 Typical Room in the Adobe I visited the Santa Cruz Mission SHP today. There’s not a lot left of the original –the church fell down in a 1857 earthquake. But there’s still something to be learned there. You can see my favorite shots on the Protect Our Parks Galleries. Most of the shots are of construction techniques. Mistreatment of indigenous people is a little harder to get shots of today.
I can’t imagine that the upkeep of this park contributes anything to the budget problems of the state. There was one (very helpful) ranger at the visitor center plus one other one working around the grounds.
Also,kudos to the person –not with the Parks –who spoke with me as I was entering the park. She gave me a good idea what’s important in the construction of the Adobe,something I had no idea about until I spoke with her. Thanks.
And, I had breakfast at Zachary’s once again. Great Place.
 Monitor Profile From time to time, I run into really useful software that performs some function I need/want. DispcalGUI is one such software program. The problem I’m working is display calibration. One piece of advice you will see every where when working in photography is to “Calibrate your Display.” Without a calibrated display, you have almost zero chance of getting prints that look like what you are seeing on the display. Mqny years ago I purchased a software/hardware package(Monoco EZColor Optix XR) to calibrate displays. It has worked well. The problem is that the new Apple OS, “Lion,” will not support that software anymore. While I don’t anticipate upgrading to Lion “real soon,” I thought I should look around for calibration solutions now. DispcalGUI is just the right thing. It is actually, as its name implies, an user interface to a collection of programs (Argyll) that will calibrate and profile your display. It works flawlessly on a Mac and is “Universal,” i.e, runs on any kind of Mac not to mention Windows and Linux as well. The price is whatever you care to donate to the developer. BTW, the developer is very responsive to requests for help – although it would be better to use the support forum. Check it out for your calibration needs.
 Rock Climber at Goat Rock Today’s park is Castle Rock State Park. Ann Marie Brown,in her book 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area says this park should be called Swiss Cheese State Park. Check out the pictures,you will see why. She also says Castle Rock is one of the most popular parks in the Bay Area. So tell me,why is it on the hit list? While I can’t say just how many people visit this,or any other park,I do know that at Portola Redwoods I spent a day in isolation while at Castle Rock the trails were relatively busy. That’s not a argument for closing Portola Redwoods. Castle Rock is popular with rock climbers and I have a couple of pictures of them working out. Also,for something different,a “black and white”picture. Check it out on the Galleries Page.
 Pelican Flight at Gray Whale Cove I went to Gray Whale Cove State Beach today. Gray Whale is yet another State park that will be closed. It’s close to Devil’s Slide and a very nice beach. Today was great – or would have been great – for those of you who like to lie in the sun. It was sunny and warm. Better get down there and check it out before it gets closed. Well, to the extent it can be closed anyway. You can see some of my favorite shots from today on Protect Our Parks.
 Tip Toe Falls As part of my continuing Protect Our Parks project, I went to Portola Redwoods State Park yesterday morning. You can see the results at two places: One, recent work has three of my favorites. Two, the galleries of parks to be closed at ProtectOurParks has been updated to include Portola Redwoods.
 Kaboom I shot the San Francisco Fireworks last night. My favorite shots have been added to my SF Fireworks Gallery.
 Candlestick Windsurfing Candlestick SRA is one of the parks that will be closed. I went there yesterday to get some shots to add to ProtectOurParks. You can see some of my favorite windsurfing shots at Recent Work.
However, I just gotta say: The Park was “closed” yesterday. See News on ProtectOurParks for some shots showing how many people were there. There were windsurfers, fishermen, picnickers, people walking around and in one case, a van driving down the hiking path. Gives new meaning to “closed.” The Park is being trashed day by day.
 Sam Taylor Redwoods Here’s a surprise; I was in Samuel P. Taylor State Park a couple of days ago. This is a great park with lots of things to do: day hikes, camping or just picnicking. I find it unbelievable that this park will be closed because of low traffic. The campground was full when I was there and it was a mid-week day. The Park is close to the Bay Area – I can drive there in about an hour – and then there are those redwoods. Fantastic. Check out my recent work for a few of my favorite shots from the day. And go to ProtectOurParks to start to learn what you can do to save this, and other, parks.
 Samuel P. Taylor SP I think it’s time – maybe past time – to get involved in the threatened closing of 70 of our state parks. The state parks are special places; closing them is not only a bad idea, it’s not a very workable idea. Just how do you go about closing Candlestick Park? Or Samuel P. Taylor? Samuel P. Taylor has a major bike path running right through it. How do you protect the “closed” park? Short answer is you can’t.
To this end, I’ve started a new website I’m calling ProtectOurParks My intent is to use photography to publicize the threatened parks and, hopefully, motivate you – yes, you – to help save our parks. ProtectOurParks is an interactive site – that means you can add appropriate content and comments. Of course, I’m the editor so I get to define “appropriate.”
The site is just getting started so check it out now and in the coming weeks as we add content.
 Purisma Creek Redwoods Speaking of being lost and confused…I took a trip down the coast to the Purisima Creek Redwoods - an old favorite of mine. The creek was running fairly high due to the recent rains so it was a ‘reasonable’ shoot. This restriction on hiking, windsurfing and running is beginning to wear on me, a lot! Purisima Creek has the advantage of no hills and a short hike – if you don’t go too far along the creek. You can see a couple of my shots from today at recent work.
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