Category: Travel

I’ve been taking photographs of professional trainers at La Jolla Sports Club for awhile.  Last week I decided to try taking photos against a black background using dim lighting.

My basic setup included 2 Keno Flo Diva Lights, a black background and a 35mm lens.  The setup provided clean looking shots of John Parker which gave us the option of using the shots taken as they were out of the camera or even to extract him and build composite photos against different backgrounds.

Continuous light is better than strobes.

Through lots of trial and error, I am finding that continuous lights and panels such as the Keno Flo Diva lights are giving me much more control over my lighting and are less subject to error.

Too many times I find myself struggling to keep multiple strobes synced up and controlling the light output.  With continuous lights I am able to get a much better result than when I use strobes.

The Result

The result turned out pretty good and I was happy with the nice soft lighting which didn’t blow out the subject too much.

Most people know Baja for it’s beautiful beaches or for the deserts but there is another side that not many tourist go to visit – the old villages.  By Old Villages I mean Santiago, Todos Los Santos and Miraflores.  I have been to many throughout Mexico and the villages in Baja are as beautiful as any that I have seen.

To get the to the many villages in South Baja you need to take the long loop of Highway 1 and Highway 19 and preferably with a 4 wheel drive so you can get to some of the more off-the-beaten-path places that you will discover on your journey.  The loop runs several hundred miles but it can be done in two days.  We decided that we could sit around the pool in Cabo or we could get in a jeep and see some fantastic sites.  We chose the latter.

6 Best Day Trips from Cabo San Lucas

The best day trips from Cabo San Lucas can be reached by Car.  I recommend the following locations and even providing a map on how to get to each one.  From Cabo San Lucas you should visit 1) San Jose Del Cabo, 2) Mira Flores, 3) Santiago, 4) Las Barilles, 5) La Paz and 6) Todos Los Santos.  These are the best locations and there are literally many other little roads that can take you exploring other parts of Baja while you travel to these destinations.  If you would like the map of the best day trips click here:  Best Day Trips from Cabo San Lucas Map.

Village 1 – MiraFlores Baja California

This sleepy little village showed us the type of scene that might unfold in a small place anywhere off the beaten path in Central Mexico.  Consisting of very rural farming types, the community was small and friendly. Most people gathered round the small convenience store in the town.   This old farmer had quite a pleasant smile and was friendly to us in every way.

An old man with the pleasant smile invited us to chat with him and to look at his beautiful mural behind him.

Village 2 – Santiago

Further down Highway 1 up the road towards La Paz we landed in Santiago Mexico.  Another friendly town with a nice church, a zoo and plenty of broken down buildings.  This place was a treasure trove of interesting places to visit and walk around in.  No tourist seemed to frequent this place.  We had the place to ourselves and it was wonderful.

A beautiful church in Santiago sits vacant awaiting the prayers of people in the village.

Village 3 – Agua Blanca

Passing through mountains and deserts on the way to La Paz there are beautiful little villages like Agua Blanca.  It seemed many of the buildings were old and in disrepair but still beautiful to wander through.

Tu stands behind the facade of a falling building.  Only a few walls were left standing.

Caffe El Triunfo where the Bandits of Mexico get their coffee

Village 4 – Todos Los Santos

As you drive into the town the signs welcome you and tell you that you are entering a magical place.  And they are correct.  Todos Los Santos is a magical place.  So magical in fact that it became the inspiration for the Eagles Hotel California.  The Hotel California is in fact in this little town and it looks like an amazing and beautiful place to stay.

We enjoyed our time in Todos Los Santos where it seemed everything was about art, music and the enjoyment of life.  It is only 1 hour from Cabo San Lucas so we would highly recommend taking the time to visit this beautiful town.

Tu walks down the dirt streets of Todos Los Santos. You can see the buildings are old and quaint.

So many beautifully colored buildings.  When you walk here, you walk into history and that is wonderful

Get out and explore villages outside of Cabo San Lucas.

So many people go to Cabo San Lucas and end up spending all of their time around the pool sipping Margaritas which is certainly nice.  But it you have the time it is certainly worth the drives to explore some of the beautiful and interesting villages that are outside the town and off the beaten path.

The jeep struggled through a rough patch of particularly sandy road.  My fingers gripped around the wheel in panic while I wondered if I had made a mistake.  Turning off a deserted road in the middle of the Baja Desert Coastline I was determined to show Tu some beaches off the beaten path.

This cowboy thinks he’s some kind of Chingon standing on his jeep in the middle of the desert. He is not.  He is Gallo. A Chicken.

I glanced down at the 4-wheel drive gears realizing that I had no idea how to operate them and now we might be in trouble.  We were at least 3 miles from the nearest town and if I got stuck it was going to be a long and miserable walk to find help.

I asked her if she thought we should turn around and she smiled at me and said, “You can do it”.  Re-determined to make it happen I put the old jeep in neutral and decided to try my luck at getting us through the sandy dune of a what Mexican’s in these parts called a road.  Somehow I got the 4 wheel drive into gear and all 4 wheels began to strain (slowly at first) over the fine sand.  The engine sounded horrible but somehow pulled us through.

15 minutes later we were on Punta Lobos – a small but spectacular stretch of beach only inhabited by rusty fisherman, abandoned boats and vans and birds.  This was Mexico. This was where we wanted to be and we were there.  Sure we had a bit of a panic but we were on  a beach where few tourist ever laid eyes on.  This was the type of thing that would make the trip memorable.

 Apparently, this would be us – Living in our Jeep had I not explored the use of 4 -Wheel Drive on the Jeep.

The Punta Lobos Panga.  Old Men on the Sea do their extraordinary work in these small boats.

The waves were pounding the shore.  We were too timid to set a foot in them for fear of being washed away.

How much did these birds care that we were there?  No mucho.

We were driving through a tiny village in South Baja Mexico when these two men started waving at us to come over.  They saw me with their camera and they kept pointing to the mural behind them that they wanted me to take a picture of.

It looks like a mural painted by school children and it was about keeping Mexican Water Supplies clean I believe.  You know they always say don’t drink the water in Mexico and I guess the kids that did the sign really got that.

These two old guys were funny.  Not sure they had much to do all day except sit outside a small store and talk to each other.  The old man with the cane pretended to play guitar with his cane while his friend smiled happily beside him.  You can almost see from his smile how he thinks his friend is crazy.  He was a little crazy I would have to say.  Another great memory from Mexico.

Tu and I just got back from an awesome weekend in Cabo San Lucas Mexico.  Cabo San Lucas is a 2 hour flight from beautiful San Diego, California and a prominent location that many Californian’s go to visit. You can visit a completely new world by getting on a plane and taking a short two hour jump down Baja California to the very tip of the Peninsula.

Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas is known for its beaches, marine life, rocky coastline and scuba diving locations.  Archaeological excavations have show evidence that the city has been populated for over 10,000 making it a fairly ancient and wonderful place.

According to legend, a Japanese Castaway located the place in 1842 known as Yenecamu (now Cabo San Lucas) and it only had two houses and 20 inhabitants. Talk about an isolated but beautiful place.

By 1917 a fishing village began growing in the area and to this day it is known as one of the best places to catch the most amazing fish.  The warm waters and currents bring in the best of the best fish so many people still flock to this location to catch incredible fish.

In 1974, the Mexican government began a campaign to turn it into a pre-eminent tourist location in Mexico.  And they have done just that.  Today  Cabo San Lucas is home to 69,000 and boast hundreds and thousands of visitors.  It is truly a unique and beautiful place.

Our beautiful Hotel La Estancia

We hopped on Expedia and found a tremendous deal.  For about $100 a night we found this 5 star hotel located on one of the most secluded and beautiful beaches in Cabo.  There are 11 restaurants and a pool that is one of the most beautiful we have ever been to.

April 26, 2013

The trip was not only wonderful because of everything that we were going to do (and we did), but everything else that the trip promised to mean to us in our lives.  I proposed to Tu on this trip.  She said yes.  Now we have a new favorite spot in the world to visit when we go on vacations.  I joked with Tu that this was another date that I needed to remember. I am terrible with dates.  If you doubt that just ask my sister Suzi.  For Christmas one year, I gave her a calendar with everyone’s birthday’s noted.  For years she would call my brothers and sisters to wish them a happy birthday only to find out that I had put the wrong dates for many of them.  I better not do that with this date now!

The Locals

I tried to get pictures of locals on the trip too, which I did.  There were lots of colorful and very nice people that we met along the way.

The Beauty of Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas is beautiful in many ways, from the beaches, to the downtown to the hotels.  There is almost no location in this city that is not awe inspiring or beautiful.  The most beautiful place is around the arches which have been carved by thousands of years of pounding waves.  It is truly one of the most beautiful places in all of California.

We will be back

This was not our last trip to Cabo.  It is a beautiful special place not only because of what it is but because of the place it holds in our heart.  You can check out the entire gallery at this link – Best Photos of Cabo.

We took a long weekend trip down to beautiful Cabo San Lucas.  We’ll have to fill you in on all of the adventures but we rented a jeep and literally drove hundreds and hundreds of miles through lots of small towns, fishing villages, deserted beaches.

We saw so much and it was so much fun.  What a beautiful trip.

I picked up Bill Fritz’s ebook on Edgy Portraits and decided to try his techniques.  They work pretty good.

I’m no expert in photoshop and this was actually my first composite image.  The book is really good showing some incredible techniques like creating an illustrative look, cartoon look and of course some amazing compositing.  I was able to do my first composite shot in minutes with his technique and get a pretty good result.  I’ll keep working on it to improve but I got a great start from it and some great ideas.

If you want to pick up a copy of the book, check out his website here.

One Man, Two Poles, Zero Fish.   That was the theme of the afternoon and the scene on Ocean Beach Pier as Danny tirelessly put bait on fishing poles only to have it nibbled off by tiny fishy’s that had no intention of being caught.

But it was fun and that was what mattered.  In fact the fish bites were so slow that we left the poles in the water, had lunch, came back and the poles were just as we had left them minus the bait which had been nibbled off of course.  You can check out all the pictures of the afternoon here at this link – Day at the Pier.

Besides feeding the fishes, Geno had a big Slurpee.  He loves his Slurpees.

And Eoin taught us how to do the crab walk which was helpful actually.

And of course there was Happy Hands Too.

And then Geno looking very serious, like an elderly.

“You better be buying something”, she said to me as she took a long zip from the Tall Miller High Life she was holding.  She was managing what appeared to be a permanent yard sale and from the looks of it some of the stuff she was trying to sell looked like it had probably been there a long, long time.  She looked pretty sunburned there under her trucker hat but to tell you the truth everyone here did.  I smiled in agreement.

I poked around a bit at the stuff on the table and decided on something better. “I’ll tell you what”, I said, “I’ll give you a few bucks to let me take a picture of you and your boyfriend.”    I figured a picture of some local folks from Slab City was the best souvenir I could ever bring back from this place. They were pretty happy with that.

They were even happier when I told them they could bring their Miller High Life’s and smokes for the picture.  Something tells me they never leave home without each – Millers and smokes.

I was on the outskirts of a small town with a sign that read, “Slab City – The Last Real Free Place on Earth”.  I had stumbled on it quite accidentally while driving to reach somewhere else.  Living in the last free place on earth certainly sounds attractive but I was not sure from the looks of it if this was a place I would ever settle down in.

I mean this place is so far off the beaten path that police would probably never venture out here.  There were no roads. No Traffic Lights. No running water.  Nothing, just Trailer Homes, Yard Sales and something else interesting I would come to find out – Art and a small community of people that cared for each other.

Grand entrance to Slab City greets travelers, tourist and Slabbers

World War II put the “Slab” in Slab City

In 1942, the Marines built a marine base in the middle of the Colorado Desert to train Marines to fight the Germans and Japanese.   The 640 acre compound was called Camp Dunlap Marine Training Facility and it was 120 feet below sea level.  Soldiers trained at this camp until the end of the war.

When the camp was later dismantled in 1956, the only thing they left were the huge concrete slabs that they had used for the foundation of the buildings and tents.

The concrete slabs started to attract Trailers and RV owners who loved the free parking and the ability to camp in a location with pretty mild weather during the winter.   Later when the Salton Sea grew in popularity, Slab City as it became known was the premier location for snowbirds from all over the country.

Slab City Community Bulletin Board in the town center

Slab City not only attracted snowbirds however.  Soon Slab City was attracting fugitives, derelicts, gypsies and people that just wanted to live off the grid.  There is no electricity, no running water, no gas, no restaurants, no stores in Slab City – just people living in trailers, tents, RV’s and any where else that they can find.

The Slabber’s Life

If you live in Slab City, you’re a Slabber. Slab City is the Wild, Wild West – the last truly free place on earth.  Slab City was featured in a movie called “Into the Wild” and has since attracted more people.

It’s part hippy commune, party art community and part drop out society.  They tend to take care of each other here in spite of the fact that slab city is one of the poorest cities in the poorest counties of California.

While Slab City is free, its not without it’s problems or disputes.  Builder Bill (one of the most famous residents here) and the guy that takes care of Salvation Mountain believes that there is a growing divide in the town between the younger generation and the older generation, a conflict that is hurting the town’s carefree but caring culture.  Slab City is just like any other city in many ways.

An Encounter with Cuervo and two mules

One particularly interesting Slabber is Cuervo.  While driving along a dusty road into Slab City there he was.  He had two mules.  He was wearing a cowboy hat but certainly didn’t look like your typical cowboy.

I had to do a double take while I was driving because seeing two people riding mules down a desert road just look so unusual.  It was just one of many things that made me do a double take during my day in Slab City. Cuervo was on his way into Niland – another derelict town 3 miles away.

I am not sure why they call him Cuervo but something tells me he might have liked Tequila at one point.

Cuervo and his lady companion stop for a breather along the road to Niland.

After taking a few pictures, I said goodbye to Cuervo.  I watched them ride off on their mules into Niland.  I saw them a couple of more times during the day – as it turns out they were camped out at Salvation Mountain where I was spending some time.

Discovering the art and passion of Slab City

I have to admit.  When I was on my way out to visit Slab City I thought I was really going out to see motor homes and some strange guy that made a mountain of paint.  And I did see that, but I also so much more.

I wrote about my experience at Salvation Mountain and Leonard Knight which you can find here: Lord Take me to Salvation Mountain.

But there was a lesser known art camp in Slab City called East Jesus that a photographer prompted me to visit as well.  You really get the feeling out in Slab City that your going to find something interesting every time you turn around.

A tour guide at East Jesus can walk you through the camp and tell you the stories of the art

East Jesus is an experimental, habitable artwork project that has been around since 2006.  There is not a single artist that creates the pieces rather the pieces are created by volunteers that stay at the camp for short or longer periods of time.  They make it clear that they are not a dumb-ass hippie commune rather an art community where you have to do work.  Actually there is a whole list of rules if your going to come to here and if you don’t you risk “staring down the barrel of a 12GA” as they put it.

If your going to visit or stay at East Jesus, I highly recommend you read the hilarious East Jesus Survival Guide which I found on their website.

Much of the art is not only interesting but habitable, meaning that you can camp out in it.  For donations of $10 a night and agreement to follow all of the rules you can stay in a work of art.  This place was getting quite interesting.

You can’t help but think of the Mad Max movies when you are wandering through East Jesus.  The works of art here are just extraordinary and interesting.

A shoe tree. How could you not have a shoe tree in this place.  I love shoe trees and take pictures of them everywhere I can find them.

Ingenuity, Survival and Proms.

Slab City is under threat to be permanently closed down by the government.  I am not sure why, maybe it has to do with the trash and how people just dump stuff out here.

One of the many abandoned houses and businesses in the area.

In any case, Slab City has been a story of ingenuity and survival.  Everywhere you look the residents take things people have left behind and make art with it. From swimming pools to Marine Water tanks, everything here is used to create art.

An abandoned Marine water tank has been retrofitted to become a Wheel of Kama

As, I was getting in my car to make the long drive back to San Diego, a guy stopped me and said, “why are you leaving?”.  I had to get home I told him.  He said, “YOU CANT LEAVE TODAY!, Tomorrow is Slab City Prom.  The biggest day of the year.  People get dressed up like a prom.  You have to stay!”.

I got into my car smiling and shaking my head.  I couldn’t believe it.  Slab City even has their own prom. I’m definitely coming back again to see that someday.

I pulled into the dirt parking lot which seemed to be an eclectic mix of heavily graffitied  cars and dusty trailers, trucks and sofas.   I had arrived at Salvation Mountain, all 50 feet high and 150 feet wide of it.  There were no other mountains around, in fact everything around the surrounding desert was flat and rocky.  This was not a mirage in the middle of the desert but a mountain built by one man and made entirely of paint and adobe.  His mission was to spread the word that “God is Love”.  Many people in the world have the same mission but the man that built this strange and beautiful shrine has done something more extraordinary than anyone before.

 The Man

Leonard Knight was born in 1931 in Vermont and moved to San Diego in 1956.  A devout Christian he had a dream to build a hot air balloon where he would advertise the Lord’s Prayer to spread the word.  Over many years he stitched together a huge balloon but after many failed attempts to inflate it the balloon began to rot and fall apart.  On to Plan B.

Many people became introduced to Leonard Knight when he appeared in the hit movie “Into the Wild”.  You can sense his passion for his creation in the movie.

In 1984 Leonard Knight traveled to the little town of Slab City and liked the weather so much he decided to stay.  Since his balloon attempt failed he decided to build a small monument in the desert with a single bag of cement.  One thing lead to another and his monument started to get bigger and bigger each day.  For four years he built what started to become a mountain.  Then one day the ground underneath the mountain was so unstable that it all came falling down.  On the Plan C.

Larry Yust, Photographer took this picture of the original mountain before and after it crumbled.  (Courtesy of SalvationMountain.com)

Leonard did not give up, rather changed the material that he was using to native adobe clay and straw.  As he built up the mountain be began coating it with paint to keep the clay from eroding.  Leonard had found the secret mix that would keep Salvation Mountain together.  The more he painted, the stronger the mountain became and the more people that started to come.  Leonard had built something infinitely more valuable than a hot air balloon.  He had built a mountain in the desert.

Leonard, now 80 years old is in a care facility back in San Diego so he does not care for the mountain anymore.  Rather volunteers keep the mountain up which to this day continues to grow and attract people.  The mountain is a testament to the tenacity of one man to build something in spite of failure after failure.

You can check out a selection of my pictures from Salvation Mountain at this gallery link  - Gallery of Salvation Mountain in Niland California.

Builder Bob or Bob the Builder

A dusty man greeted me at the mountain.  Deeply tanned he told me his name was Bob but I could call him Builder Bob because that is what he did.  He takes care of the mountain now that Leonard is gone.

He lives in an aluminum Airstream right next to the mountain.  On the day I was there he was taking in a band of roving musicians called “Cadaver” from Germany to stay with him and help maintain the mountain.

Bob the Builder smiled as I gave him a $20 donation and said that it would go towards paint on the mountain.  In some ways I was quite thrilled to know that I would somehow be responsible for helping to build up the mountain.  But part of me questions how long the mountain would actually remain standing.  I mean Bob the Builder seemed to be doing an admiral job of keeping it up but the real passion behind the mountain – Leonard Knight – was aging and now in a nursing home. Would the mountain still be here in 50 years?   I am not sure of the answer.  Part of me doubts it.

The Message

The message of the mountain is Love.  That much is clear because that word appears hundreds of times – painted into everywhere you look.  The other message is repentance.  That word appears everywhere too.  There are old trucks that are painted and they are scattered everywhere around the mountain.  You can go in some.  The trucks wheels are buried in the sand.  They have not moved for years.

If you have ever watched the TV Show Breaking Bad and you love it then you might want to head out to this area.  The dusty desert roads and derelict scenes are reminiscent of Walter White and his Motor Home Meth Labs.  This truck in particular reminded me of something you would have seen in the show.  This motor home was actually working and moving.  Someone lives in it.  I am not sure who but it was cool.

The Graveyard for Old Motor Homes

I love Airstreams.  There are a few here.  They look they have not been moved in many years. They are painted with hundreds of pounds of paint anyway, I am sure that it would crack off and fall if they ever tried to move it.  You can take a walk around these old cars and motor homes and just read the painted signs for hours.  There are so many interesting messages everywhere.

The Tunnels

In addition to the mountain, there are tunnels that Leonard Knight built.  These underground cave like structures are cool, brightly colored places where you can get out of the heat and see shrines made out of trash, old cards and just about everything you can imagine.

I went twice. 

I arrived at Salvation Mountain at 1 pm.  I stayed for an hour or two taking pictures, talking to Builder Bob and just getting the know the place.  I wanted to be there at sunset so I decided to tour the dusty roads and visit Slab City down the road so I could come back later and take sunset shots.  I was glad I did because the place literally cleared out at sunset and I had the entire mountain to myself.  It was the best part of the day and no one was around.  It was perfect.

Mules.  Transportation for Builder Bob and his band of helpers.

A beautiful glowing desert sunset against the scenes of Salvation Mountain.

Leonard Knights makeshift cross, glowing against the sunset.

Photographing Salvation Mountain (Google Map It)

With Salton Sea, Slab City, Bombay Beach, North Shore and so many cool areas to photograph, I recommend a full day in the area.  If you are driving from San Diego it is approximately 2.5 hours to get out to Salvation Mountain.  You can leave San Diego at 9am and head back after sunset at about 7 to 8pm.  The best time of day to photograph this area is sunset.  Surprisingly most people don’t wait for sunset and miss the most spectacular views of the day.  Trust me you want to stay here until the sun goes down to get your best shots.

I read that there are 1.5 million orphans in Vietnam.  That is very sad and what makes it particularly sad is that the Vietnamese Government and the US Government have made it particularly hard for people here to adopt these orphans.

We visited several orphanages in Vietnam.  In Vietnam the orphanages are either run by the Church or by the Government.  In either case each orphanage we visited relied heavily on donations of food, clothing, toys and other things for the orphans.  Some of the orphanages in the cities such as Saigon were frequently visited and the kids seemed happy.  But unfortunately most of the orphanages in the more remote locations of Vietnam were hardly visited at all the kids were in desperate need of visits, toys and food.

If you are planning a trip to Vietnam it is a good idea to visit the kids in the more rural parts of Vietnam because it is them that need your help the most.   Here is a gallery of some of my pictures of the Orphans of Vietnam – Full Gallery of The Orphans of Vietnam.

Vinh Long Orphanage  (Facebook Site) 

This orphanage was about 2 hours south of Saigon and the kids and babies were housed in an old prison.  They were behind the cages but safe.  When we entered the building, they screamed in delight.  Imagine the feeling of that?  It was wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time.

The kids and babies were cute but they needed more help.  They did not have enough people in the orphanage to take care of all the babies and kids.  We were happy to donate food, clothing, toys and even threw the kids a Christmas party which they thoroughly enjoyed.  If you can visit the website above.  My girlfriend and I run the webpage and actively post new pictures of the orphans and how they are doing.

Lang Tre Orphanage

The second orphanage we visited was very remote.  From Vinh Long it took us about 6 hours by car to get there.  The orphanage was run by monks but the kids were very poor but happy in this orphanage.  What made it sad was that the orphanage was also home to mentally disabled men and woman.

Saigon Orphanage

The third and final orphanage that we visited was the best kept of all of the orphanages.  The kids were so well cared for and so cute.  They had at least 30 people visiting them when we got to the room.  Since I had a camera and write about the orphans in Vietnam they let me come into the special room where all of the babies were kept.  There were babies in this orphanage that were just days old.  And all of the babies slept on the floor.

If you would like more information about orphanages in Vietnam or how you can help you can send me an email to [email protected] and I will do my best to get you any information that you need.

I was down at Scripps Pier again working on a Time Lapse project.  There were a crew of professional photographers including Dan Bannister working on advertising photos for a new surf line.  Here is his site http://danbannister.com.   He is from Canada and was seems to have a pretty good line up.

It was another beautiful night and caught a couple of good sunset shots at the pier again.