For those about to board...

... we salute you. This entry is dedicated to all of the colleagues with whom I have sat and discussed one of the traveler's perennial problems: hotels. Before I begin I must, if I may, place one disclaimer. For all of my friends who bunk down in cockroach infested bunks in war zones and under mosquito nets in jungles all over the world, this entry is not for you. It's for the pasty, pampered, powdered-ass corporate business travelers. Like me.

First of all, the inspiration for this post. I'm on the road. Right now I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida and I'm in a regular business hotel. Last week I was in New York City staying in an up market 'boutique' style hotel. I noticed, when I arrived at this hotel that I was almost embarrassingly happy to be here. This post is an attempt to explain that odd fact and, finally, to put into words all of those conversations I've had with fellow road warriors about designing the perfect business hotel. This one is for you, F-Troop.

First of all, this is a nice idea but not wholly necessary. It's a power socket in the bedside lamp. So that if you want to work in bed and plug in your laptop you don't have to yank the bed away from the wall and thrust your hand down into places that you really don't want to think about for too long. Just to get some juice.



It used to be, just a few short years ago, that the amount of cables and power supplies I carried was nothing short of staggering. I staggered through airports and staggered into hotels carrying all this stuff. These days most of my stuff is 'bus-powered', that is to say, it takes it's power from being plugged into my laptop. Here are three Firewire 400 hard drives and one Firewire 800 hard drive plugged in. The Lexar card reader is also Firewire 800 and plugs straight into the back of the G-Tech drive. All neat so far.



So with that being said the shortage of power sockets in hotel rooms is rarely an issue these days although this idea is neat. The two power sockets I do need (laptop and camera battery charger) are both built into the lamp stand. Again, no fiddling on the floor under the desk just begging for the cleaner to come in, see you and lead to you being cited as the reason for her quitting the profession. Notice, also, the ethernet. Ah yes, the internets. A critical part of everyones life these days. Here's a tip if you're building a hotel; make it easy, make it everywhere and make it free. Charging me 20 bucks for 24 hours of internet is like charging me for the water in the taps. I like having the option of a wire, it allows me to create my own wireless network in the room if the wireless signal ain't up to much.



So here it is all plugged in.



And yes, even this little doodad is synced and charged directly so I only need the USB cable and no charger.



So what else? Well the rest is rather basic but amazingly arsed up by a great deal of hotels. Give me a comfortable clean bed with sheets that feel like they might have been made sometime within the years I've been alive on this planet. Pillows that feel like they are stuffed with the packing material you can eat don't work either. And don't put 58 other assorted items on the bed. I can't tell you how many times I've had to spend 10 minutes placing bolsters and fluffy embroidered carefully on to the floor just so that I can get into bed. Actually they usually get flung across the room in a bizarre 'padded cell' parody of a Rolling Stones style hotel room trashing. I also don't want those odd Scandinavian style make-it-yourself beds. One last thing; no recognisable bodily fluid stains. Please. For the love all that is good, I don't want to see that.



Hot water. It seems so basic. It is. It's one of the three essentials I'm paying you for... bed, hot water and a crapper. It's what I need.



Shower pressure. Seriously, the hotel room I stayed in last week was right beneath the water tower on the roof and had zero water pressure. It had a funky trendy 'rainhead' which kinda drizzled on me which was fine for an overall misting but I really need some kinda hot high pressure hose for a decent scrub down. They also had one of the hand held shower heads that you pull off the wall to wash those, er, tricky to reach areas. If you turned it upside down the water simply stopped. What do you want me to do with that? Use it as a loofah?



Give me some space around the sink. I don't have much but I'd like to be able to put it down without having to balance things.



These are the basics. Now let's have a gander at some really nice things to have that really aren't difficult. A decent iron and ironing board. The key word is decent. I don't need to brand a sheep, I need to occasionally press a shirt. And spend the extra two bucks fifty to buy the irons that you can put water in...



A coffee machine. Anyone that knows me knows that I really don't like to be up in the mornings. I certainly don't want to have to talk to someone. Having to talk to someone before I've had coffee is almost painful. Having to make my first conversation be my ordering of coffee is going to make the rest of the day just seem Sisyphean. So put a small coffee machine in the room. I'm not asking for beans that have passed through a small animal and been sifted from their stools. Farmer brothers will do at a pinch. And, yes, I know that Farmer Brothers tastes like it's been passed by someone but you catch my drift.



A fridge. I know you might put your fridge in there. It's full of tempting goodies that seem value for money when it's 2am and you really feel like a bottle of water. But I'm really not going to respect myself in the morning when I've been taken advantage of by paying 10 bucks for a bottle. For those of you out there that make signs saying, 'please don't put your own stuff in the fridge', what's wrong with you? What possible damage can happen? Give me a fridge. If I'm staying somewhere for a few nights I'm going to want some basics from the store. I need somewhere to put them. I'm not going to put them in a bag of ice and hang 'em out of the window. We've moved on since then.



Working air conditioning. My least green requirement but when I'm on the road and working anywhere up to eighteen hours a day someone had better let me sleep the remaining 6 or else I'm going to get cranky. Can you tell? A hot room is my fastest way to hotel room misery.



That's about it really. Some other things which are nice are things like an in-house guest laundry room. Awesome. Serves two functions; gets your clothes clean without needing a mortgage AND makes you realise that you aren't that hot shit and that you do put your pants on one leg at a time like anyone else. Oh and this bit is green... have you seen the elaborate packing from the hotel dry cleaning service? Silly and unnecessary.

Inexpensive and easy valet parking is nice too. The hotel in NY last week charged 50/day which, actually, is not bad for Manhattan but at the very least give me in and out privileges. They wanted to charge me 50 each time I brought it out. Imagine that. Two trips out and you're on for 150 for that day's parking. Obscene. Breakfast too, make it nice, easy and quick. I frequently skip the buffet in hotels that charge 22 bucks for it. Because even a fat biffa like me can't do 22 dollars worth of damage to a breakfast buffet.

A couple of other niceties. Lay on the odd decent sunset, it's always appreciated by the weary traveler.



And when I shut the curtains make it look like this.



To this end, the Courtyard Marriott is pretty much the perfect hotel. All of the above pictures were taken there. Decent room rate. Valet is thruppence ha'penny with in and outs, internet is free and the breakfast is 9.50 all you can eat. And, yes, I can do that much damage to a breakfast buffet.

The Changes In Life

Thinking in 'the moment' and 'living in the present' are things we value highly, phrases brought down from on high by buddhist teachings and espoused by people who teach everything from business studies to wedding photography workshops. I'm currently reading a book all about the concept of time and our relationship to it. It's a fascinating and absorbing read.

It leads me to a place that I've often found myself. I find it very hard to connect the me that I am today with the me that I was before. So the me that lives in California seems quite distant to the me that lived in Paris. The me that lived in Paris was disconnected from the me that lived in London. And all of them are utterly disconnected from the me that was born and grew up in Nottingham. One of the oddest things about connecting with old school friends on Facebook is trying to figure out the thread that binds us from twenty five years ago. And it's not always easy. Old school nicknames are not something I've heard through all of these lifetimes.

There is a certain joy and wonder in that other worldliness too though. I remember, early in my time in Paris and I was on the Friday night 'roller'. This is the craziest thing in the world, where thousands and thousands of roller bladers take to the streets of Paris every Friday night. They ride a different route each week, they organise it themselves and they now even get help from a rollerblade mounted division of the Paris police force. This was my first ever ride out with them and we ploughed around the streets of Paris that were closed in a rolling road block just for us. We started on up a hill which seemed to go on for miles, rounded a corner, then another and came out in front of... the Arc de Triomphe. We then took a left and started riding down the Champs Elysées. So here I was, riding in a group of maybe 8000 roller bladers, on a Friday night, riding down one of the most famous streets in the world. Closed for everyone except us. It was an amazing moment of the present connecting through to the past and elevating that moment into something altogether wonderful.

I have similar moments here in California. The little boy from Basford, Nottingham. Living in California, working in Silicon Valley. When I moved here I wanted to buy a convertible. I just did. It's the first time I've lived in a place where the climate allows me to have the roof off a car day after day. So I bought an inexpensive two seater and I LOVE driving it. I pull out of my garage and let the roof down...



Often times the sky is blue and the sun feels good in my face. Right now the cherry blossom is popping out all over and everything looks fresh and rather beautiful.

On the route to work, when I was a teenager, I took the bus along Valley Road in Nottingham. I passed under road signs for familiar districts like Beeston and Radford. At the moment I hop on the 101 freeway, which, if I were to continue straight on for 400 miles would dump me into Los Angeles. If I were to hop off at the next junction and take the 101 northbound it would lead me up through San Francisco onto the rugged northern California coastline, into Oregon. It would then traverse the entire western edge of Oregon and into Washington state where the road would round the Olympic National Park and deposit me into Olympia, WA. And I would still be on the 101 freeway, 1128 miles later. So, not even counting the southbound part to LA and San Diego, the 101 is 300 miles longer than the famed 'Lands End to John O'Groats' drive in the UK. Scale in this country is awesome in the truest sense of the word.




Doesn't matter how stressful life gets and, given the global economic meltdown, it is pretty stressful, if we look hard enough there are things to wonder at. We just have to learn how to see them, in the moment in which we live them.

Normal programming will resume soon...

2008: Final Edition

December 31st and I'm sitting looking out across the Pacific ocean. It's an arbitrary day, in the grand scheme of things, but a day full of import for many. The last day of our calendar year. It's a day to look back on our accomplishments, travels, people met, people lost, chances taken, chances missed. Hopefully your mental, spiritual and physical balance sheet is in the black.

I feel like maybe it's always the same but this year has felt intense on many levels - professionally, personally and physically. I've traveled extensively with six trips to Canada, two to England and France and one each to China and the Netherlands. On top of that I've been all over the US from Seattle to Miami, San Diego to Boston and many points in between. I've had some super highs and some crushing lows. The year started out with the economic world on fire and ended with that same world in ashes. The new year is on the horizon and no one knows how this is all going to work out. Are we going to keep ploughing into the ground and digging a bigger hole? Will the markets turn around and start to build some strength on the basis of some firm foundations? Right now I have a job, another two years on my visa and a busy year in front of me but, as we all know, that could end in a heartbeat.

Resolutions? Keep on keeping on... keep on working at my photography, try and discover new things, new ways to look at things, new ways to show. I have some some projects to finish, some to start and, generally, tighten the belt and hold on for the ride.



The end of the year brought an interesting celestial phenomenon. A couple of nights ago, as the sun set over the Pacific, the thinnest sliver of moon appeared in the western skies. The moon was barely two and a half days old. Above it, in the darkening blue skies, sat Venus, herself in a half phase. Below all, down in the fading fires of the sunset sat Jupiter and below that, Mercury.



We had lunch outside of Medusa's, here in Cambria, a couple of days ago. We sat out facing out on to the road and ate our soft tacos. The sun felt good on my face and for the first time in weeks I felt myself starting to relax. The motion had stopped for a few minutes, the pain in my root canal tooth had gone and the sneezing that I've been doing the last week had ceased. I felt good. Really good. It was almost like I'd forgotten what that really felt like. As my mind wandered I thought of Sandy Colton, a man I first met two years ago. I met him at the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2006, again in 2007 and again in 2008. Sandy started out in the US Air Force as a writer and photographer for the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. He then worked for the Associated Press as a photographer and editor amongst other things. He is also the father of Jay and Jimmy Colton - Jay a former associate picture editor for Time magazine and Jimmy the picture editor of Sports Illustrated. He was also a devoted member of the Eddie Adams Workshop family from it's inauguration onwards. He was 'heavy' of 'heavies'. I can't say that I knew him but I could see his influence. I felt the regard in which he was held by all that did know him and, as I sat there in the sun, thinking about how good it felt I thought about Sandy and his family.

Sandy passed away on Christmas Day at his home in upstate New York at the age of 83. I thought about Jimmy's introduction speech at Barnstorm back in October, about the way he'd talked about his dad, honoring his achievements and his strength. Sandy got a standing ovation that night. People that knew him well tell me that no one fought for the photographer more than Sandy. I know that ill health took a heavy toll over the past few years but he always attended the workshop, always paid his respects at the memorial. I hope he's sitting back, somewhere, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face.

The Passage of Time

When I moved from London to Paris I left behind a lot of stuff in storage. I also had some stuff back at my parents house. When I relocated to the US in spring 2006 I took the opportunity to get the stuff from my parents and put it with my storage stuff in London. Then, when the relo people picked up my London stuff, it all came to the US with me. Buried, deep, deep down in the London shipment was a box and in that box was hundreds and hundreds of 'snappy snaps snapshots'. Essentially the story of my life.

I haven't seen a lot of these pictures for 10 or so years. It's really quite a trip to go back in time and see the things you did and the person you were. The changes are invisible day to day but breathtaking when viewed at a distance of twenty years. So, over the course of the coming months I'm going to be trawling through my box of memories.

Back in the late 1980's I was a skater. In fact I raced. Something called Short Track. That's the kind of speed skating you see Apolo Anton Ohno doing, indoors, tight track all elbows and frantic speed. I became a speed skater because I'd been a skater since I was about 10 years old. I loved it. I skated, at one time, almost every night of the week. My parents were happy that I was getting exercise in a safe environment and I loved skating like a beast. Me and my mates used to scoot around the ice, weaving in and out, jumping through gaps, going backwards, you name it. And, of course, there were girls. To me, at 15 or 16, they were utterly unattainable. And then, finally, it clicked and I met a girl. At the Nottingham Ice Stadium. She was a skater too. She was cute as a button and I was smitten. It wasn't to last, I caught her, making out with a mate of mine. At the Nottingham Ice Stadium.

Around that time I wasn't racing but I did take part in the 'sports' section of a Friday night down at the Stadium. The sports section allowed those beyond beginner to go nuts for a few minutes - skating fast as you wanted - sometimes in a circle, occasionally in a dazzlingly dangerous figure-eight (wonder if that is even legal now). During the sports we used to barrel jumping too. We'd get some gallon cans out on the ice, skate like lunatics and try to jump over them. It was insane. Then we found out that there was an official Barrel Jumping sport in Canada. It even had a world championships! We formed a team and became the Great Britain Barrel Jumping team. We arranged to go compete in Canada and France. For some reason (I think I'd broken something) I couldn't jump... so I became a referee. Before I knew it I'd refereed several world championships indoors and out, mens and womens.

This picture is me as Chief Official at the Outdoor World Barrel Jumping Championships in Ottawa, Canada around 1989.



We had a blast on these trips, especially the trips to Canada which were my first trips to North America. The picture below is me as a young 20-something riding a Skidoo for the first time. Shortly after this picture was taken my buddy took a turn to drive and drove us through a barbed wire fence. He needed stitches. I needed a new ski jacket and gloves.



I had hair. I was a lot thinner. I was pretty fit. I was traveling the world and becoming addicted to it.

Good times.

Joshua Tree

Been so so busy over the past few weeks I've barely had time to post. I guess my thoughts have been racing too fast for my fingers to type.

A couple of weeks ago I was on a shoot in Southern California, in the Joshua Tree National Park. It's one of my favourite places to shoot and, somehow, I'm never disappointed with the sunsets there. This time around there were no clouds and I was expecting a less than stellar sunset. But, in fact, it was clear and rather beautiful.

Flying: Out On A Limb

If you drive east out of New York there isn't much left of the continent aside from a spur of land that runs east and north out into the Atlantic ocean. It's called Long Island. I've been to New York a bunch of times and I've been to places 'upstate' but I'd never been out on to the island itself. On Sunday I had a car and a free day so I headed out to explore some of the island.

If you look up a list of famous New Yorkers chances are that they may have come from Long Island; Billy Joel, Billy Crystal, Walt Whitman, Steve Buscemi, Rodney Dangerfield, Kevin James, Joe Satriani and Howard Stern to name but a few. Many of the worlds rich and famous make their second home in Long Island in what has become known simply as 'The Hamptons' at the far eastern end of the island.

Some famous things have happened on the Island too like the first transatlantic radio telephone transmitter at Rocky Point. The Lighthouse at Montauk was New York's first coastal beacon back in 1796. And Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight from Roosevelt Field to Paris in 1927 flying the famed Spirit of St Louis airplane.

In fact, the history of Long Island is intertwined with the history of American aviation all the way from the early beginnings up to and including putting man on the moon. In the early years of the aviation boom, the golden age - between about the world wars - companies set up shop on Long Island and aviators pushed the boundaries of flight to previously unimaginable lengths. Before Lindbergh, in 1919, a Curtiss flying boat flew from Long Island to England with two stops en route. In 1923 John Macready and Oakley Kelley took off from Roosevelt Field and flew, non-stop, to San Diego - the first non-stop flight across the continent of the US. The flight took them 27hrs to cover 2520 miles.

Companies like Curtiss and Sikorsky opened up in Garden City. Sperry and Fairchild in Farmingdale and, later, Grumman and Republic. These latter two companies served the US military throughout the second world war and all the way up into the most recent conflicts in the Gulf. The Grumman company developed a line of aircraft for the US Navy - the famous Grumman 'cats' - that stretch from Wildcats and Hellcats in World War II, through Bearcats, Panthers, Cougars and the Tiger all the way up to one of the most successful naval aircraft of all time, the F-14 Tomcat, the last of the cats. Republic produced one of the most fearsome fighter aircraft of the second world war, the P-47 Thunderbolt, lovingly known as 'the Jug'. Just as Grumman had their cats Republic stuck with Thunder, developing the Thunderjet and Thunderstreak which saw service in Korea and the Thunderchief, known as the 'Thud', which saw much service during the Rolling Thunder operations of the Vietnam war. By the mid-60s Republic was subsumed into another Long Island company, Fairchild, and became known as Fairchild Republic. Under that name it developed one of the most potent and unusual ground attack aircraft, the A-10 Thunderbolt II lovingly referred to as 'the Warthog'. The A-10 is still in service.

I visited the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale and saw some of their aircraft. Sitting outside are some examples of cold war hardware built on the island, an F-105 Thunderchief and a rare RF-84 Thunderflash reconnaisance aircraft.



The Republic RF-84 Thunderflash



A General Dynamics F-111.

They also had a meeting of the local hotrod club.



Grumman was quite the company on the island once upon a time. At the height of it's cold war defence contracts the company employed nearly 23,000 people on the Island. After a bidding war between Martin Marietta and Northrop, Northrop purchased the company for 2.1 billion dollars in 1994. It was the end of the line for Grumman on the island. Before all of that happened though Grumman won the contract to build the lunar module for the Apollo missions. The actual ship that descended to the moon. LM-5 was called 'the eagle', this was the lunar module that actually first touched down on the moon as part of Apollo 11. LM-12 was flown on Apollo 17 and LM-13 was destined for Apollo 18 which, of course, was cancelled. LM-13 now stands proudly in the small Cradle of Aviation museum in Garden City. It's a lovely little museum that deserves to be visited for it's place as, literally, the cradle of American aviation.



LM-13, the lunar module for Apollo 18.

After I'd visited the museums I carried on out along the Long Island Expressway, came off on the 27 and headed to Montauk Point, the furthest tip of the island. I arrived as the sun was setting and looked at the lighthouse, the gulls and felt the wind in my face. I wanted to stay and soak it all up but somehow I was just too tired to be poetic.



This particular road trip has taken it's toll and I wanted to start the long trek back to New York to drop off the rental and get to my hotel. I wanted to get my week started and get home. I got back in the car, pausing only to look at the horses in the setting sun then I took off and headed back to the metropolis.

500

I like driving. I can drive all day. Yesterday, I did. I drove from Liberty, NY to Charlottesville, VA. I've never tripped through the eastern side of the country. Interesting to move from New York to Pennsylvania to Maryland to West Virginia to Virginia. Finally pulling into Charlottesville around 11pm last night.

Lakestarpaint

Stopped off on my way back to the hotel tonight. At the lake where I seem to keep stopping. The moon is pretty bright and I light painted the trees...

Water

Quick post from a shot tonight driving back to the hotel.

Coffee

My name is Martin and I've been a coffee addict, now, for a great many years. There, I've said it. Do I feel better? If I could get a coffee, yes.

When you're in the big cities getting a half decent coffee isn't much of a challenge. You can step out of any hotel and straight into a nearby Starbucks for something. Some hotels even skip the outside part and have a Starbucks right there in the lobby.

Sometimes though, it's just not that easy to find a coffee place. Recently I was in Jackson Hole, WY and searching for coffee. I came across a small tucked away Italian restaurant one night. Outside they had a few tables with those distinctive red umbrellas that usually mean one thing: Illy coffee. Sure enough, they serve Illy. The place is run by a great German dude called Alex who ended up in Jackson via Boston where he studied at Berklee. I ate there one night and had, quite simply, the best lasagne I've ever had. Wholly recommended. The coffee was stellar too although note that it's a cafe for lunch and dinner so doesn't open until 11am. If you're gasping for caffeine any earlier than there's a Tully's in the Albertsons but anything after 11, head for Cafe Ponza at 50 W. Broadway in Jackson.



Now I find myself in upstate New York. The nearest Starbucks is at least 40 miles away and I need coffee. Last year I took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of nowhere and pulled off into the small town of Roscoe, NY. In Roscoe is a great little cafe called Buffalo Zach's. It's a cafe with a difference.



It's run by a guy called Peter Swersey. The following is printed on the back of their menus:

Some two and a half years ago, with the help of three of the most prestigious New York hospitals, the proprietor of this unique café decided to fulfill a dream of his by building the first Survivorship retreat and sanctuary for Cancer patients in this country, just outside of beautiful Roscoe, NY. It was the profound loss of three of his family members to the horrific disease of Cancer that drew him to this mission.
This very strong commitment of his had him spend over 1 ½ years in the planning stages to launch what will become known as “Camp Tomorrow”, A Place of Hope, Renewal and Healing; so Cancer survivors can remain cancer free for the remaining years of their lives.

The inception of Buffalo Zach’s Café in Roscoe will serve as a support and foundation for the funding of “Camp Tomorrow”. The opening for his retreat is scheduled in the near future and hopefully will be the beginning of many more cancer survival retreats in the country. It is in this context that the entire staff at Buffalo Zach’s Café would like to Thank You for having the pleasure of serving you, our valued customer. Thank You for entering these premises and allowing us to accommodate you and hopefully making your visit a delightful experience.

So, the coffee is seriously very good, the food is great - if the buffalo chicken panini I had today is anything to go by - and the staff are just wonderful. And the profits go to a good cause. What you waitin' for?

Musical Transportation

Music, more than just about any other sense, is the one that transports me in time and place. I can be just about anywhere and I'll hear a song and I can see and sense just what I was doing when that song was around first time out.

I remember earlier this year driving through Oklahoma on the way to a shoot. A song came on the radio - I forget what it was now - but my memories of that song go all the way back to when I only knew Oklahoma as a musical movie.

It happened again tonight, too. The drive from JFK airport in NY to Liberty, NY is probably about 2hrs straight. I've never managed to achieve that. For whatever reason my brain melts down as I navigate the twisting roads that cross from Queens, through the top half of Manhattan and the Bronx. Wiggling through New Jersey and then back into New York State again. I'm usually tired and hungry from the flight from SF. It's usually dark and cold and, more often than not, a little wet. Whatever it all is, I usually get lost several times before shuffling into Liberty sometime around 11pm. So, I normally try and get some food on the way. Usually that food is some horrid little roadside service station but tonight I managed to find a Chili's by the road in Ramsey, NY.

The food was pleasant enough and there was a Dunkin Donuts next door. I needed a coffee for the road so I called in. As I was waiting for my latte a song came on their radio. It was Spandau Ballet playing 'True'. My mind spun out of control and all the way back to 1983 when that song hit the charts and was played non-stop back in England. I was fresh out of school, I was 16 going on 17 and the world was my lobster. It was the smoochie record of the year but my teens were not a good time for me with smoochie partners so I remember, with some irritation, hearing that song being played over and over and over again on the radio, at parties, discos. You name it, wherever people were likely to be "makin' out", there was that Spandau style sax-break. There was Mr Hadley givin' it his best shot in the crooning stakes. I can still picture all the smooth dudes dressing sharp since Spandau ditched the highland tribesman look and went into full on sharp suit and tie, impeccable hair gelled to within an inch of it's life. All of that and all of twenty five years ago. I had hair then.

I smiled to myself, paid the man and headed off into the night to get lost in upstate New York yet again.

Jackson Hole

I'm writing this in a hotel in Jackson Hole, WY. This small town nestles at the foot of the Grand Tetons a truly amazing an iconic part of the US.

I'll be writing more about the place when I've had more than three hours sleep. In the meantime... a shot from sunrise this morning. Edited in Aperture + Color Efex.



These were both taken shortly after sunrise





More to come...

Cambria

I've been to Cambria a whole bunch of times over the past seven or eight years. It's long been a favourite little getaway from the Bay Area. J and I are wont to go down there a few weekends a year. Door to door, our house to any of our 'preferred' hotels is about 3hrs. It's become quite a chic little place too with art galleries, antique stores, nick-nacks and boutiques.

Someone in one of the stores told us that this summer had been a disastrous one for them, 'one of the worst in memory' she said. I was trying to figure out why that would be so. The US dollar is so bad against just about every other country on the planet, a lot of Americans are staying closer to home than usual because it's just cheaper. But, I realised, that Cambria is no longer an inexpensive 'ride out'. Gas might be slightly down on what it was a couple of months ago but it's still high. Out on the central coast it's always more expensive than in the major cities - higher cost of delivery, I guess. The restaurants are not so cheap. The stores offer no bargains. It feels like the town priced itself up during the good times, rising ever higher upmarket and, now, now that rainy times are upon us and the economy, the place is just too expensive. 200 miles in a car that does nearly 28 to the gallon is still over 7 gallons. At local prices that is around 30 bucks. So that's 60, round trip. Two nights in a hotel, and you're not looking at much change from 300. Two dinners, without alcohol at about 30 each. Couple of lunches at 20 each. Other incidentals 'n' stuff and you're looking at about 500 bucks for a short weekend getaway. No wonder people are staying home.

Anyway. Aside from that. It's still a great town. Get a good coffee at Cambria Coffee. Great fudge from Erica at Cambria Fudge. Decent pasta at Lombardi's and great Thai at Wild Ginger. Not going to say where we stay, it's already hard enough to get a room there...

Around and about in town. Interesting bumper sticker. "George W. Bush is saving your ass, whether you like it or not". I still don't have a clue what that means.



We often get feathered visitors on our hotel balcony. Especially when tempted by health bar goodness. This is a fine looking Stellar's Jay.



Just down the coast, on the way to San Simeon, are beaches teeming with wildlife. One particularly beach has hundreds of snowy plovers. They sit on the beach in little depressions they make in the sand. Occasionally rising as one into the air to hang on the winds coming in from the sea.

Sitting atop a trash can in the turnout



All rise and take air



A turkey vulture comes to join the party







Further along the coast there are elephant seals. I first photographed them there about 8 years ago on one of my first trips along Highway 1. I remember pulling into a turnout late at night, in the dark, just to stop and look at the stars. I got out of the car and there was the most unearthly sounds coming from the darkness. I found out later, when I got to my hotel, that the noises were made by elephant seals. Back in those days they beached in a little cove near a turnout. Now, the Friends of the Elephant Seals have built a walkway and protection barriers for the seals. Saving the public from the occasional encounter and, of course, the seals from the marauding masses. It's hard to get anywhere near them anymore. These were all shot with the D3 attached to the William Optics Zenithstar II telescope with a camera adaptor.







Of course, one of the nice things about being down on the coast is that there is a lot less light pollution from towns. I took this shot with the D3 and a 24mm lens. Exposure wasn't too long at 15s at ISO 4000 and f/2.8. The dark lanes of the Milky Way and, toward the lower left, Jupiter, shining bright.



From the balcony of the hotel, I shot this with the D3 and an 85mm f/1.4. 5 seconds, wide open at ISO 1600. The long smudge, towards the upper left is our nearest galactic neighbour - The Andromeda Galaxy.



The next morning, as we were leaving, the moon rode high and dreamlike in the morning blue sky. Shot with the telescope.