In search of the seriously beautiful…
“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” ― Elliott Erwittby
Los Jilgueros isn’t a park – there’s a trail that you can walk, but you must not disturb the wildlife – and the wildlife is abundant! A stream runs through the 46-acre preserve, and there are areas where it spreads out into wetlands, and other areas that are more pond-like. It’s a great spot to bird-watch or just walk the mile-and-a-half path and enjoy the scenery.
These images were shot on March 21, 2008, for Fallbrook Sourcebook.
Every Friday morning, on the corner of Main and Alvarado, in the Village Square, the farmers in town take over! You can get locally grown produce and flowers AND locally grown and packaged products like honey and gourmet kumquat sauces.
In 2005 I shot the Fallbrook Farmers Market for Fallbrook.org, and then on March 21, 2008 I shot it again for Fallbrook Sourcebook. If you want to see my earlier images, go to http://www.fallbrook.org/tourism/farmers-markets.asp
We’re in the middle of a heat wave – and I love it! It feels like summer… So I went for a walk along Pico Promenade today, and shot all the flowers in bloom along Fallbrook Stream, in Fallbrook California.
This last image may be my favorite of the day – it’s my favorite fence in front of the old Packing Plant – again!
Exactly eleven days after the last post, this is what that same tree looks like. Just amazing. I really do prefer the first image – but I can’t get over the opulence of the second image. Spring is on a rampage!
And catch the orange California Poppies below – our state flower, and one of my all-time favorites!
One big benefit to all the rain we got in January and February, is the wildflowers in March! I was out in the desert today – out by Palm Springs – and everywhere you looked there were wildflowers in full bloom. It was a gorgeous day too – warm and sunny with a big beautiful blue sky.
For some reason I can’t really explain, I really like this tiny little house. Maybe it’s the colorful window coverings? Maybe it was the quiet? The only sounds were some chickens clucking in the distance. Maybe it was because it was smack in the middle of the best field of wildflowers I found? Yeah, that’s probably it.
When I got out of my car, a jackrabbit came crashing out of the brush only a few feet away from me. I love jackrabbits! They’re like mini kangaroos with massive hind legs and they soar when they jump. He wasn’t too afraid of me, he only went a couple of dozen feet away, and then sat and watched me as I worked. I kept expecting him to hop away, when I turned my back, but every time I looked over, he was still there, sitting totally erect, with one eye on me.
Can you find the jackrabbit? It’s tough. If you look at the two brown cactus in the center of the photo, he’s sitting right in front of the base of the cactus on the left, and he’s in profile.
I also saw a few healthy bees. Lately all I’ve seen have been dying bees, on the ground, walking in circles. It’s a real crisis, so I was happy to see some bees doing what bees are meant to do – hopping from flower to flower and helping to pollinate the world. We need the bee!
And I saw lots of wildflowers and cactus and brush – really pretty stuff!
I’ve been shooting the old Fruit Packing Plant in Fallbrook for years – I’ve blogged about it before.
The renovations are almost complete, and I wanted to get a shot of the building at this stage – that was my main goal today. But I also wanted to play with the plastic sheeting, and chain link fence on the west side of the building. The way the sheeting was looped and tucked, and the way it blew and shimmered in the breeze was compelling to me, and I knew I could get some fun images of it.
And my final goal today was to get a shot to submit to a Day in the Life project some friends were putting together – today is Leap Day, so what better day for a bunch of photographers all over the world to all submit one photo, and then create a slide show that takes the viewer all over the world, all on one day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. Fun!
So those are the documentary shots. Now onto the fun stuff!
And finally, this is the shot I submitted to the Day in the Life Project. It’s the lock on the front gate – and I love the way the light hits the fence, and the shadows on the sidewalk. It’s a very simple image – just a picture of a gate – but I love it!
So I took a little walk downtown on Main Street today, and did a little documenting…
Diva’s always has the best window displays. Right now they’re featuring dresses made out of tissue paper and these really pretty lamps. It’s very creative – and their windows always are – and they have a lot of windows! My grandparents used to own shoe stores and my Grandma did beautiful displays – it’s definitely an art form.
I love the way the street and the traffic lights are reflected in the window. And you can see through the window, back out to the other side of the street, as well as into the shop. It’s just a really interesting shot with lots of levels.
A view of another window, with yet another lamp and more reflections.
For years Fallbrook didn’t have a place to buy fabric, but it looks like we do again. These bolts of a plastic-y fabric for outdoor use, were sitting outside, and inside there were people happily shopping.
It’s not unusual to see a vintage car like this parked on the street. I think there are more classic cars in the area than anywhere else in California, and the owners like to show them off!
On Main Street some of the buildings are really old, and some are made to look that way, and it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference – which is a good thing.
I love this sign! The Mission Theatre runs a dance school across the street, so their students are often seen darting across. In this case, “Dancer Xing” is accurate.
The Mission Theatre was built in 1948, and the inside still has some great original details. They do mostly children’s theatre now, but in the past they did adult productions, and before that it was all movies.
As I’ve mentioned before, the building my studio is in, Elder House, was a school until only recently – and the traffic signs haven’t been removed yet.
I love to watch leaves fluttering in the breeze. I shot nearly thirty frames of these leaves as they blew wildly, and considered putting together an animation. Maybe…
And of course there are some pretty little plants along Main Street…
These trees are just now blooming – so pretty!
And my favorite shot of the day! Who knew some leaves and stems could be so yummy?
There’s a little one-room schoolhouse in De Luz – the only other existing one-room schoolhouse that I know of in this area, is in Anza, and it’s the school my great-grandma attended. She was born in 1904, lived to be 100-years-old, and rode a donkey five miles to get to school. But this post isn’t about her, it’s about the schoolhouse in De Luz – which is situated in the prettiest oak grove. It’s peaceful and quiet, the ground is fertile and rich, and the oak trees are the tallest I’ve ever seen. It’s paradise.
De Luz Elementary was built in 1927 and one teacher taught all eight grades. In 1968 the school was closed, and since then the building has been used as De Luz Ecology Center.
The tiny post office may look like someone’s idea of a little joke, but there really are mailboxes in the side of the building.
I’ve shot in the area many times, but today was different. It was a gray cloudy day, and the light was flat except for a few brief moments when the sun broke through. But flat, subdued light can be be quite beautiful if you have the right subject matter. So this time I didn’t shoot the big soaring trees, or try for majestic landscapes – instead I mostly went after the subtle details that usually get lost in stronger light. And I found some wickedly beautiful details…
Leaves on an oak tree.
Have you ever seen grass this pretty?
Where they’ve cut off a limb, the tree oozes sap.
These sheep are very lucky – they live in paradise, have plenty of room to roam, and look healthy and happy.
I was the only human in the area, so I thought they were all watching me, but shortly after I shot this image I saw some coyote footprints, and it occurred to me that this was the kind of day when wildlife is more active – and it’s the exact kind of day I’ve seen bobcats and mountain lions in the past, and here I was all by myself, with no other humans around, and I was concentrating on blades of grass and leaves? I’m usually smarter than that… So I decided to call it a day, and got back to my car, and then watched as a nice-looking healthy coyote trotted across the street. I am not afraid of one lone coyote, but a mountain lion is a different matter.
And finally I shot this image on the way out to De Luz. I shot the same tree in December on a pretty sunny day, and the difference today, just two months later was striking. Where the hill was brown before, today it was green. Where the sky was bright blue in December, today it was gray. Very, very different day, and very different image – but still a really beautiful and striking tree.
And the freshest little weed…
For more on the De Luz Schoolhouse, go to:
http://www.fallbrook.org/history/de-luz-school.asp
I’m planning to shoot some images of the exterior of my studio once I get my new signs, but I thought I could at least show Elder House today! You can see the stairs leading up to my front door, and the large deck, and the wonderful skylights that flood my main room with soft beautiful light. And in the image below you can see my little balcony, and the edge of the deck.
Elder House has an interesting history. According to an article that appeared in the Village News in 1998, it was built as the result of a competition between three local men in 1883. They each were to build a house for under $3000, and the one who built the best house would win. One of these three houses, described as a “beautiful, ornate home,” was built on Juniper Street, and later moved to West Elder. It didn’t win the contest, but it is the only one of the three still standing.
I’m not sure when this photo was taken, but it’s a fairly early shot – probably from before the house was moved to Elder Street. The staircase on the side of the building is long gone, and the house has been extended on both sides, at some point during the last 100 years. But the bay window downstairs and the tiny balcony upstairs look almost exactly the same today as they did when the home was new.
There are stories that one of Fallbrook’s first newspapers was located here. In the 1980’s it was a popular restaurant, then in the early 1990’s a construction company was located here, and in the late 1990’s it was first Fallbrook Country Day School and then The New School in the early 2000’s. And now it’s the home of Fallbrook’s Village News downstairs- and I’m very lucky to have the upstairs!
If you’d like to read more about The Building Contest in 1883, go to:
http://www.fallbrook.org/history/history_the_building_contest
Edited on 6/23/2011 to add…
Even though I no longer have my studio in Elder House, I’m still interested in it! And I found this old postcard featuring Elder House, circa 1970! Evidently it housed Grandma’s House Restaurant at the time – and it looked a little different 40 years ago. The spindles on the railing on the second story deck and balcony are much narrower – and more authentic for the time period. The wider style in place today is charming, but I like the 1970’s version! And it’s hard to tell for sure, but the window on the top story, on the far right, may be the original narrow Victoria-era window. At some point it was replaced by a wider window – which lets in more light – but isn’t quite as authentic to the period of the house. And the staircase on the far right, is clearly different – it seems to be oriented east/west, instead of the current south/north.
But perhaps the biggest change is that there was no porch area in 1970. There’s a tiny little landing, leading to the front door, with a tiny railing – a very simple entrance for such a big house. Today there’s a covered porch that’s still small by most standards, but definitely a lot grander than what was there in 1970!
Other than that? Not much different! Even the color isn’t too different. It looks blue in the photo – and it was gray when I first came to Fallbrook – and now it’s a nice warm tan – but still all in the same vein – a nice medium tone, set off by the bright white railing and black trim. It’s a good look!
Fallbrook has some authentic Victorian architecture – the town was founded in 1885. My studio is in a home constructed about that time and there are other houses around town from the same era. And there are even more buildings with Victorian flourishes that were added later – it was the thing to do in Fallbrook during the 100-year anniversery, in the 1980’s!
But the First Christian Church is the real deal. Originally built as a Methodist church, it was constructed in 1887, and is considered Gothic-revival in style.
In 2004 I shot it for Fallbrook.org, and I shot it again yesterday – the bright blue skies and white clouds were the perfect compliment, I felt, to it’s pretty little steeple and fish scale siding and restrained use of stained glass. And I suspect I’ll shoot it again in the future.
The world could use a few more little white churches with soaring steeples.
For my 2004 Fallbrook.org photos, go here: http://www.fallbrook.org/about/about_architecture
Edited on 5/30/2011 to add the following…
I heard from the granddaughter of the Methodist preacher who originally built the church, and she shared the some more information about the church and her grandfather. His name was George Washington White, and he also helped found the town of Fallbrook, before being named the president of the University of Southern California, from 1895-1899. If you’ve ever seen USC it has the most beautiful vintage brick buildings – it’s the quintessential college campus – and in fact hundreds of TV shows have filmed on campus. So it doesn’t surprize me one bit to learn that the president of the university, during the same time period that many of those buildings were constructed, is the same man who helped give Fallbrook it’s most beautiful little church. Makes perfect sense!