleries, which I just linked. I took so many photos that it filled three separate Xanga PhotoPosts. HERE (Coronado Island) is the first Xanga PhotoPost followed by THIS ONE (The zoo) in October, and THIS ONE (Balboa Island) in November of 2006. Here is a shot of the front of the Hotel del Coronado, an iconic hotel on Coronado Island.

  

  We both took lots of photos of the animals at the zoo. The panda viewing area had a long line, so here's a shot of one of the cute (but really large) panda bears.

  

  A military museum in Balboa Park, home to dozens of museums. We spent a whole day touring just the museums, and my feet were quite blistered when we finished up with a great meal in one of the park's fine restaurants.

  

  February of 2007 found us at the Scottish Festival aboard the Queen Mary ocean liner in Long Beach harbor. HERE is my Webshots gallery folder. I didn't post to Xanga until over a month later. I love to take photos of seagulls, both parked and in flight, and here's a guy posing on the deck of the ocean liner.

  

  As part of the Scottish Festival, this group of soliders is shooting someone or something. I got this shot, of the soldiers on the ground, with a zoom lens way up on the top deck of the Queen Mary. The smoke 'effect' is not a special effect, but came from the rifles as they unloaded their volley.

  It's interesting now that I have posted this, to think that we really didn't go on all that many Photo Expeditions together. Liz broke her leg around May of 2007, and that sort of put a damper on our Expeditions, although we still went on dinner and movie dates. I just saw Liz and her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago, and hope we not only stay in touch, but hopefully will go on another Photo Expedition sometime in the future.

  • 10:43 pm
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