Wildlife Learning Center

Hard off the 210 freeway in Sylmar lies a small gem of an animal refuge called the Wildlife Learning Center. During their 2014 fund raising efforts, my lovely sister purchased for me, at a silent auction, a special one-on-one photographic tour there. It was a delightful gift; I had never heard of the place so I'm glad my sister was hip to it. If you live in the vicinity of Los angeles, you really should take the time to visit.

The WLC isn't a zoo or a curated collection of animals, it's a rescue center, so their assortment of creatures is a bit serendipitous... the animals here have literally been rescued from grim circumstances and given refuge. So alongside a fascinating two-toed sloth and a group of adorable fennec foxes, you'll find a moist little alligator and a couple of striking bald eagles.

I've processed a few images from the visit and put them below, but these are not all the animals you'll find there. There are probably a couple dozen other interesting species which you'll get a chance to visit with up close.

Our time at WLC was made comfortable and engaging by friendly and knowledgeable staff who bent over backwards to make sure we learned lot, got good pictures, and had a great time. Truly, if you like animals, you should visit. Since The Wildlife Learning Center is a non-profit with enormous expenses (I heard somewhere it costs $1,000 a day to keep these animals safe and fed), they provide a lot of opportunities to help them out with donations. Amazon Smile is one way (I added WLC as my Amazon Smile selection), and special events and private tours like the one I got are another.

If you have any questions, I've linked to their website above; check them out! Or feel free to drop me a line in the comments section or e-mail me eric@mojavemorning.com

On to the pictures!

A bald eagle. I resisted the temptation to add blue to the red and white.

Zeus is a blind screech owl. From the WLC website: "Specifically, Zeus was diagnosed with conjunctivitis, corneal degeneration, endotheliopathy, anterior uveitis, most likely caused by a traumatic event like flying into something or being attacked by a predator." Less specifically, it looks like his eyes are filled with stars.

Did you know screech owls are cute as buttons? Not so cute to field mice, I'm sure. The speckles in his eyes are not reflections of something outside, this is how his eyes appear, and part of the symptoms of his blindness.

Lola hanging around. She was actually pretty active for a sloth. I had to keep the aperture all the way open to completely freeze action in the dark open shade where we visited together.

My approach when photographing captive wild animals is usually to isolate the animal as completely as possible from the environment. The context is not the interesting part of the scene unless the story being told is about the captivity itself. Plus, I keep all my photos as simple as possible anyway. Complicated pictures don't grab.

A fennec fox. Normally adorable, I caught him in a tense moment.

A heart-melting porcupine.

Arctic fox. Rescued from a fur farm.

Nom nom nom

Coming/Arrived/Leaving

Donkey Dominance

We paid a visit to our favorite local wild burro herd this weekend. One of them was a little ornery. He chased the other guy all over the field, biting and kicking him. 

These guys live in the mountains south of Redlands, California. These are a lot of them here--several dozen at least and probably many more-- in a few different roaming herds. No one knows how they got here, but they have been living wild in these mountains for generations. One common story claims they are related to the wild asses that live in the Panamints in Death Valley. They are a charming and entertaining local phenomenon; I hope development and progress doesn't make them vanish anytime soon.

Back to the Botanic

Vernal things are everywhere!

Tarantula Hawk

Chamomile

Sage

European Honeybee

Wild rabbit

Tarantula Hawk

Bye now!

Renaissance Faire

I attended my first Renaissance Faire in 1983. Back then I found it exhilarating. I haven't visited too often in the intervening years--twice, I think-- so I'm no expert in the Faire phenomenon. But one thing is certain: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire has grown much tamer, less bawdy and interesting. During a recent visit with my family, I found the experience a little soporific. It could partly be my age talking, but it's mostly the Faire's homogenization and obvious effort not to offend anyone which has made it a little bland and dull. The addition of uncounted sporadic references to a TV show (Game of Thrones) didn't really help either. That show might be wonderful, but to my mind, the Faire is supposed to transport us to a place other than our televisions.

Nevertheless, I took the best photographs I could in the brutal midday light of industrial Irwindale, California. Here are a few from the Jousting event... a recreation of a historic medieval contest held by agrarian nobility set in a recreation of a renaissance bourgeois town. Because, why not? What's a few hundred years here and there if you're having fun? The Joust was the best part of the day by far.

Friday Night Liberty

The eight prints are hung in the State Parks office at Liberty Station. Now all they need is you! If you're near San Diego, California on May 1st, 2015, consider dropping by. Here is more info: http://www.ntclibertystation.com/what.php

Many thanks to my wife Stephanie for all her help and to the good people of the California State Parks Southern Service Center for inviting me to exhibit in their offices and for all their help with the process.

Corporate Publicity Headshots

The assignment: produce publicity headshots of these six company leaders in a straightforward, honest way. There should be lightness, simplicity, nothing dramatic. The shots should be uniform in mood and presentation, so that they can be used together or apart for a variety of applications. 

Putting together something like this is, perhaps surprisingly, more difficult than making a picture of a wild animal or taking a bunch of different portraits of the same person. Because of the need for uniformity, a certain set of limitations imposes itself once the shoot is underway.

After a long shoot, refinement, and sensitive, time-consuming post work, these are the picks.

I picked the Canon 6D and EF 70-200 f/2.8L II USM as the best choice for portrait work. The lens was set to about 135mm, f/5.6. 135 is a great focal length to help people look their best, and f/5.6 is a good compromise between too shallow and too hard to light with speed lights. The shutter was kept at 1/60 to allow the background to appear more white. The camera was set to ISO400 to give the speedlights a break; there would be a lot of rapid shooting and higher ISO allows the flashes to operate with less power. ISO400 on the 6D looks very smooth. The camera was mounted on a tripod and never moved. The subjects were placed on a posing stool between a 50" silver umbrella camera left and a 36" softbox camera right. A large white reflector was placed below. The umbrella speed light was given half a stop more power to slightly increase dimensionality.

Shooting was done in live view mode with the focusing set to face detection so that I could interact face to face with the clients while shooting, and not worry about missing focus. The company publicist was provided with an iPhone running EOS Remote so that he could review the shots live immedately as the exposure was made, and suggest adjustments to poses, etc.

I was glad to do this work, but being alone in the desert taking pictures of sand dunes is always more fun to me than any other kind of shooting.

Opening: Friday Night Liberty

I was invited by California State Parks' Southern Service Center to provide the images for their share of a much larger open house and artwalk at Liberty Station in San Diego. It's on Friday, May 1st. After the artwalk, the photos will remain to decorate the State Parks offices (and remain on sale) for quite a while.

State Parks selected images that were related to California State Parks and specifically selected two that showed human-made assets in the parks.

I had the images printed on jumbo-sized Fuji metallic paper and professionally framed at Miller's Professional Imaging; they are going to look fantastic! We'll know for certain when they arrive in two days.

It was an honor to be invited, and I think State Parks and the Friday Night Liberty patrons will find the photos pleasing. (Actually, it's the State Parks personnel who have to work with the prints on their walls for quite a while after the show...)

I'll provide more information about the time and location of the event closer to the date.

Coyotes!

Out hiking today with my wife, we spotted a family of wild coyotes. It's such a delight seeing wild animals being wild in wild places. 

A Ten Minute Trip to a Whole Different World

If you're ever feeling too hot in the desert, try taking a ride up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The tramway's mountain station is 8,500 feet high on the edge of nearly 11,000 foot high Mount San Jacinto, in California's Mount San Jacinto State Park. 

The floors of the Swiss-made tramcars revolve 360 degrees twice during the extremely steep ascent up the mountain. They are the worlds largest revolving tram cars... and the only ones in the Nothern hemisphere. The only other ones are at Table Mountain in South Africa.

Inside the tram everyone is rapt as the view grows increasingly spectacular... and the drop increasingly far. Everyone, that is, except the operator. The cars hold up to 80 people and are also the only means of getting water and supplies up to the park at the top.

Halfway up the mountain, the tram passes the descending car. Since the cars counterbalance each other, they pass at the midpoint.

Getting closer the the Mountain Station and disembarking into a world completely different from the Sonora desert we just left.

Closer still. If you are unlucky enough to be bothered by heights, it's best not to look back, because the drop is huge. (I'm so glad I don't suffer from this).

As you ascend (and descend), the car revolves. If you were in a spot you didn't favor at the beginning of the trip, don't worry... you'll see everything at some point. Here were are reaching the mountain station to disembark.

Once arrived, you are in the mountains 8,500 feet (2,600 meters) above the desert floor in the Alpine forest of Mount San Jacinto State Park. There are miles of hiking and skiing trails, and two vast connected wilderness areas, if you like to get away from everything and everyone. In fact, the Pacific Crest Trail passes through here. That trail stretches from Mexico to Canada. Up here, it's usually about 30 degrees cooler than in the desert below, and of course the terrain, flora, and fauna are completely different. It's like a ten minute ride to a whole new world.