Winter at the Beach

Late afternoon sun halo over the ocean at San Elijo State Beach, just north of San Diego.

Ghost Town #2

Old Building, Pioneertown

Pioneertown was built by western actors Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers in the 1940's as a movie set outside the desert town of Yucca Valley, near Joshua Tree.  Now mostly abandoned, it's a fun place to stop and look around for some interesting photos.  There is a popular motel next door as well as Pappy & Harriet's roadhouse, with good food and often world-class musical acts play there.

Elfin Forest

Pygmy Oaks; Morro Bay California

Oaks, centuries old, but stunted in their growth by the local environment at El Moro Elfin Forest, near Morro Bay on the central California coast. Can't walk around much in here, that ground cover is mostly poison oak.

Desert Survivor

Borrego Palm Canyon, California

Somehow this little cottonwood survives in the harsh Borrego Desert environment, growing by the little stream that flows down from the mountains, through the oasis of Palm Canyon.

Anza Borrego Desert

Fonts Point, Anza Borrego

Standing on Fonts Point in the Anza Borego State Park, looking west towards Borrego Springs. The common views you see of this location are taken in the opposite direction, out over the badlands, but at this time the light was more interesting on this beautifully eroded mountain. Look closely and you'll see a party of folks on the distant point that brought chairs and refreshments to be comfortable while waiting for the sunset.

Just a Trickle

Went out to see if I could scout up some new locations here in my own area last weekend. I expected all the streams to be bone dry, so was surprised to find a little bit of flow still going on in a few spots. Very, very dry again this winter.. normally this would be a pretty good little waterfall at this time of year. On the one hand, it's nice that it has been so warm, but here's hoping for some snow, or at least rain, before the season ends. 

Never Disappoints

It's harder for me to get down to the shore now that I'm 2 hours away than it used to be when I lived only 15 minutes away, so when I do get down there, I try to take advantage. If I was somehow limited to just one spot to photograph forever, I think this would be it.. an afternoon at the coast never fails to result in something interesting.
Using a little more exaggerated processing here to bring out the underlying graphic design, and just because I'm having fun experimenting with some new looks recently. 

Snow, Mistletoe, Doves and Really Cold

Last post for this year; a winter scene in the San Jacinto mountains of Southern California.  Hope everyone has a wonderful and productive New Year.

Foggy Forest

Nothing quite like a misty, foggy Sunday afternoon out in the 6000' elevation forest around my house. Certainly no worries about anyone popping into my shots accidentally (well, maybe a deer, but rare to see them during the day). 

Peace and Light

Driving home through Garner Valley at the end of the day a couple of weekends ago.  Hard to tell from this, but the hills just behind the fore-most line of hills on the right, is where the Mountain fire tore through the area on the first day, then devastated much of the backcountry way up into the mountains, all the while threatening to destroy the whole town where we live. Only days of hard work by hundreds of firefighters and some amazing luck with the weather got it under control.  Here is what it looked like last summer. We're having a very warm and dry winter, with an historic drought in most of the state, so might be a long and mean fire season coming up this year.

Left Behind

This old windmill still stands watch over the desert, about halfway out on the trail to Wall Street Mine ruins in Joshua Tree. A level, pleasant walk on a cool winter's day.

A Day of Old Stuff

Had not been down to the desert for a while, so we took ride out to have lunch at Pappy and Harriets in Pioneertown, just a short side trip off the main road on the way to Joshua Tree.  This little town was built in the 1940's as a live-in movie set for Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, among others...lots of movies and TV shows used to be filmed here and it's still standing, preserved in the middle of nowhere about 5 miles north of the town of Yucca Valley. Quite a few artists and musicians live around Joshua Tree and there's also a popular recording studio nearby, so if you happen into Pappy and Harriets on the right night, you might be surprised to see some world-class band taking over the stage... many have.
Wandering around and snapping the old buildings got me in a groove for the rest of the day of enjoying all the great aging, textured stuff out here in the high desert. A little break from my usual pure landscape stuff.

Fall: California Style

Can you tell that this scene was taken about 3000 miles from the one in my last post? Maybe if you're familiar with both areas and know your trees:)

Around here at this elevation, about the only native trees that change color much in the fall are the oaks, and they don't get really bright or varied colors, at least compared to the maples back east and aspens, which prefer a slightly higher elevation and don't occur here unless someone deliberately plants them.

This is an almost always deserted road in the forest just below my house where I like to walk in the afternoons after working.. it was especially pretty the other day after a night of heavy rain.
I could go a year and not see a single soul along here, but on this day I ran into a couple of guys in a truck who asked me if I had seen any deer..that reminded me that it's hunting season (this is national forest land) and I'd better stay on the road and not go off track through the woods for a while:)

Devastation View

It has already been, and continues to be, a rough fire season here in the west. This view is the result of the "Mountain" fire, that only by a miracle of weather (and lots of hard work by firefighters), missed destroying our little village of Idyllwild here in the San Jacinto mountains. 27,500 acres were burned.   It started back on July 15, and is still smoldering up in the high country above the town as of August 25, although it is fully contained.  If the wind had been different when it started, or we had not received some unusual rain just at the right time to knock it down when things were looking bad, we might have been goners.  Idyllwild village had to evacuate.. the area where I live is a few miles further north and west, so we were on alert and ready to go, but luckily never had to actually leave.   Definitely the closest call since we have lived here, though.
Another big fire occurred a couple of weeks later down on the eastern foot of the mountain near the I-10, but that was prevented from getting up into the forest which was good for us, but quite a few houses and buildings were destroyed in that one. We haven't even got into the real Santa Ana season yet when some of the worst fires typically happen, so looks like we'll be on guard around here until the winter rains arrive.

More from JT

Another quick study from a few weeks ago out in Joshua Tree. The big rocks near the right of the frame in the distance are a very popular spot for rock climbers.. you can usually find a bunch of them up there on the weekends.  Guessing they're approx. 80' high. Not for me, but fun to watch:)
Two really great camera phone apps that I have been using recently are Camera Awesome! by the folks that run SmugMug (it's free), and KitCAM, which is very similar and costs only about $1.00 (basically free).  Besides adding a kit full of shooting utilities, both come with a very good selection of useful presets for processing and framing right in the camera... and then quick export links to update to your various on-line accounts, or your regular camera roll, for later processing or storage on your computer.  The in-camera processing maintains the original exposure also, so you're not damaging anything by playing around with the more creative processing possibilities.

Evening Light-JT

Another "phoneography" example from my most recent afternoon out in Joshua Tree. Once again, a little over the top on the contrast and color compared to normal taste, but guess I'm just enjoying that look right now, for a change. My nice, convenient clouds from earlier had dissipated, but I found another way to occupy the sky:)

Warm Light on Big Sur

Wanting to print some new greeting cards for the gallery; I am going through some old folders and getting kind of nostalgic for the ocean, since I haven't done much down there recently.  This evening scene is from Big Sur, just south of Carmel, a few years ago. Found a nice outcropping here where I could get some cool views back towards the cliffs. Right down behind where I was standing, is a tiny beach where you can get an iconic shot of a pair of off-shore sea stacks that I have seen done many, many times. Kind of hairy to get down there though and someone was already there, so I had to try something different.
This is one of those spots where you don't want to forget where your feet are while shooting, or you might have an unpleasant surprise:)

Gnarls Barkley

A closeup view showing the gnarly, abstract growth pattern of the Engelmann Oaks growing all over thousands of acres at Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. This species is now found only in far southwest California; this area near Murrieta and one other east of San Diego are the only two remaining large stands.
The colors around here are rather bland in the summer but can be really nice in the fall, especially in the right weather.  In this particular view, I wanted to concentrate on the complicated texture of the limbs, so I felt that monochrome would be the best approach.

Layer Cake

Next up in my series from Santa Rosa Plateau: this scene caught caught my attention because of the many different horizontal layers of textures and colors that seem to stack up when shot through a mild telephoto lens. Even the sky contributed. Most of this area is rolling hills, interspersed with thick groves of oak trees, so this shot of a single tree on a flat plain is kind of atypical for the area. This is looking out to the west, past the vernal pools that I mentioned couple of posts back.

Santa Rosa Plateau 3 - California Poppies

This is probably the only flower shot that I have ever posted here.. but it happens to fit in with the subject of this series about the Santa Rosa Plateau Nature Reserve.  In the spring, these California poppies appear in abundance in the fields between the oak groves, along with some other various wildflowers, making for a real pretty nature walk through the thousands of acres of trees and grass.