Karen and I did not have tickets. We stayed with Karen’s sister in Virginia and getting from there to DC on the inauguration day was an ordeal (long story). So we got there a little bit late. Rather than fight to the back of the National Mall we went straight to the Lincoln Memorial (I love that place). We were not alone, as it was packed with others who, like us, were mindful of the symbolism of experiencing the inauguration of our nation’s first African American president at the feet of Abraham Lincoln’s memorial and in the exact spot of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.

I have uploaded an inauguration slideshow to the homepage. I hope you enjoy. Just for grins, here are a few pics of Karen and I soaking it all in, but please do check out the slideshow. You can click on seanfitzgerald.com link to see the slideshow with the largest images, if you missed it when you came to the site. Eventually I will take that homepage slideshow down, and then you can find the inauguration slideshow in the Portfolios section and the Collections section.

Ysabel de la Rosa: Poetry, Prose and Uncommon Commentary.

Now you really need overcast weather to shoot things like this. And it was very nicely overcast until the moment we began the hike, at which point I began cussing to Karen like a Greek sailor. No, not sunshine! Dangit. So after the 1/2 mile hike down to the falls, I battled with harsh light for all but a few minutes of clouds.

We repeated the tour at 2pm, so I could get another chance at some clouds. Again, we had mostly sunshine. I made Karen carry my big 500mm lens so that I could use it if I had to. At the end of the tour time, the clouds managed to build up for a few minutes and I frantically photographed away. Nonetheless, it was very cool, and I did manage to get a few good shots. Well worth the trip.

I never did use the 500mm lens, and Karen is still giving me grief over making her carry it. She’s used to it though, my nickname for her on trips is “PackMule Lady.”

The Salton Sea is a strange place. It was created in the early 1900s as farmers began diverting water from the Colorado River to irrigate farms in Southern California. Some kind of freak flood by the Colorado River then coursed through the canals and flooded the basin, creating the Salton Sea. It was a boom area in the 1950s and 1960s. drawing some development, quite a few tourists, and a lot of eccentric characters. But it was short lived. Floods and drought, increasing salinization, fish-killing algae blooms, and general funky smell apparently turned off the tourists and developers. But not birds, they love the scene and have flocked to the Sea in droves, especially white pelicans.

So today the Salton Sea exists as a strange lake in the middle of the California desert, filled with a surreal mix of interesting people, odd scenes, great wildlife, and the decaying remains of houses, trailers, mobile homes and miscellaneous abandoned dreams. My kind of place.

In the morning, I photographed in a little town called Bombay Beach, where a number of abandoned mobile homes are now buried in the sand and rusting into oblivion. I also came across an old outhouse that was kind of interesting. Then I went to a place called Salvation Mountain, near Niland, where a 75 year old man named Leonard Knight has made it his life’s passion to cover a dirt and clay hillside with countless layers of paint celebrating Jesus. He is a really sweet man and the place is amazing. I think he said that he has used over 100,000 gallons of paint so far. The hillside is basically encased in layer after layer of paint.

In the afternoon, I stumbled across an abandoned mobile home on shores of the Lake where I found an abandoned boat, adding machine, lawnmower and orange chair sitting in the driveway. Very strange. The home had burned at some point. As I peered in, I saw a charred book whipping in the wind. I moved it onto some broken glass and photographed the book, a dictionary, so that one page was still and the remaining pages were flipping in the wind. The still page has as its title the word “Unexplainable.”

At the end of the evening, I found a pier with a beautiful view of the sunset light setting on the lake, framing white pelicans and stilts in the shallow water. I got a handful of nice shots, though I cursed myself for not bringing my largest lens. Oh well, gotta make due with what I got. My favorite image is actually a combination of 4 separate images, with pink light and soft, gently floating pelicans. The image size will be 90“ by 17” once I print it. I think it will look great.

Unfortunately, it was rainy and miserable for much of the morning. As a result, all of the vendors in the square had their goods covered with blue or white tarps to shield away the rain. Good for them, not so good for me. Even if it wasn’t raining, climbing the church would have been useless. Not a big market for tarp photos.

Fortunately there was a great bandshell in the middle of the plaza, and I went up there. Using my longest lens (at 600mm) I was able to isolate a number of nice images from between the tarps, as well as stay dry. Later in the morning, the weather cleared up a bit, and I hiked through the market to an adjoining animal market set in a big open field. Walking around with a big camera is kind of obvious, but I like to use that to my advantage. I would set up the tripod at about 3 or 4 feet tall so that kids could look through. Not only kids, but old men and women stood in line to look through the camera. After the novelty wears off, everyone ignores me and I can shoot away. It was very nice, and I got some images I really like.