California Bound!
I am Carol M. Highsmith and this is my very first blog post. Wow! I've wanted to write this for a very long time and now I am actually going to put myself out there. I am going to write a blog every month and tell you what I am up to and why. Thanks for coming to my web site, www.CarolHighsmithAmerica.com. I look forward to communicating with you and hearing your comments about my photography and travels.
I have been in the photography business for quite some time. I started in the 1980s as an architectural photographer. At that time there were very few "architectural" photographers in the business. I decided to follow in the footsteps of a female architectural photographer who worked as an architectural and portrait photographer more than 100 years ago. Her name was Frances Benjamin Johnston. If you look at my website you can see My Inspiration section that tells about her influence on me.
Frances Benjamin Johnston gave her collection of images copyright-free to the Library of Congress and they became the cornerstone of the Prints and Photographs Division's historic collection. I decided to follow Johnston almost 30 years ago and I plan to give my collection copyright-free to the Library of Congress also. So I travel America all year and capture everything I see!
I traveled 30,000 miles across America this year.
My last trip took me all over California. What a state! I went to Sacramento first where I had an assignment in one of the new Courthouses to "showcase" art for General Services Administration. The art was wonderful.
While I was there I visited Old Sacramento - just minutes away from the courthouse and took a couple of photographs.
And look at this colorful
Tower Bridge
After I finished my assignment, I decided to stay in California for awhile and go down to the San Diego area and visit the missions, zoo, beaches and soak up the California sun.
I bypassed San Francisco and LA because I have been to both so many times, so my first stop was the most famous Mission - San Juan Capistrano - They call it the Jewel of the California Missions.
The staff at this historic mission let me roam free and take any images I wanted. I went straight to the chapel and concentrated on statue details in the Serra Chapel.
I then hustled on down to sunny, warm, inviting, historic, beautiful San Diego. My camera never stopped snapping.
I went to the zoo and found the Panda fast asleep
I visited beaches and most importantly La Jolla Cove - What a thrilling experience. The waves were coming in strong and the sky was brilliant blue
It took all I had to leave that beach and keep on heading south. It was a glorious day.
Imperial Beach is so far south - it is almost in Mexico
And the oldest mission in California is San Diego de Alcalá - another heavenly experience in photography - sun behind me, lemon light, no one in my way. Amazing!
Finally, I made it to San Diego - It had many more tall buildings since I was last here 15 years ago. I found just the spot to "show it off" and then waited for a sail boat to glide across.
I miss the San Diego area. I was all by myself and just rolled around and photographed anything I wanted. It was a memorable few days of utter enjoyment and fascination. What a place!
So I left San Diego in my rear view mirror, I had some work to do before I left the vast state. I have been working on Route 66 for years and had never been able to visit it in California. This time I was going to go North and pick up the historic Mother Road and my first visit was the Wigwam Motel in Rialto. Look at this beauty.
One of my favorite photography experiences is to shoot in black and white Infrared. It is so fun. You can take anything and make it look unusual. Add a Wigwam and palm trees and you have a whole new way of looking at scenes. It makes it look like I took this image sometime in the 40s when it was built instead of just a few weeks ago.
So all good things do have to come to an end. I must admit, this was difficult. What a dream to just get up in the morning to absolute perfect weather and plan my day according to my every little whim. From missions to pandas to the beauty of the beach - I did it all. Then to end the trip on the Mother Road in California was frosting on the cake.
Please join me next month and I'll show you more road trips of my journey across America.
