Catalina Diary (snapshots)

catspaw

Catalina, Day 1<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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[disclaimer: these are my snap shot photos. the REAL ones come later! }<o:p></o:p>
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A VERY bright and early morning, I got to the airport, zipped through the rather empty security and caught my flight to LAX. I got to nap a bit on the plane after reading photography business books (geek! I know) and all landed well. I had plane-side checked my camera gear in a Pelican Case on wheels, so while that made me nervous I knew it was the best way to transport everything safely. And I'd done my dangest to bring as LITTLE as possible! (edit: for the record I USED everything I bought, yay!).<o:p></o:p>
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Zipping around, looks likes Dan's plane landed early so I met up with Marc and Andy (the two photogs) and Dan (one of the participants) and off we went to the ferry building. Plenty of time to kill, we met another group member (the 4th and 5th would meet us on the island) and I quickly popped some Dramamine in case the seas weren't perfectly calm (thanks mom for that gift of sea sickness). <o:p></o:p>
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Quite the sight. All with macbooks/ibooks (ok ok just me w/ my ancient ibook), sitting around with huge camera backpacks and luggage. I think we all had camera gear that equaled, size wise, the rest of our luggage. Geeks? NAW! Not us!<o:p></o:p>
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Ferry ride, easy and done. We were starting to chat and getting to know one another a bit more. It's rather blurry, I admit to some sleep deprivation at this point.<o:p></o:p>
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Then… Catalina! Avalon! (the main city). Blowing cold, we grabbed Deli lunches then hit up the VONS market for… well mostly alcohol but also cliff bars and some other munchies for the week.<o:p></o:p>
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my view most of the week:<o:p></o:p>
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fun shade thingy at the picnic area:<o:p></o:p>
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Island wise, the city/town of Avalon was quite cute and quaint and could have been shot for a few hours but we had a mission to go on -- specifically to get us to the OTHER side of the bloody island. Big? Not that much. Roads? Some. Easy to drive? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.<o:p></o:p>
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We were in open sided jeeps, so suddenly my rain jacket (it never rained a drop, phew!) turned into the ULTIMATE wind barrier jacket. AND I HAD NO GLOVES. For which I was thoroughly mocked (well, just by Andy), so I got a cheap fleece pair at the grocery store and then showed him the email that only said to bring warm clothes for the Jeep rides, NOTHING about gloves. (edit: I ended up just cutting the tips of the gloves off and they are the ULTIMATE shooting gloves now. Awesome! $7 + scissors rules)<o:p></o:p>
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For future reference, if I'm being mocked or made fun of, it's Andy. And if I'm mocking someone, (or anyone else is mocking someone….) it's Andy. <o:p></o:p>
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Lunch was cold (but yummy!) but we started our 'learning' about <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on">Catalina island</st1:place> from Jack, our 5th participant and guide. To me, the island definitely looks like someone ripped a chunk of the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State> hills and plopped it into the middle of the ocean. But considering that this is from the tectonic clashing of plates and the island used to be off of the coast of Mexico, I'm REALLY curious to get down to Baja and see what the land is like down there now!<o:p></o:p>
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Any case, the drive in and across the island continued with a few stops for the local 'wildlife' - aka the infamous bison/buffalo. Quaint harbors and some landmarks later, we arrived at our destination.<o:p></o:p>
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Um, WOW. Seems USC (<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Southern California</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> to the rest of you) decided to drop some $$ into some SWANK accommodations for students (??) and alumni they want to hit up for money. Who knows, but we benefited. Neither of the other gals wanted to walk up the stairs to a bedroom, so instead of getting a smallish bedroom, I got a HUGE one with balcony, private bath and shower, and private desk area. Um, thank you?<o:p></o:p>
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Shooting aside, we had a sunset to capture, which we did this first day from a ridge not far away (thankgoodness, I was already Jeep-exhausted) and settled back to 'camp' for food (cafeteria style but pretty decent), wine and more wine and the beginning of our critiques. (We'd have a critique after every morning/evening shoot on a huge 15-20 foot projector screen. Pretty awesome). I? hadn't learned much yet. But there were days to go.<o:p></o:p>
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]I think I was sleep walking at this point and faceplanted into bed (after a shower! Oh the dust!) for a 5am wake up for sunset.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

Moogle Pepper

catspaw wrote:

Catalina, Day 1<o:p></o:p>
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[disclaimer: these are my snap shot photos. the REAL ones come later! }<o:p></o:p>
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Sounds like a great experience! But the font color, makes it kinda hard to read.

catspaw

Moogle Pepper wrote:

Sounds like a great experience! But the font color, makes it kinda hard to read.

*mutter* working over from work is a PITA! I'm not telling it what color, but apparently it's picking a default.

any mod is welcome to jump in and fix it if I can't.

catspaw

Moogle Pepper wrote:

Sounds like a great experience! But the font color, makes it kinda hard to read.

how's that now?

Moogle Pepper

Definitely better and readable!

catspaw

Day 2
Catalina, day 2
Sunrise! I was pleased to accomplish the following:
1. not fall into a prickly pear cactus in the dark. Phew!
2. handle the tripod, ball head and cameras (both) in the dark without much difficulty. Yay!
Post sunrise:

Note the cacti:

Back at the house(s) we devoured breakfast (yummy even if the same every day…) and then proceeded into the critiques. With only 5 of us and sometimes one person opting out, they went quickly but we also had time to look at almost all the photos. The 'guys' house had a double door into a bigger kitchen area and then this huge viewing area:
Marc and others watching the big screen as he critiques the photos:

Walkway over to the cafeteria:

Before lunch, Marc took the time to explain panos to us -- or more importantly the process of centering the lens and setting up the rail, etc etc. I had the gear but no idea how to get it 'right'.

Alas, I never saw a fox:

The afternoon was a stop at a waterfall and then a hike out to a beach. Good fun and the weather was divine! I got just-barely sunburnt.
March checking out the waterfall:

Hiking down the path:

Andy and his great 'find':

The beach was pretty awesome, even if the two mile hike tired some of us out.

From there, we went off exploring and then to the ridge where we'd see sunset:
We wait:


Post sunset, back of the Jeep on the way back (I did mention the alcohol, right?):

Photographically, I was getting my bearings this day but it had been more about exploring than much else. I'd have loved to have gone back to the waterfall once I had a better idea of what I wanted out of such a situation. I think that was the biggest challenge of most of this trip. Presented with great vistas and details all around, what DO you concentrate your lens on? Macros were easy to do and I spent more of day three on that. Otherwise I felt a bit lost this day but at least there were three more to come. There was no doubt that I was benefiting from this trip, but how much could I learn? I felt the need to push myself or else I rather surmised that I'd come away with nothing new.

Awais Yaqub

Thanks for putting them up ! waiting for more

catspaw

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Thanks for putting them up ! waiting for more

I'll do one more a day for the next few days. kills time at work

catspaw

Day Three
<B>Day 3</b>


I admit that by this point some of the days started to blur. But this day was memorable for the TREES. Sunrise was somewhere and the beach afterwards was rather nice. But the TREES! The morning, my goodness it was a goldmine of scraggly oak trees and Marc was like a kid in a toy store. Which view to pick first? These are the trees I grew up with, but somehow out here on the Island they seemed even more rugged and weathered. And dead too. Deadfall is typically cleaned up in California, but here on the Island it's often left au natural. Which, of course, makes for spectacular photos.

Wary of ticks and snakes, most of us tromped up the hillside (except Andy who took the morning off, something about working all night, phttt) and went exploring. The difficulties I encountered had a lot more to do with what to capture. The obvious scenes were easy but with SO MUCH to work with, it was easy to ditch one tree and move on. If there had been but two trees to work with, I'd have had to push myself a bit further and dig deeper for the creativity and composition that typically runs out before the CF cards are full (for the record I have 32 G in the D3 between the 2 card slots so it's difficult to 'fill').

A cloudy day, the sun flirted with us and gave rays that … I had no idea how to properly capture. Fail! I think Dan did best in this area since he hung out on the point, using his mega 200-400mm to capture scenes from afar.

A few hours later the lack of breakfast was kicking in and my creativity was drooping, badly. So we moved on. To more trees. When in doubt, use new tools to spark your creativity again I decided and pulled out the lensbaby for play. I received this only a few days before the trip, so I hadn't had the time to properly 'play' yet and play I did. Tromping around in what I'm sure was a snake infested undergrowth of oaks trees, I wanted nothing more than to be a kid again playing games in a land of make believe, for that's what I was seeing. Everyone else was outside working on vistas (Vistas Vistas Vistas!) while I played hallucinogenic games with the lensbaby.

Lunch time! Alas, there were wildflowers to capture and I was doing badly on lack of food and sufficient coffee. I let Dan play with my 60mm macro and took the G10 (the point and shoot of all these entries) out to play a bit. Marc showed me some of the really *incredible* abilities of this camera to do macros, probably better than several of my lenses. And so lupines and blue dicks and wild cucumbers and lemonade berries and poppies and other flowers were captured.

I even got to go stalk a buffalo in a field with instructions to run if it charged. Roger that.

Fortunately, LUNCH and a semi relaxing afternoon was to come, although I think this is when I fell asleep (reports say snoring, I disagree) during the critiques.

From there I admit I recall nothing else of the day although I'm sure there was a sunset … I think after that morning we picked a CLOSE location because day 4 was going to be a MARATHON of a day. Rest was needed.










*** I think Marc took this one. No credit here.

catspaw

Day Four
<B>Day 4</b>

Thursday was a marathon of a day, given everything we had to do and how long of a day it turned into. Sack lunches again, we set off early - BACK to the infamous trees, taking Andy with us this time since he missed out the time before. Sunrise was lovely but for the life of you I couldn't tell you where or when it happened. I'll have to look beyond my snap shots for that.

Up at the 'woods', Dan showed Marc the love that is a D3 (yay!) mated with the 200-400mm lens.


When you have a Canon guy saying he wants to buy this set up, you've got a winner. From there we started the very very long and rather terrifying drive (Jeeps really ARE amazing vehicles….) to Giant Beach. Along the way, we had a way of 'losing' people as the two Jeeps played hopscotch and often stopped for photos while the other folks (that is, us) wondered where everyone was.

Andy nap #1:




Gate duty


Dramatic much??


See the cove at the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar end over there? That's where we were headed. And DOWN.


The others follow along with Marc driving them (hence the constant photo stops)


Oh opps, photo stop!


Okok so it was pretty lovely


The art of drive-by photography….


And I must admit, we went through some GORGEOUS areas:


Andy does some drive-by shooting as well:


You really cannot tell how steep this stuff was.


Beach! Lunch time! Andy nap time!


The 'badlands' that we'd drive home through.


And we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and stopped often for some awesome areas and drove and drove and drove and…..eventually got to the top of the mountain (YES MOUNTAIN) where we were going to shoot sunset (our last!) from. These hills were behind us. The light might have been amazing but I was hidden away in an old oak grove so never found out.

Andy

catspaw wrote:

Beach! Lunch time! Andy nap time!

Great stuff, I really enjoyed this trip - thanks for all the snaps!

catspaw

Catalina, day 5 - the last, alas
Day 5, the last!

Bittersweet, but exhausted, the last day of Catalina dawned with our shortest sunrise ever -- just on the other side of the teeny bit of land we were staying on. Wet grass and sandals resulted in a very unglamorous mood by the time the sun was up, I was done. D.O.N.E. You can try to love a place but when you are freezing, I found nothing but exhaustion. I knew I had good photos and I'd learned more than expected, if yet not quite enough. Is there ever enough time to learn what we *need*? This is probably why post processing of the photos hasn't even happened yet, the sheer idea exhausts me and I want to revisit these with joy and energy.

However, snapshots abound and the last day did contain a LOT of excitement regardless of it's length or finality. (I got home at 1:30am, what a DAY).

A few views of the interior of the house we gals stayed in:


If we'd have more social time it could have been even more fun with Sarah and Ann, but most socializing seemed to occur in the 'main' housing area where we did critiques (and there was a real coffee maker).


My little desk area, all cleaned up. Mostly.


Fountain outside that was running the first night we arrived but was off afterwards. It was noisy, but pretty.


Side of one of the Jeeps we used all week. The Catalina Conservancy manages most of the land and membership was included as part of our trip. Unexpected bonus! A year of Catalina news and mailings, it's a gift that does keep on giving ….


The pretty danged awesome courtyard between the houses that we hung out in when weather was nice enough. I could really like this place!


After breakfast, packing, and trying to not forget anything …. We were off! Still MUCH to be seen that day before it was done.




We visited the airport before heading off for lunch and some ironwood explorations. I managed to sleep in the Jeep. No, I don't know how. It just happened.










The VERY VERY VERY large cherry tree.


On the road again….








Then we got into some of the burned out areas. For those that missed it, half the island nearly burned away a year or so ago. This was one of several places we stopped where you could see the spring growth coming back around the blackened areas. What I didn't notice until after I took this photo….


Was that this was probably as close to a fox as I got this trip (the night before the OTHER Jeep had a close encounter, but not us).


Burn recovery in progress (Meunch Star lessons too! Those are other photos. Hard to do those on a G10)


And after an encounter with a lovely bald eagle, chasing buffalo through a field (shhhhh we don't talk about THAT!), we arrived back in Avalon, the part of Catalina most people ever see. Here's the harbor filling up for the weekend already:


We arrived at the 'house' the Conservancy uses and were set loose on the town. I was looking forward to exploring, but quickly found it to be not quite as quaint as I had hoped it was (at least from a distance had appeared to be) and waaaaaay more tourist chintz than necessary. Although offseason, so tshirts were $10 and good quality. I'll take that!




I then started to make a game of the names of the boats in the harbor. Only those with the most 'interesting' names got photos.


Eventually exhaustion kicked in and Andy showed up, so food and beverages were pursued while trying to track down some of the others wandering around. It was nice to indulge in food of one's own choosing for a change I should have asked them to turn the sign on for me, but this rather summed up the week:




There HAD to be a story about this one….












Finally, contact was made and an even BETTER Mexican place was found. With drinks that were …. Oversized. Proof:


Waddling from overeating, we found the ferry and said an official good-bye to the island.


An hour trip back and we all parted ways -- and as far as I know, safe trips home on all ends.

Tango

i dreaded reading this thread..... only cuz of jealousness-ness-ness, i wish i could been there seeing such places in person!
but thank you for the virtual ride

catspaw

AaronNelson wrote:

i dreaded reading this thread..... only cuz of jealousness-ness-ness, i wish i could been there seeing such places in person!
but thank you for the virtual ride

Welcome! and thank you for the IR G10 I was quite excited to see that the one night and got Andy's approval for it being a good price. So you might owe him a commission

I hope to get into the REAL photos soon, but at least the 'tale' is done. thanks for reading!

Tango

i will buy Andy a coke when i see him...