Newport Beach scene in black and white.
By the Door
While in Southern California a couple weeks ago, we went with our son and his wife to visit the Nixon Presidential Library. I loved it- and I am a Democrat. I had never been to a presidential library before and was very impressed by the quality of the displays and how balanced was the portrayal of this controversial president. I grew up in a Republican family in a time when we (well, most of us) still trusted the government and believed that things were only going to get better and better. I remember how devastated my parents, particularly my mother, were by the events of Watergate. At the time of Nixon’s resignation I was hugely pregnant with our first child and had been glued to the television during the hearings. It was fascinating to see the artifacts of Nixon’s childhood and presidency- AND the Watergate scandal.
The photo taken above is outside Nixon’s childhood home; it was closed while we were there because of a wedding.
The Ubiquitous Palm
It’s hard to find a spot without palm trees in Southern California. Even this somewhat minimalist shot includes the ubiquitous palm.
I’m a walkin’ . . .
Yes indeed! Another bit of the beach scene from our last trip to Newport-
It was about the light
The light shining through the pine needles was what caused me to snap this photo; it looks like fall, but was just golden light.
Blue Meditation
A peaceful scene from Lynx Lake
The Scene
Newport Beach scene
Sand
Looking down at an abstract in the sand. . .
The Little House
As we were leaving the beach, I couldn’t help but notice a little beach house that was dwarfed by its newer, more modern neighbors. It brought to mind a book I used to read to my first graders every year- The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton about a small country house sitting all by itself that over the years became engulfed by the city growing up around it. I wondered if something like that had happened here.
The little beach house was so shaded by its neighbors that I had to do a lot of camera work and post-processing to even get it to be visible- take 3 bracketed images, combine into an HDR and do some dodging after that. I started to see it as an illustration, so used Topaz Simplify to create this new look. One of our assignments in class is a book cover- so now I’m saving this image to possibly bring later on in case I can’t come up with another idea for a book cover.
Wonder what the title could be?
FYI- here is the middle exposure of the three bracketed images:
Now I have to come up with another photo for next week’s class!
Going Down
Here’s another view of Newport Beach at sunset.
Sundown
Hanging around after the sun went down before heading back to the hotel . . .
Paint it Blue
Brushstrokes of blue across the early morning beach… Newport beach late January
The Feeder Scene
I had a free morning yesterday, so I was able to get outside and practice backyard bird photography with my long lens. There was nothing more exotic than finches, jays, and doves- but it was all good practice.
Eclipse!
I did it!
In yesterday’s photo class, we were told exactly where to go (across town on a hill) to get a view of the eclipsing moon, which would be very low on the horizon. Lonnie suggested that we might be able to just see it from the hill at the back of our property, so we decided to set our alarm and see if, by any chance, we could see the moon from our own backyard. When the alarm went off, I staggered over to the window and there was the moon!
I shot many photos right from the backyard, but then carried the tripod with my big lens up our hill and took more photos from the top. I didn’t realize what a spectacular view we have of the night sky up there! There won’t be any more Super Blue Blood Moon Lunar Eclipses to photograph, but there are zillions of stars!
Super Blue Moon
I don’t think I will be going anywhere at zero dark thirty to photograph the eclipse, so here is what I saw tonight.
Sunset Moon:
There were clouds on the horizon- plus it was still very light- so I couldn’t see the moon until it climbed just a bit into the sky. As it got a little darker, I took the shots below:
And as I post this, the moon is high in the sky- and beautiful as always!
melinda anderson photography 