Sometimes an idea doesn’t come in a flash. In this case it took years. It can happen to you, too. You just have to be patient.
As I've been playing around with this composited shot of the spiral staircase in the Santa Barbara County Municipal Courthouse, I've come to enjoy its Escher-like point-of-view. Consequentially, I decided to reduce it to a monochrome image to play up the Escheresque resemblance.
During my recent stay in Southern California, I visited the Carrizo Plain. The San Andreas fault runs through the plain, producing a long scarp of high rolling hills.
I took this shot atop the scarp looking south towards the snow-capped San Emigdio mountains to the south. The San Emigdio range form a part of the southern edge of California's San Joaquin Valley. Santa Barbara and the Pacific coast are on the other side. The snow on the peaks is fairly rare and completes this vista.
On my work trip to Santa Barbara, I was pleasantly surprised to drive by the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove. When we lived on Monterey Bay, we used to visit the butterfly grove in Pacific Grove but I didn't have the camera gear I now own. So I took this serendipitous opportunity to photograph these marvels of nature.
During my recent trip to Santa Barbara, I spent a day photographing the area around the Carrizo Plain. There are a huge number of oilfields located to the east near Taft, CA., which I drove through to get to the high hills of the Tremblor Range. These unusually-shaped expansion loops are peppered throughout the hundreds of drilling sites. An interesting example of accidental art!
I was recently in Santa Barbara, California and had the opportunity to photograph the spiral staircase in the Santa Barbara County Superior Courthouse.
I created this image from 4 photos. Superior indeed!
John Derry
