March22nd
Good Afternoon Costco Shoppers. When shopping at Costco in the state of New Mexico, you can now pick up a copy of your favorite book on the state: New Mexico: A Guide for the Eyes.
I’m not sure about you, but I don’t see Costco as a tourist destination for visitors of Santa Fe or Albuquerque, so this is a real testament to the fact that the book is popular with tourists and locals alike. Oh, and Happy Shopping!
March14th
Lots of interesting, different points in this article from The New Republic about the rise of e-books and concurrent demise of brick and mortar book stores.
February23rd
While my son slept in the car yesterday, I drove up Beachwood Canyon in Hollywood and marveled at the eclecticism of its housing. Beachwood Canyon leads you to the old gates of the “Hollywoodland” development, which opened in 1923. A stroll up the road is like a lesson in architectural history since that time (and even the previous decades are represented). I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a range of styles in one area. I passed a late 19th century Victorian house, a turn of the century bungalow…
[NOTE: I've obviously altered the pictures to have an aged effect, in part due to the history I was viewing, but also that at mid-morning the lighting was terrible for photography, and these effects mask that fact!]
…ubiquitous but quaint Spanish Colonial Revival homes…
whimsical Storybook style and other homes in European period revival styles (complete with castle tops, turrets, and stained glass windows)…
rambling ranch houses of the 40s, 50s and 60s…
funky dingbat apartments…
…and even an apartment building redone in Hollywood Regency decor.
Oh, and a few contemporary monstrosities, a few homes I had no idea how to categorize, and even a geodesic dome.
With all the reading I’ve done on architectural styles, I wished I had a group of intently interested tourists following me and listening intently as I droned on about all my new knowledge. But, not even my son was awake for that.
At the crest of the Hollywoodland development are fantastic views of the Hollywood sign (put up to advertise the development in the 1920s and now owned by the City of Hollywood) and downtown in the distance, as well as a pretty park with a big grassy lawn, lots of dogs (it is Hollywood afterall), and a play structure.
In a serendipitous moment, my son awoke just as we drove up to it. What a great drive.
If anyone wants to hear me talking about all I saw here in real time, I’m ready to give private tours.
February21st
A beautiful sunrise view of downtown Los Angeles after a night of rain.
February9th
It took me a long time to figure out how to visually depict “Earthquake” for the SoCal book. A shot of damage or ruins from a past event seem 1) too far back in the past, and 2) in bad taste, depending on how personal the damage is. So, I thought about finding an interesting retrofitted building or earthquake damaged walls, but none of those hit the target. Then, I came upon photographs in the LA Times of a great gauge in the earth where scientists were measuring seismic activity. When I finally determined where this scene was located, I discovered it was outside the geographic limits for the book (in NorCal). But the article did lead me to Vasquez Rocks, where seismic forces created large rock formations that dramatically shoot out from the earth, pointing straight up at the sky.
Although I had never been to Vasquez Rocks County Park, photographs of the landscape gave me a bizarre feeling of familiarity that I can only attribute to late nights of watching episodes of the original Star Trek series with my father, many of which feature Vasquez Rocks. A few Star Wars movies, Bonanza, 24, The X-Files, The Flinstones, Blazing Saddles, and countless other Western films have also used the strangely disorienting geologic formations as a backdrop. According to the LA Times, the area has “the most commercially photographed boulders on the planet.”
Vasquez Rocks is 40 miles northwest of LA and a mesmerizing place for a day trip. Once there, it is easy to understand the cinematic appeal, but the real history of the area also becomes easily imaginable. With its remote caves and hideouts, Vasquez Rocks was an infamous haven for outlaws in the late 1800s. The most famous of these is the Mexican bandit and Robinhood-esque folk hero, Tiburcio Vásquez, for whom the area is named.
The earth has taken 25 million years to produce the jutting slabs and rock outcroppings that tilt at angles as much as 50 degrees and rise to nearly 150 feet high. Vasquez Rocks lies on the Elkhorn Fault, an offshoot of the well-known 800-mile long fault line known the San Andreas. This mega-fault is responsible for most of the earthquakes in California. In Southern California, these can occur up to 30 times a day! Of course, most of these we can’t feel, (and I think we’d all like to keep it that way.)
February2nd
Oh boy. Days after I posted about EyeMuse Books’s very own Google Map to showcase the spots in SoCal I’ve hit for photos thus far, I visited Huell Hower’s website and found a map that makes mine look absolutely lame. Granted, my final map will have a meager 100 destinations around the region simply because I chose to highlight only 100 “icons” of the state, but seeing all the stops that Huell’s map has makes me feel…lazy. All right, all right, I know he’s been in production for 19, yes, NINETEEN years, and this is his full time job, but jeepers! Way to get around, Huell! If you haven’t seen the show on your local PBS station, it’s a gem. Check it out. Truth be told, I was visiting his website because I realized that I have seen only a handful of episodes, and I better get watching, because he is a serious resource regarding the culture and history of Southern California.
January17th
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View SoCal: A Guide for the Eyes in a larger map
For New Mexico’s Guide for the Eyes book, I did my best to feature a wide range of institutions, monuments, local hangouts, destinations, etc. to represent the state’s gems everywhere—from the smallest towns off the beaten track to the major tourist attractions. Although the most intriguing photos always won out in the end, I certainly considered the fact of where each shot was taken before it made final cut. While the book heavily features Northern New Mexico, in the well-known spots such as Santa Fe and Albuquerque, I also made sure to add interesting spots in the south as well as smaller towns such as Cuba, Lordsburg, Torreon, Las Vegas, and Capitan, that most tourists, and even some locals, might never have heard about.
I am attempting to showcase a similar location diversity in the Southern California book, and it’s not without effort. I live in central LA, just northwest of downtown and southwest of Pasadena, where there are plenty of opportunities for culture and fantastic photographic moments. It would be easy to fill most of the book’s 100 icons with pictures from right here in Silver Lake. Alas, I’ve got to choose only those shots that absolutely must be taken in my neighborhood or are simply too good to pass up.
To ensure that the whole region of Southern California is featured in a balanced manner, I am using Google Maps for the photos that have (thus far) been given the thumbs up. I created this map last month for the 70 or so shots that have already been taken. This gives you an idea of how far along I am on the photo side of things. As for writing, I’ve some catch up to do!
December21st
When the word “Theme Park” comes up in reference to Southern California, one can’t help but think about Disneyland. Theme parks are an obvious “icon” of SoCal, and Disneyland even more so. Because, I always like to feature lesser known destinations in the Guide for the Eyes series, I’ve been interested in scoping out some other parks, such as California Adventure, or Magic Mountain, for the topic’s photograph in the upcoming SoCal book. But earlier this month I had a chance to go to Disneyland with my son and husband and lucked upon this photograph, which captures the very essence of the theme park ride—surreal and mysterious entrances and departures into other worlds with other souls in a little cart. Thanks to It’s a Small World (a big hit with my one year old), I got the shot, and I’ll look no further.
December14th
Dallas Clayton, who self-published the children’s book, “An Awesome Book” in 2008, seems truly awesome. The book, like all great kid’s books, has a deeper message that speaks to people of all ages, without losing its humor or fun. DREAM BIG! the book urges. And, after you are done reading it, that’s exactly what you’d like to do. What’s even better is learning about the mega-success the book has had. Kids clearly love the book, and the creator is loving his new found career of writing and illustrating children’s books. For every book that is sold, one is donated to a child, a school, a hospital. I love seeing a book that hasn’t come out of a big publishing house make such a spash! Great story, inspiring message, excellent visuals–An Awesome Book made my day. Yeah, Dallas Clayton, for living your dreams!
December4th
A few weeks ago, my husband, son, and I head out to Palm Springs for a spontaneous getaway. I had a list of photographs to take, of course, as well as a growing curiosity about the local date farms. The 15 minute excursion to Thermal, CA was the perfect mix of pleasure and business, because I’ll not lie, fresh dates rank high among my favorite snacks. 95% of the dates sold in the United States are grown in the Coachella Valley, and by all accounts it’s a tough business.
After the year’s harvest is over in December farmers must begin anew the long list of annual chores that go into cultivating these delicious fruits. And, it’s almost all done by hand, with some torturous looking tools. Each date branch must be manually de-thorned, then pollinated, then thinned, then covered (to keep moisture and pests from ruining or eating the crop), and finally it’s harvest time again. All the while, the palms must be continually irrigated in pools of water. Unlike most plants and trees, a graft or offshoot must be taken from an existing date palm to cultivate known date varieties–simply planting a seed will produce an entirely new type of date! Which is why visiting a farm is so satisfying–there are new flavors at each stop. Most commercial date palms grown today in Southern California are direct offshoots from the original date palms first brought into the region in 1890 from various countries of the Middle East.
Date harvesters, called palmeros, take ladders up the palms and cut off branches (which usually hold about 150 pounds of dates) using what look like over sized Captain Hook hands.
Driving a long and lonely road through Thermal, we attempted to visit Flying Disc Ranch, but instead found a team of harvesters finishing off the last of the Barhi dates from another commercial farm. The manager on site was very kind to allow me to photograph his team working, and offered a huge bunch to us to prepare at home (my instructions were simply to hydrate them and let them dry again).
Later we did find Flying Disc Ranch (a far smaller operation) and watched two workers there pick out “raw” dates from ripe ones. Technically all dates are raw, but the freshest dates retain a color and crispness that is unlike the dark and wrinkly fruit we all know. These taste a bit like coconut.
We finished our journey at Oasis Date Gardens where I discovered a love for the very dried, and sweet, Thoory and Kway varieties. Amazing! After 3 farms, we left Thermal with a date shake in hand, and a full belly of the tastiest batch of dates I’ve ever had.
