This week I forced myself to put down the camera and pick up the mouse. We had made a few recent trips down the California coast, visiting San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and surrounding areas. I had made hundreds of images on those trips, but hadn't gotten around to pulling them up to really take a look at what I’d captured. After getting through a similar batch of images I recently made in Santa Cruz, my attention turned south and I realized it was time to look at those images from the central coast. I lived in Santa Barbara for a while in my youth, and fell in love with the central coast. Oak-studded grasslands, rounded sandstone mountains, and a rugged coastline create a unique sense of place. Between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara life moves a bit slower. It has a bit of old California to it. That is what I was striving to capture as we made our way back down there.
Sea snails and rocks, Montaña de Oro State Park, Los Osos, CA. Pentax K-1, 31 mm, 1/800 @ f/10, ISO 500.
You can see some of the images I made in a new gallery I just added to my website. There are roadside buildings, many of them empty and abandoned. Abstract impressions of vineyards and beaches. Urban trees. Old cars and trucks. Most are in color, some in black and white. There are deliberate images made with thought and intention, and grab shots made as I hurried to catch up with my non-photographing travel companions. Most were made with a full-frame Pentax K-1. Others were created with the medium-format Fujifilm GFX 50R, or the Fuji X100T, a fixed-focal length crop sensor rangefinder camera. There are even a few made on film with a Bronica s2a.
But regardless of the subject or equipment, each has the power to bring me back to where I was and remind me of what I was thinking (or not thinking) and feeling (or not) when I made the image. And that is the magic of photography. When you point your camera at a subject and decide what to include and what to leave out, you are making a memory. Of what captured your attention and sparked your imagination at that moment in time in that particular place. But it is not enough to press the shutter. You need to go back and look at what you captured. To edit and finish the image of course, but also to remember what you saw and think about why you pressed the shutter. To appreciate your successes, understand your mistakes, and improve your vision for the next time you are out wandering the world, camera in hand.
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River Lodge Motel, Paso Robles. Pentax K-1, 12mm, 1/320 @ f/8, ISO 500
Motel Inn, San Luis Obispo. Fuji GFX 50R, 63mm, 1/10 @ f/29, ISO 200.
Abandoned buildings always catch my eye. When we were down in Paso last March I spotted an abandoned motel adjacent to the highway, so one morning as the others slept I went out to take a look. The building was boarded up but I was able to wander freely around the grounds looking for compositions and light. It felt lost in time, a sliver of a bygone era wedged between the highway and a new modern hotel that had risen to take its place, I wish I had more time to spend there, to wait until the fog lifted a bit. But I was happy with some of the images I captured even if I was a little aggressive in adding contrast and color to make up for my lack of time to wait for the light. I was glad I stopped when I did, because the next time I was passing through town I noticed that the entire property had been fenced off in preparation for demolition or renovation.
That in turn inspired me to find and shoot the Motel Inn when we were in San Luis Obispo. Reputed to be the first motel in the world, the old Spanish style lodge with a copper roof now sits crumbling behind its own chainlink fence, its former facade propped up by timbers a short distance away. A victim of its own invention, motorists now pass the Motel Inn by with barely a look as they head to or from one of the dozen modern motels it spawned just down the road. I wandered around the perimeter of the grounds, looking for images through the fence that might tell the story of this neglected piece of history. I think the long exposure of a car speeding past is a fitting tribute, the highway signs and old facade adding more layers to the tale. Yes, I blew the highlights on this frame, but I still think it works better than others that are properly exposed.
Hunter Auto Body Shop, Paso Robles. Bronica S2a, 50mm, Kodak Portra 400.
On another morning back in Paso in March I ventured out with my Bronica to capture a boarded-up auto body shop I’d spied near downtown. I only shoot film occasionally these days, and my rust shows. Without the luxury of histograms and LCDs or the ability to capture unlimited brackets, it is imperative to nail the exposure in camera with every shot. I returned with more than a few images with blown highlights or unrecoverable shadows. But there were a couple that turned out alright, including this one that I rather like. The film (Portra 400) has given it a soft, vintage feeling, appropriate to the subject. It’s been months since I took the Bronica out for a spin, but going through those old images has given me the impetus to pull it out again.
Fast forward to August. I again found myself wandering alone on a foggy morning while others slept. Carrying only my X100T, I made my way through San Luis Obispo wondering what would catch my eye. It was liberating wandering around with the compact camera, free from the physical and mental weight that comes with using a larger kit and looking for “important” images. I pointed its fixed 23mm lens at old buildings, urban trees, and other things that caught my interest. I used it again as we wandered around Morro Rock and through Cambria later that day. The limitations of the fixed focal length camera can provide a creative boost, as it requires you to focus on the scene in front of you and figure out how to make an image with the equipment at hand, rather than rooting around for some other lens in your bag. Again, taking the time to look through the images I’d captured opened my eyes to new ways of using that camera in the future.
Thanks for reading. Please visit my central coast gallery to see some of the other images I made on our recent trips. I hope I’ve inspired you to take a trip down your own magic coast, or to go back and look at some neglected images you’ve made in your own corner of the world. You’ll be glad you did.
Urban Tree at The Pit Stop, Cambria. Fuji X100T, 23mm, 1/420 @ f/5.6 ISO 400.