Tu’s Niece and Nephew
Check out these two cuties. That’s Tu’s niece and nephew. I was working on some photographs and didn’t realize that they both did essentially the same pose on two separate days. What a coincidence.
Strange Skies
I woke up today and the skies looked strange. That look that you see when there is either a fire or a big earthquake. I wasn’t sure why.
There was a small earthquake off the coast later in the day but I am not sure if that was it. What do you think, do you think the skies look strange?
7 Best Photography Road Trips from San Diego
My name is Frank McKenna, a San Diego amateur photographer.I like to travel a lot and one of the most important things I look for in a location is a place where I can photograph many different things from a central place. If your coming to San Diego and your a photographer or perhaps if you live in San Diego, I have about 7 different trips you can accomplish in a day and get fantastic photos.
The first thing is to make sure that you hit all the best spots to photograph in central San Diego first. If your looking for ideas, check out my blog 15 Best Spots to Photograph San Diego.
So here is my top list of photography day trips outside of San Diego.
# 1 Joshua Tree State Park (Google Map it)
Joshua tree is 2.5 hours from San Diego and a good day trip to take.
I would recommend planning your day so you have at least 6 hours at the location and you should be there at sunset since that is the best time of day to shoot. This place is gorgeous and it’s like your traveling to another world when you enter the park gates. Don’t get lost on the trails – it’s easy to. If you leave at 10 am, you can be there by 12:30 stay for about 5 hours depending on the time of year and then be back in San Diego by 10pm.
#2 Catalina Island (Google Map it)
1 hour drive to Drive to Dana Point and 1 hour and 15 minute ferry ride to the Island.
Catalina Island is a beautiful little Island about 26 miles off the coast of California. You can do the trip in a single day if you get up early and catch the first ferry there which leaves at about 8am and then return on the last ferry back to Dana Point which usually leaves at about 4:30pm. You can find the ferry schedule and prices here and they are actually pretty reasonable – http://www.catalinaexpress.com. If you go in the winter, you will probably spot whales and dolphins during the boat ride over. In the summer you will probably see flying fish as they flee the fast moving boat. The island is quite small but you can rent a golf cart and then take fantastic photos all over the island.
#3 Los Angeles (Google Map It)
2.5 hour drive from San Diego Google Directions
There are a ton of photography opportunities in Los Angeles. You can photograph Downtown Los Angeles, The Walt Disney Music Hall, Hollywood, The Hollywood Sign, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood. You should get up early if you want to do Los Angeles in a day but it is a great day trip from San Diego if your looking to catch some really cool photos.
#4 Salton Sea (Google Map it)
2.5 Hour Drive from San Diego.
The Salton Sea is one of the oddest and off the beaten path day trips you can make from San Diego. If you like photographing quirky places, abandoned houses and desert life you have to check out this place. I wrote a blog on it since I like it so much. You can check out more photographs of it if you link to this site. The Weird Salton Sea. There is a road that can take you pretty much all the way around the sea but it is very large and takes a long time. My recommendation would be to check out the city of Bombay Beach, Niland and Salton City. Make sure you are here for sunset as it is extraordinary.
#5 Julian – (Google Map It)
About 1 hour 15 minutes from San Diego
If you want to get pictures of the San Diego countryside. This is the place to go. There are lots of interesting wooded areas and the town itself is kind of like a quaint old western town. This is where people in San Diego go during the winter to get shots of snow and the mountains. It’s not the top of my list but it is close and can be a quick half day trip of you have the time. By the way, this is also the place for you to get the famous Julian Apple Pie. It is fantastic. Really, the best apple pie you will probably ever eat.
#6 Anza Borrego State Park (Google Map It)
Located 1 hour and 44 minutes from San Diego.
Anza Borrego State Park is an excellent place to photograph desert flowers in the Spring as they blossom like crazy. Everyone takes their cameras out there in the morning to take shots of the gorgeous flowers before the sun gets to high. Mountain Goats can also be photographed here but it requires some hiking up some pretty gnarly paths to get to the top. My recommendation would be to plan a early morning or late afternoon trip here to make sure that you avoid the heat which can quickly go over 100 degrees very quickly. Watch the trails and bring plenty of water as people get dehydrated out there very quickly.
#7 Dana Point, NewPort Beach and Laguna Beach (Google Map It)
Located 1 hour from San Diego.
If your looking to tour the best beaches and towns up the coast, I highly recommended driving up and checking out the beaches of Orange County. You can stop at Dana Point first and check out one of the biggest harbors in California. Then check out the wealthy enclave of Laguna Beach which has some of the best coastline of any beach town in the world and finally check out NewPort Beach and Balboa Island which is filled with tiny cottages and awesome small shops. It’s a bit of a throwback to times gone by. You can capture some truly great California photos by going to these locations.
Other notable photography day trips from San Diego.
Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada Mexico – 10 years ago these locations would have been top of my list. When you cross the border you are in another country and can take some awesome street life photos of these cities. Unfortunately with all of the murder and violent crime I have stopped making trips down there. If you go however the beaches, the towns and the food is great. You can’t beat a day trip into Baja Mexico for some real adventure. For the less adventuresome take your car or the trolley to the border, walk across and get a cab to Revolucion Street in Tijuana to get a flavor of Mexico with not too much a commitment of your life or time.
Big Bear – Google directions – http://goo.gl/maps/yx8fA, Located about 3 hours north east of San Diego this is a gorgeous lake and resort where you can get some great pictures of snow and mountains. The drive up the mountains has some hair pin turns but in winter this town is well worth the visit.
Las Vegas – Its about 4 hours to Vegas so technically this would be a two day trip but there are great photograph opportunities at Red Rock Preserve and also at the Neon Boneyard in Las Vegas. These are famous photography spots located close to Vegas and are well worth the trip.
Palm Springs – Palm Springs is a beautiful desert resort town. You can capture some pretty nice rocky dry desert shots in the area.
Good Luck
Good luck with your trips and feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions about photography in San Diego or surrounding areas. Also you can check out my work at www.frankiefoto.com if you have time.
Best Photographs of the Salton Sea
There it is. Right in the middle of the desert. You would never expect it, but it’s an ocean. You might think you are at some coastal resort but the nearest beach is actually over 150 miles away. Is it a mirage? No. It’s real and it’s called the Salton Sea.
In 1905, the Colorado River flooded into a basin in the center of California. The basin was so large (about 525 square miles) and there was so much water that the place was named the Salton Sea. It was created on purpose actually and engineers diverted water from the Colorado River into the basin so that it could be used as a source of fresh water for agriculture. That was a mistake. Things got out of hand there however and more water and silt poured into the basin than they could handle. They tried to plug it up but water kept pouring in every day. They tried to build a dam but the water rushed over creating an 80 foot high waterfall.
The Salton Sea is not an ocean though it might look like it. It is a lake. It is a very big and salty lake – the largest in California actually. The lake is drying up, and as it does it’s salinity is increasing by about 1% every year. It’s getting smaller and saltier every year. And as it does, it gets increasingly more strange and out of place.
In the 1950’s the Salton started to gain some popularity as a Resort area. The weather was nice, the water was crystal blue clear and it looked straight out of a magazine. But the resort never caught on and the place went into decay. The beaches are still there and some palm trees but mostly it’s just a collection of run down houses and trailer parks. They call this the meth capital of the world. It’s not hard to imagine why when you see the old abandoned houses and trailers.
One of the other reasons that this place didn’t quite catch on as a resort (besides the fact that it is spooky as hell), is the fact that every year hundreds of thousands of dead fish wash on the shores. The dead fish thing is not that appealing to tourist but it is very appealing to birds. There are 400 species of birds that live on the Salton Sea and they are everywhere picking at dead fish. It’s a dead fish Sir George’s Smorgesbord at this place.
The only thing the Salton Sea seems to attract today are photographers, dirt bikers and people that like Motor Homes or like to live in Trailer parks. You may have seen the movie in the 80’s called “Bombay Beach” which was a pretty good interpretation of the kookiness of this place. Trailer parks seem to sprout randomly around the sea.
For all the weirdness of the Salton Sea however it is actually a place of beauty. We took the helicopter over the sea and it was amazing. The water and the sky seemed to become one. It was actually quite dangerous to fly because you lose perception of how high in the sky you are. It was an amazing view.
It’s actually incredible when you start looking at the Salton Sea from above how much it is shrinking. You can literally see old Marina’s that are dried out and hundreds of yards from the beach. It’s no problem for the trailer homes, they just pick-em up and move them down the beach as the water levels drop.
So why did we go to the Salton Sea? For photographs of course. For all the bad things about the Salton Sea, one thing is for sure, and that is it is a great day trip from San Diego with great locations for pictures. The best time of day here is Sunrise when the sun comes up over the east shore and sunset when the sun is setting over the west shore. The best places to photograph there are Bombay Beach, Niland, Salton City and the airport. I really enjoyed taking photographs there.
By air and by land
Tu and I went out for an adventure to the Salton Sea. Bill and his friend Chris met up with us at the Salton Sea airport which is pretty much just an abandoned patch of land. We got lots of awesome pictures from the air as well as the ground. Keep a look out for the great pictures coming up!
Sunset through a storm drain
Kind of scary little storm drain that looks like it goes under the city of La Jolla. It was covered with graffiti inside and I bet there were homeless people living in there.
Sometimes it’s cool to take a sunset shot from a different vantage point.
R-44 Flight
Here are some snippets of video taken during our epic trip down the coast in the R44. It was a beautiful flight down at sunset. It got pretty choppy because the wind was rushing and hitting the camera at about 150mph so it can be hard to control the camera.
365 Day Project
It’s called a 365 day project because you take one photo each day. It helps you practice photography but more importantly, you can look back at the end of the year and remember what you were doing everyday.
I collected most of my photos from last years 365 day project. The year flew by but quite a bit happened actually now that I look back on it.
