Aesthetics

I’m sure my vast readership is starting to wonder: “Ah, now eventually you do plan to have travels in your, in your travel blog, right? Hello? Hello? Yes?” Well, rest assured, travels are a’coming. And before the big journey, I’m sure there will be a shorter journey or two to document. But for now, you’re stuck reading about my incessant planning and/or slightly neurotic insights into my personal life. Lucky you!

So I decided to move on from the lonely, celebration-less birthday that I discussed yesterday, and, after I finished yardwork and work-work today, I took the Sony a6000 out to practice my hand at photography, a hobby I really haven’t focused on since my college days. Does it suck being this alone on my birthday weekend? Yes, but I’m not going to let it take away from me enjoying my life.

I decided to first take the camera up to this place:

I guess you can describe this as Red Bluff’s “makeout point.” It’s tucked away up on a hill behind Surrey Village, and it’s where teenagers go to…well…you know. You should be glad I only shot landscape photos looking outward. Looking down was a terrible wasteland of energy drink cans, used condoms, and abandoned panties. I only know about the place because…well, I was once a teenager. Anyways, it tends to be tame and deserted during the day. I was able to get a few decent shots here. The latter one is slightly filtered to better blend the color of the sky with the color of the landscape:

So as you can see, I’m kind of a (out of practice) traditionalist when it comes to photography aesthetics. I do my best to partition things into thirds, enjoy playing with lighting, and keep cropping and editing to a minimum. Other than that, I rely pretty heavily on the camera and the natural beauty of the subject matter to do their jobs.

I only stayed at “makeout point” for a few minutes, mostly because it’s kind of a weird, creepy place to be…and it feels like an even weirder, creepier place to be now that I’m nearing 30. :-p From “makeout point,” I went to this bridge located halfway between Surrey Village and Adobe Road. Back during my cross country days, my team used to start at that bridge and then run repeats up this big, giant hill named Bob. These days, I only cross over the bridge as a sort of halfway point on my Surrey Village runs. I find it kind of a serene place, and always wanted to take some photos of the area. Again, the final photo is edited just to give a sense of how a filter and adjustment of specs can make a picture pop:

Dry Creekbed That the Bridge Crosses Over

The Grassy Meadow Just West of the Bridge

The Bridge Looking Towards Bob in the Distance

While I was taking photos near the bridge, I noticed two guys dressed in camo driving a Gator up the dry creek bed towards me. They looked about as redneck as humanly possible, and they were carrying a shotgun on board. I wasn’t really sure what they wanted with me (I was standing on a public roadway), but then again I really wasn’t in the mood to argue with some shotgun wielding rednecks, so I headed back to the Tiguan (aka Sexy Beast) to get out of there before they caught up with me. As I approached my car, I noticed a sign right next to where I had parked. It said that the property owners monitored their property with surveillance equipment and with “manned patrol.” Sure enough, right next to the sign was a small solar panel outfitted with a camera on it. The camera was pointing directly at my vehicle. At that point I was in even less of a mood to argue with these crazies, and luckily was able to get out of there before they were able to get within speaking distance of me. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before in that area, and I’m curious whether that’s going to be the new normal as I run near the bridge. As I made my way out of the Ide Adobe/Surrey Village area, I stopped at another bridge and took a few more photos looking north:

This is What a Severe Drought Looks Like

Finally, the sun was starting to go down, and I decided to finish my photo session near the track at my old high school. By then, I was starting to tap back into my artistic side from college, and the photos definitely started taking on a more dramatic aesthetic:

So that’s about it for my short adventure for the day. Hopefully after a few more outings, I start to get comfortable with my camera, so that I can take some really epic shots of the already epic Canadian Rockies. Oh, because I know my buddy Anton just misses my Tiguan so much, here are a few pictures of the Sexy Beast: