On our little ‘Central-Coast’ California trip to find a Wedding B+B, we stopped over in Carmel and looked at a few places that we could stay in August. In the past I’ve only been to the Point Lobos area of Carmel, so it was nice to see more of the town [though it’s not exactly reflected in the images below]. On the day we we arrived there were some amazingly huge waves, this man was out on the rocks and I was pretty sure he was going to get washed out at any second. He seemed pretty content listening to his iPod while counting the seconds till the tide came in more…
About: Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
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Carmel-by-the-Sea, usually called simply Carmel, is a small town endowed with a rich artistic history situated on the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey County, California. In 1906, the San Francisco Call devoted a full page to the “artists, poets and writers of Carmel-by-the-Sea” and in 1910 it reported that 60 percent of Carmel’s houses were built by citizens who were “devoting their lives to work connected to the aesthetic arts.”
One of my favorite places is up in Central California by Monterey and is a small little park on the ocean called Point Lobos. I’ve visited Point Lobos probably a good 7-8 times since I’ve moved out to California and every time it’s always a great treat- especially at sunset.
Point Lobos State Reserve
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Point Lobos State Reserve commonly referred to as simply Point Lobos is a sea side state reserve south of Monterey, California, north of Big Sur. The very precipitous drop in the ocean floor off Point Lobos (reaching levels characteristic of the mid Pacific within a few kilometres of shore) gives rise to strange tidal effects, with unusual levels of oxygen being injected into the ocean water. This in turn has attracted an unusual collection of plant and animal life, ranging from high plankton concentrations, moving up the food chain to large mammals.
Somehow the Salton Sea has put itself on my list of places to visit at least once every year, and every time I come by I think I take better pictures as well as appreciate it’s uniqueness more. I even broke down and bought the ‘Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea‘ documentary that I’ve always been wanting last week. It’s a seriously cool place, and if you’re anywhere near the SoCal area you really need to go check it out. Here are a few great areas to see when you go down there.
Bombay Beach
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Bombay Beach is located on the east shore of the Salton Sea and, like many communities along its shores, has had to contend with rising and falling water levels. A berm now protects the west end of the town but a portion of the town beyond the berm is either sunken under water or is half-buried in mud.
One of the more random places we stayed in Ireland was in Malin Beg. It is a small quaint little area up in picturesque Donegal Ireland. Also in the general area are the ‘Largest Sea Cliffs’ in Europe, the Slieve League.
Last week I had another great headshot session and this time it was with Kelsie Harris, a young actress. It was a great cloudy day and she was obviously talented so it made my work significantly easier. Here are a few I liked:
Sessions are still only $250 in the Los Angeles area, so if you’re in need of some great portraits feel free to contact us and we can answer any questions or set up an appointment!
Awhile back my good friends Laura and Dan offered to come up to Carmel and be the videographers for our wedding! So, with August 1st slowly approaching I figured it would probably be smart to start thinking about all of this. With a little research I decided the amazing Super 8 had to be our format of choice- basically this is old school 60’s film that your parents as kids was shot on.
Shooting on Super 8 is kind of a pain in the butt though, or so I’m learning. For instance, you have to get a camera. This seems simple enough, but when you realize all the cameras you’re getting are from the 60’s and 70’s, the amount of potential issues you can have with them is pretty daunting. Also many of them use these little 1.35 volt mercury batteries for their light-meters. Mercury batteries no longer exist as they’re bad for the environment, so you have to get like these similar hearing-aid batteries, but the voltage is a touch off. Then comes the film itself. The film is a little pricey at around $15 a pop, and each ‘roll’ only holds about 2.5 minutes. Then once you’re done, you have to get it developed at around $13 a roll, and from there you have to have it telecined, which essentially means having it color-corrected and placed on a mini-dv tape. That costs like .30 a foot [there is 50 feet in a roll]. Phew, it’s going to be insane. With that said, today I bought my Super 8 Camera! Its a beautiful Nizo S56, a really nice quality camera made in Germany.
Alamy never ceases to amaze me. Today I was checking my stats and it turns out I had sold a Royalty-Free stock photo copy of the photo above. Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, it is a giant pig and he is peeing. Someone paid $220 for the rights to use it. Seriously. What bugs me is people always pay lots of money for my random photos and never my good ones. Aye…
My little Ian Grant Photography thing is now magically on Facebook. It’s honestly not really that exciting, but you should add it to your Facebook friends!
It looks like things are slowly coming together for Tanya and my wedding! This past weekend we drove up to the Monterey area in search of a nice B+B for our small little wedding. We lucked out and really fell in love with the first place we saw, called the Centrella Bed and Breakfast which is in Pacific Grove. Their website really doesnt do it justice, but it is an old Victorian mansion of sorts with these little mini cottages surrounding it with gorgeous garden courtyard in the middle. Its also 2 or so blocks from the ocean, so we can go for a nice dip in the water this August! Everything we need is also right in the general walking area as the resterant I think we’re using, Fandango is right around the corner. I’m pretty psyched! More fun to come!
Well if I forgot to mention it, I’m magically getting married this year [August to be precise]. So with that, we’re heading up to the Monterey area this weekend to find a place where the family can stay. It’s going to be a super low-key wedding compared to ones that I’ve shot, but nevertheless we’re going to go see about 5 B+B’s in Pacific Grove and Carmel-by-the-Sea. Since Tanya’s mom is out here to visit and help out we’re going to show her Point Lobos where we’re going to have a our quickie ceremony. We’ve done more traveling these past two months than in awhile, it’s been great! I also finished editing my Ireland photos! Now I can go get caught up with more important things!
Hey everyone, Sorry I haven’t been posting a whole lot of actual text content lately- Here’s what’s been going on.
- Been having tons of wedding photo meetings, booked some really great venues. People seem to be hiring me for really scenic locations so that is awesome for me.
- Sold a Salton Sea photo twice today to the same company via Alamy. It looks like its going in some college textbook and they bought both a two-page spread as well as a 1/8 page size. REALLY COOL!
- Been editing Ireland photos as lightspeed pace. They are far better than expected which makes me really happy. I’m trashing off many of the old 2005 ones on iTravelStockPhoto.com which also makes me happy.
- This weekend we are traveling to Torrey Pines down by San Diego to do a little shooting.
- Over break I managed to get Tanya and I bumped off our flight home from Philly so now we both have $300 travel vouchers on American. I’m thinking I’m going to travel to Denver in April/May for a long weekend. If I had more time off I found a flight to Alaska for like $450 in July…god it’s so tempting.
- I figured I needed to do something with my domain iTravelogue.com, so I’m making it a photoblog. I found a great new wordpress theme for it, and have been posting up Ireland photos as a test. Check it out!
- I bought a Pantone Huey Pro monitor profiler and am really impressed with it so far. Looks like my Apple Cinema Display had a strange green hue to it, now I just have to get used to the monitor colors again.
On the second day on the Dingle Peninsula small rain storms were passing over the area which made for some gorgeous clouds and lighting. Here is the second set of the Dingle Peninsula.
Some More on the Dingle Peninsula via Wikipedia.org:
The Dingle Peninsula is the smaller and northernmost of the two peninsulas that make up County Kerry, in Southwest Ireland. The landscape is wild and beautiful from the eastern spine of the peninsula in the steep Slieve Mish (mountain of phantoms) to the western end where the land breaks into a scattering of uninhabited and dramatic islands and cliffs and beaches alternate around the coast. Dingle town (An Daingean) is small enough to walk and big enough to be lively.
Once described by the National Geographic Traveler as “the most beautiful place on earth�, the Dingle Peninsula is a place of intense allure, with a plethora of green landscapes, rocky hills, long sandy beaches and staggering cliff edges. The warm Gulf Stream reaches the peninsula, giving has a wonderful mixture of sometimes rare and unusual flora and fauna.
See the rest of the Dingle Peninsula Series. The second day’s images are at the end.
