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The Getty has an exhibit of photographs by Graciela Iturbide, so on Saturday, I headed up there to check them out. I didn’t care for her portraits very much, but some of her earlier work, particularly some work with birds was really great. It was almost grotesque and surreal in a way that was interesting to see captured in photography.

I got there a little later in the day, and so was able to spend a bit of time strolling through the gardens as the sun set. I had my camera, so you can see some pictures. Sadly none of these images are grotesque or surreal. I need to work on seeing the world from a different perspective if I’m going to make photos that I can be proud of.

I drove down to the San Diego Zoo today to make some pictures of the animals. It was a little chilly, and it was a little rainy, which I wasn’t expecting. I spent the latter part of the day with my camera wrapped in my shirt trying to keep it dry. Still, all things considered, it was a nice day.

About a year ago, I heard about this place, Oak Glen, up in the mountains just outside Los Angeles. They have a bunch of U-Pick apple orchards, and trees with leaves that actually turn colors like it’s fall. I’ve been wanting to check it out for a while, and since October is apple picking season for them, this weekend, I finally made it up there.

It was fun, and interesting. Not quite as cold as I was hoping that it would be, and there were just WAY too many people to deal with, but the food was great (apple cider, apple pie, barbeque strangely enough), and it’s worth checking out if you’ve never done it. You can see some Apple Picking photos.

Since I was already going to be in the area, I decided to take advantage and head back to Joshua Tree. I actually went to the desert the day before the apple picking and then grabbed a hotel in Palm Springs. I wish that I could have explored Palm Springs a little bit more because driving down the main drag on Saturday night looked pretty nice. I was just was too tired after running around the desert to do much more than grab an insane amount of Mexican food and collapse at the hotel. You can see my Joshua Tree Photos.

This morning before starting off for Oak Glen, I did have an opportunity to go exploring at Indian Canyon just outside of Palm Springs. Actually, I took the Andrea Canyon loop, so you can see some of those photos too.

Newport Beach held their 46th annual Sand Castle Contest today, so I drove down to photograph it. These things always have this weird mix of really privative children’s creations and reasonably elaborate carvings. I think I may have liked The King Has Two Thrones the best. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the toilet humor.

Santa Clarita has this sidewalk, chalk art festival. I went up there today to check it out. Of course, I took my camera, and you can see some of my sidewalk art photos.

I took a two week road trip up the western coast of the US and into Canada. Naturally, I took a ton of pictures.

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I drove up to Santa Barbara and went out on a whale watching boat trip. It was a fun day. Some of the whales got almost within touching distance, and there were hundreds of dolphins swimming and jumping around. It turns out it’s not very easy to photograph whales. You basically just get a bit of gray — and given the cloudy and foggy day, that means that the whale, the water and the sky were all kind of an uninteresting gray. I did what I could though, and you can see a few whale watching photos here.

I had a few hours of light after the whale watching trip, so I stopped in to the Santa Barbara Zoo as well. You can see some zoo pictures here.

By the way, when they tell you that even when it’s cloudy you can still get sunburned… you should totally believe them. I’m terribly red right now.

Yesterday, I went for a hike in Malibu. The Solstice Canyon Loop is an interesting trail to hike. There’s this burnt out old building that you can explore, and plenty of streams and waterfalls. I would have liked to have seen the house before it was burned. It’s sort of tough getting an idea of what it must have been like because it seems like the outside and inside of the house must have been very tightly integrated, sort of like a Frank Lloyd Wright house or something. A tripod would have been very helpful on this hike since it was a little too dark under the canopy for hand held most of the time. Still I managed to make a few pictures of Solstice Canyon.

I’ve been wanting to get down to the San Diego Wild Animal Park for quite a while now, and since I was taking this whole week off to burn some vacation days I was about to lose, today seemed like the perfect day. I did one of their photo safari adventures. That was cool since they drive you right up to the animals. I got licked by a giraffe, and I got to pet a rhino horn.

If I have one complaint it’s that they didn’t take us into any of the predator enclosures. I guess they’re worried about “safety” or something lame like that. Unfortunately, to my eye at least, all of the herd animals kind of look the same. Once you’ve photographed one of them, you’re pretty much done. If I’m going to photograph something, I want to photograph something exciting like one of the apex predators. I don’t want to photograph, well, food. Anyway, you can see some San Diego Wild Animal Park photos here.

I took a drive up to the Exotic Feline Center in Rosamond to make some pictures of cats.