Golf And Photography

One of the things I have thought about doing is travelling, playing golf and photographing all the golf courses I play at. Of course there are a couple of flaws to this pursuit. One is that to play the really nice courses you either have to know someone who's a member there or be a member yourself. This leads to flaw number two, money! The best golf courses cost a lot of money to play at. That is unless you get lucky like me and win a round of golf for two at one of these private courses. I was fortunate to win just that for a round of golf at Vellano. It's private, it's expensive, it's tough and it's spectacular. It was fun though.

Oh one other thing, I promise I will not just be posting golf course photos on here. I will find other subjects. Anyway this is the view from one of the easier tee boxes at Vellano.

I Must Apologize

I must apologize for my lack of photograph posting recently. It's been mainly because of my golf taking more of my time to get better at it and having found a new friend and golf buddy, that helps a lot with playing better golf. Thanks Mary. :-)

This was a photograph that I took at a private country club in Chino Hills, called Vellano. This has to be the most difficult golf course I have EVER played but, it was a pretty amazing experience and a lot of fun to play. The weather was beautiful and the course itself was spectacular. Would I play it again if I had the chance, yeah sure, just once.   

Thanks again everyone for being patient with me, I appreciate you viewing my pics.

Golf Lessons

So I thought I should post something on here to tell you why you haven't seen too many photographs from me lately. My excuse is my other passion....golf. About four months ago my golf got really bad, I mean BAD!! So at the time photography became a great outlet and saved me a lot of frustration. Then finally I decided I was tired of playing bad golf and wanted to play better golf, so I decided it was time for help. I signed up for some classes with a great instructor, called Mary at my home golf course at Moreno Valley. Well I can safely say that Mary has managed to reignite my passion for the game and my scores are reflecting that. Of course that also means that I've been spending more time at the golf course and less out and about photographing, well except for this past Saturday. I promise I will get to post more photographs, more often, I just need to practice more of what I'm learning. Oh and by the way, if you ever need a great golf instructor give Mary a call.

Summer Lake

This is where I used to live, well not here in this photograph, or by the lake come to think of it, but about 3 miles away. This is one of the many small bays that make up Big Bear Lake, which is at an altitude of about 6,700 feet. It's a beautiful place all year round as you may have seen from some of my winter photographs of it. Well this is Big Bear in the summer. The lake becomes a place to fish, boat, water ski and ride water craft. I had some fun times on the lake doing those exact things. We used to take the boat out and ride on a tube behind the boat. Got good and wet a few times but it was fun. 

Radio Site "Line"

Here's a photograph of one of our new radio sites being constructed down near the Salton Sea. The Salton Sea is a fascinating and sometimes smelly place to see. It's 35 miles long and 15 miles wide and is as the name suggests a salt water lake. Our radio site is located on the east shore of the sea and in the photograph you can sea the west shore across the water. The tower at the radio site is going to be one of our tallest at 330 feet high and as you can see in the photograph two lucky guys get to climb it and bolt it together. They are roughly at the 180 feet mark, so they still have a way to go until it's finished.

A Pencil Drawing

It's amazing what software can do for you. I have never been able to draw or paint and to be honest I don't regard myself as an artist, but software can help me draw. The photograph above was a relatively boring photograph until I ran it through some software that turns it into a pencil drawing. Now I think it's kind of interesting.

THis is San Clemente Pier, taken during the June gloom Saturday evening. 

Under The Boardwalk

Here is another photograph from my trip to San Clemente on Saturday evening. What a miserable June Gloom day it was, It REALLY was. So I had to improvise a little and find other view points. Actually my camera and myself nearly took a bath getting this one when a larger wave than I was expecting rolled in.

June Gloom

I've been trying to get down to the beach to photograph the sunset over the Pacific Ocean for a while now. Unfortunately events at home have made that a tough thing to do, until this weekend. I played my obligatory (this obligation is to myself) 18 holes of golf with the Mens Club I belong to. I didn't play too well either. I wasn't practicing my relax and follow through technique as my instructor calls it, which definitely improves my ball striking as well as other things. Anyway I got home from the golf and headed to San Clemente Pier for my photo op. I left Riverside with clear blue skys and temperatures in the mid 90's. As I passed into south Orange County the skies started to turn grey. I thought to myself "Oh no June Gloom is going to get me!" June Gloom, for you non Southern Californian's is a phenomenon that results in overcast skies and cold temperatures during late spring and early summer. In fact and I did not know this until looking it up, June is the cloudiest month of the year in San Diego. Anyway, sure enough I arrive at San Clemente to discover no sun to photograph as it sets and just a nice flat grey sky, but hey I was there and had to make the best of it. So make the best of it I did by finding interesting subjects and avoiding the sky as much as possible. This photograph was taken on the pier looking south along the beach long after the sun had gone down. 

I Still Love Trains

I Still Love Trains, like you didn't know that already huh? I miss the life and the people I had the pleasure of working with. Over the last weekend I was lucky enough to get reconnected with someone I last saw and worked with 20 years ago. Thanks to the joys of Facebook, Petar (whom I worked with when we were both Train Drivers Assistants) contacted me. He also got a driver that he still works with to send a link to his photo collection of the driver, old and new from Euston Station Depot. I spent hours on Monday afternoon going through the photographs and remembering the people I worked with. It brought back some great memories for me and I truly appreciated it. 

The photograph above was taken down by the Sultan Sea here in Riverside County. This was a train that probably originated at the docks in Los Angeles and is heading to the midwest or east coast. It actually went past me a lot quicker than I was expecting and I thought I'd missed it. Then I checked the display on my camera and I'd framed it perfectly, lucky but perfectly. So this one I dedicate to all the great people I had the pleasure of working with on the railway back in England. They were some good years and it was the people that made them that way.

Who Wants a Date?

For the Brits that read this site I have a question. Have you ever wondered where dates (small sticky fruit that comes in an oval shaped box) come from? If you have, well here is the answer. These trees are date palms and are located in the Coachella Valley in Riverside County. Dates are such a big crop for this area that every year the County holds a Date Festival in the nearby city of Indio. The date palms you see in this photograph were located next to Highway 111 between Mecca and Indio. I was driving past and thought it would make a good photograph, so I turned around and went back to get this one.