Laguna Beach

This sunset photo is from Victoria Beach. Sunsets and beach photos work well with a 2.35 crop like this. It really seems to feature the horizon well. This is an…

This is an HDR photo of two seagulls relaxing in a sea of mussels during sunset. It was a very low tie, so the mussels were all exposed. I'm sure the seagulls were looking for an easy meal with all the other animals that were exposed. I'm on a 16mm shot in this photo, and I was surprised at how close these birds were letting me get to them. I'm a lot closer than it appears here. I guess the birds on California's coasts are more helpful to people.

This Photo is of the Victoria Beach Tower, which is actually a 60-foot spiral staircase built with reinforced concrete that leads up to a house on the top of the cliff. This was built in 1926 as part of California Senator William Edward Brown and his wife's summer vacation home so they could escape the heat of Beverly Hills. It must be nice. I guess 85 degrees in the summer was too much for them to handle back then. The look of this tower comes from old French Chateaux and Castles. Many people returning from the First World War were inspired by these structures and attempted to mimic them.