So my business trip to America is now but a distant memory. Despite having very little free time I do feel I managed to pack a lot into my 6 days away (1 full day of which was travelling of course). I was only able to take my Sony NEX7 becasue of luggage constraints, but as usual, it didn’t let me down! The pictures that follow are a mix of mobile phone (Samsung Alpha) and NEX7 shots.
I started off in Golita, although everyone in Golita says they live in Santa Barbara which is actually further south down the coast. I spent much of my time at a conference held at the Bacara Resort, from where most of my images come from as the resort was right on the coast and I had the odd hour break between meetings where I could pop down onto the beach. The beach has naturally occurring tar deposits, I brought a fair amount home with me on the bottom of my shoes!
So, we start, as many such trips do, at the airport – Gatwick to be exact. That’s our Norwegian Airlines 787 Dreamliner that zipped me across to LAX in 10 hours or so. I’m certainly happy to recommend Norwegian – excellent service at a very reasonable price!
It was early evening when I landed in the US (see my post Coming Into Land At LAX), but once I had got through Immigration and retrieved my luggage darkness had fallen. I had a second flight to Santa Barbara airport, but had a 4 hour wait until that left. I had a wander around the airport, but it was undergoing a lot of updating work so there really wasn’t much to see. I walked up onto one of the bridges across to the car parks and was amused to see another photographer set up taking a similar shot to the below;
I was staying in a lovely hotel called The Goodlands in Golita but our conference was being held at the Bacara Resort which was rather spectacular and looked like this;
You can see the sea in the distance. wandering down there and turning right you had this view:
I was able to spend an hour on the beach before the evening activities on the second day of the conference and got the following shots – this was the most time I had with my camera all week. There’s a very posh golf club just off the beach, this is right at the edge of it.
A great view of the surrounding mountains and a water tank – the whole area is suffering under a major long-term draught.
Palm trees are a feature
On my walk along the beach I saw a whole selection of birds. This is where the NEX7 always let’s me down – focusing – I have some great shots of these birds with cockles in their beaks…but they are completely out of focus…never mind!
Pelicans!! Bloody Pelicans!!
This shot always makes me think of the Dead Kennedy’s track “Moon Over Marin”
More palm trees!
More Palm trees and that moon again!
That blue sky was a feature of each Californian afternoon (though not so much in the morning).
That pier again. The boat here was moving between the pier and the offshore oil rig for much of the evening
