Santa Monica | Fotoeins Fotografie

Santa Monica State Beach, Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, six

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

22 February 2012.

Residents at these latitudes take these conditions for granted. But arriving from Vancouver for a reintroduction to greater Los Angeles, I’m still shaking my head in disbelief. What I see are typical “winter” conditions in this part of the world: there’s late-February afternoon sun; there are very comfortable 66F/+18C temperatures; and even if it’s mid-week, there are a lot of people out and about on Santa Monica Beach.

I made the image above on 22 Feb 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and the following settings: 1/320-sec, f/8, ISO100, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lCk.

Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, CA, USA, myRTW, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Santa Monica video performance

Is her name Monica? And if so, is her voice a holy aural delight?

I guess I’ll never know, as I photographed musician and videographer from a distance, and I didn’t summon the nerve to introduce myself and ask about the video. They could’ve been working a PR or marketing angle for the singer-songwriter. Or they might’ve been visitors like me. At the Santa Monica Pier in greater Los Angeles, there are sights and sounds, vibrant colours and excited people. My need to know in most cases gets me into trouble, but I can live with the mystery about these two.

More photos from Santa Monica Pier here

I made the photo on 22 February 2012 with the Canon EOS450D, 70-300 zoom-lens, and the following settings: 1/200s, f/8, ISO100, 150mm focal-length (240mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-8KV.

Santa Monica, CA: Route 66 at the Pier

February 2012.

In greater Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Pier is a well-described attraction and visited by many. As a boy watching tv-show exteriors and locations from southern California, I’ve always wanted to visit Santa Monica and its Pier. Yes, the Pier is a tourist trap, but I cannot resist either beach or the ocean.

I was staying with friends living in Santa Monica, and on a warm sunny February afternoon, I walked to the Pier in 20 minutes, and spent a number of hours finding the apparent end to highway US-66, admiring the 1909 Santa Monica Pier and the beach, and communing with the Pacific.

The western terminus to US route 66 was for a time at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica, but a more “natural and commercially viable” extension west to the ocean leads to Santa Monica Pier. The latter terminus is more “myth and legend”, partly because an expansive view of beach and the Pacific are more attractive than an ordinary urban intersection^#.

I suppose it’s patently obvious but it’s worth repeating: you cannot drive a car onto the end of the Santa Monica Pier. Visitors must park elsewhere, and get their feet walking (or smaller portable wheels rolling) onto the pier proper. And at the end of the pier, one might lean on the wood railing and stare into the waters of the Pacific, and think about where and how far their journey has gone or yet to go: if it’s to mark the start of a Route 66 road trip, if it marks the end of a Route 66 drive which began halfway across the country in Chicago, or if it marks the first phase of a year-long around-the-world trip.

^# “Route 66: America’s Longest Small Town“, Jim Hinckley (Voyageur Press, Minneapolis), 2017.

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