Long before I bought my current outfit and began trying to photograph birds and other wildlife, I learned from watching nature documentaries that the best photos are usually the product of hours and hours of patient waiting and often hundreds of lousy shots. It’s all too easy to forget that important lesson when you see all the great images shared […]
We just returned home after spending the last few days at Clear Lake, California’s largest freshwater lake. There are so many beautiful hiking trails in the area, most of which I’ve never visited yet; I also enjoy revisiting favorite spots like Anderson Marsh State Historic Park at the south end of the lake and Rodman Slough, at the north end. […]
Here are some more of my mom’s slides from her California Mission projects in 1979-80. The top photo shows Mission San Miguel, featured in last Wednesday’s post. The remainder are part of the collection shot at Mission Purísima Concepión, along with her slide captions.
I’m working my way through several boxes of slides, trying to follow some rough chronological order. That means using hints like notes written or dates stamped on, and sometimes even the appearance of the slide frames themselves, i.e., some are plastic (1980s) and some are discolored white cardboard with red or blue around the edges (1950s and 1960s). Over the […]
Summer 1973 — These photos are from a trip my parents took to Hearst Castle and Solvang on the Central California coast, leaving us kids home. But don’t worry! A few years later they returned and took me along with them. Sadly, I don’t recall too much about Hearst Castle except that it was beautiful and overwhelming; I’d love to […]
From 1982, images of the buildings and grounds at Mission La PurÍsima Concepción de María Santísima, Lompoc.
When I was in elementary school back in the early 1970s, our lessons on California history skimmed lightly over the story of the Spanish missions, unlike the more in-depth study available to later students. I did visit the gold discovery site at Coloma and Sutter’s Fort with my class, but a field trip to the nearest mission would have meant […]
Some of my very favorite old family slides are the ones dating from the 1950s and 1960s; even if I don’t have very much information about where they were shot, it’s great to see vintage cars and places that may have completely changed over the decades since the photos were taken. And of course it’s wonderful to see my parents […]
I think it was April 1980 when I went along with my parents, my sister, and my niece and nephew to visit the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Sadly, I barely paid any attention to the other historic ships because I was much too enthralled by the Star of India; I shared my photos from that day in October 2018 […]