Salk Institute

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I was in a photo editing mood so I went back to earlier this year and found some images from San Diego, California that I’ve never looked at. Somehow I ended up editing all sunset images. I suppose sunsets are a bit better on the west coast than sunrises. LOL

This image was taken during a visit to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. It’s definitely on my must-photograph list when visiting America’s Finest City. Trust me, the place is mind-blowing and on this trip to Salk, I planned to be there to watch the sunset. I did not expect to see some gliders riding by. It was so cool because I did not realize just how close Torrey Pines Gliderport is. I kinda saw them out of the corner of my eye (cuz there was more than one glider out at this time) and then when I finally turned around to see what was really going on, I was mesmerized.

How cool would it be to be on one of those at sunset? I bet the view must be amazing. Perfect for a little GoPro video.

I love how simple this image turned out. I think my favorite part is that you can see a little peek of the sun as it’s going down behind the clouds but I purposely left a little bit of the ground showing in the image just to give it some context. Also, that may or may not be a ship in the background.

My camera settings for this image is F5 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

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Being from the east coast, I love our annual getaways to the west. Sort of like how birds migrate to the south for winter, I like to migrate the west and soak up the California sun and surf. Plus any excuse for a fresh acai bowl, amirite?

To be honest though, San Diego is one of my favorite places to be. I love the vibe of the city, everyone is super friendly and there’s no shortage of things to do. You have the beach life but also a fun downtown area if the city is more of your scene. It’s all of that plus a super dog friendly city. Frankie loves taking his morning walks on the beach, you basically have to drag him off the sand.

This was our second year in a row visiting around the start of the new year, but I have visited many times in the past too. This will definietly not be our last time visiting so keep checking back as I update this guide.

So if you’re heading to San Diego, here are the best places to take pictures:

The Beaches

This past trip we stayed at this beautiful airbnb right at the tip of Mission Beach. It was the perfect place for us because we were able to enjoy the beach in a less crowded environment but still have views of the water.  (If you’ve never stayed at an airbnb, I highly recommend it. Especially if you’re going somewhere for an extended stay. It’s all the comforts of home while you travel.) Morning runs were peaceful on the boardwalk and Mission Bay was right behind us which made it fun to fly the drone for a satisfying perspective of land and water. But if we wanted to check out some of cool restaurants on Pacific Beach, we were just a 15 minute scooter ride away.

One of my favorite parts about Pacific Beach was standing at the end of Crystal Pier. The pier allowed for unique, overhead shots of the wave riders and definietly provided a lot of great photo opportunities. And you can usually find the bubble man around sunset. I love watching the huge bubbles fly in the air and can’t resist trying to pop some if they float in my direction. The kids love them too!

(left) view from Crystal Pier (right) bubble from the bubble man framing a palm tree

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THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 

It’s the last day of 2018 and I thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and relive some of my favorite travel moments from the year. It’s interesting because I do something similar to this every year and every year my favorite images are almost always different from others. I try not to let emotions play into the selection but it can be difficult. You’ll see what I mean 🙂

I had a fantastic year of travel and so blessed to be able to experience everything that I did. I’m lucky enough to have visited the Europe, Caribbean and of course different parts of America. So let me know what you think. Click on each image to read the original blog post:

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One of my very first drone images from San Diego. Taken around this time last year, I loved being in Southern California in the winter time. I got my drone at the end of 2017 so I was just practicing flying when I took this image. I really didn’t think much of it until I saw that bird fly below close to the water. With the placement of where I’m sitting and that bird, I love how everything lines up. Definitely expect more drone images from me in 2019. I’m hooked!

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So you know now what I did Saturday morning. I was having fun walking around the National Mall in dense fog here and here.

But Saturday night was a different story. I was at home bored with nothing to do. LOL. So I thought I’d go through some of my San Diego images again. I don’t know if any of you other photographers out there feel like this but sometimes I just need to sit on some photos before I can edit them again. At times Ill get really excited and want to edit them all right away, but most of the time I know that doing it immediately won’t bring the best result. Sometimes I have to really envision what I want the end result to look like before anything good can come out of it. So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing with my SoCal images. Believe me, I took plenty of pics while I was there. But I felt like I had to sit and think about them for a while.

And Saturday night was the time I figured would be best to go through the images I took at the Salk Institute. It was one of my favorite places to visit while we were in San Diego. The architecture was mind blowing. I know I don’t usually do this but here are multiple angles from this place. LOL I told you I was bored. I had plenty of time on my hands to edit all of these images.

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View of Salk when you first enter. My jaw dropped.

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Salk Institute Architecture, salk institute, biological studies, la jolla, san diego, california, architecture, researchers, torrey pines rd,

This is what Andrew typically does when we’re out taking pictures. Most likely he was looking up places for us to go eat after I was done.

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Man on a phone. I think I creeped him out by taking his picture so he turned around. LOL.

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If I had to pick a place to live in San Diego, it would definietly be La Jolla. Not just because there are big, beautiful homes there but I just love the vibe of it. Everyone seems so peaceful and relaxed. It was a nice change of pace to just walk around the town and not have to worry about anything. I felt like I was smiling at every street corner. PLUS the seals and sea lions like to hangout on the beaches. But where I found most of my favorite photo places in San Diego.

Take this place for example, Salk Institute. I found out about it from this blog and I’m so grateful to have been able to visit. It is so aesthetically pleasing! Seriously when I walked for the first time I just stood there for a minute in awe of it all. The architecture, the lines, the space was all just amazingly beautiful. You know you love a space when you literally spend 30 minutes just photographing a staircase. LOL. Not even joking.

However, this image is not of the staircase. It’s just a portion of a hallway. Sooo cool, right? At the end of the hallway you would be able to see a full on orange tree if Andrew wasn’t walking by. So Cal, man you are amazing. Next time I visit and have more time, I’d love to attend the architectural tour at the Salk Institute. I’m sure theres so much more to see on this campus! I’m not sure how anyone could get any work done here. If I worked here, I’d be standing by the pool watching the clouds float by everyday.

The camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.