California Thursday - Ansel Adams

Growing up in New Hampshire, I had no idea who Ansel Adams was, but I loved his photography. My favorite is "Monolith, the face of Half-Dome" and a winter picture, "Half Dome Apple Orchard." What I love about his photography was how detailed the picture was using black and white tones. The detail made me pause, whistle, and say "that's really cool." For me, "Monolith," is simply majestic, and "Apple Orchard" captures the beauty that I find in winter.

Now I knew a majority of his photography was taken in Yosemite, but silly me, I didn't realize he was a native Californian until this year when my son, Andrew, picked Ansel Adams as his wax museum project for school.

Andrew and I learned a lot together and now we both share a love of Adams' photography. His favorite is: "Mt. Williamson."

Ansel was born in San Francisco in 1902. Hyperactive, he was also a sickly kid. He had no patience for sports, but he loved being in nature. When he was 12, he taught himself piano and began grooming himself to become a professional piano player until his dad took him to Yosemite for the 1st time in 1916. His father also gave him a Kodak Brownie camera on the trip and Adams' love of photography was born.

In 1917, Adams joined the Sierra Club were he nurtured his sense of respect for nature. The Club's goal is to preserve nature's wonders. Adams fit right in and over the years was very active in the club.

He picked up photography and dark room techniques quickly. His 1st photos were published in 1921.

Adams did it all – he experimented with soft focus and etching, but he preferred a more realistic approach to his photography relying more on sharp focus, heightened contract, and precise exposure as well as expertise in the dark room.

In 1927, he took "Monolith" (my favorite). He also published his 1st portfolio: Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.

In the 1930's, Adams expanded on his work, focusing on detailed close-ups and large forms. In 1931, the Smithsonian hosted his 1st solo museum exhibition. Most of the photos used in the show came from the high sierras.

In the 1940's during World War II, he went on several photographic assignments for the government. One included traveling to the Aleutians and taking pictures of secret Japanese installations.

In 1963, he released his 4th (and last) portfolio – What Majestic Word. The 1960's also saw major art galleries begin to exhibit his work.

In the 1970's Adams worked to reprint negatives from his vault to satisfy demand for his work. He did experiment with color, taking portraits mainly of landscapes and architecture. Adams didn't like color. He couldn't control the balance as well as a black and white photo and he found color distracting, but he does have some color prints.

Did you know? His photography "The Tetons and The Snake River" is one of 115 images on the Voyager spacecraft?

QUESTION AND GIVEAWAY: Adams took the first official portrait of a president. Who was the president?

Answer the question and leave your email. I'll pick a winner out of the right responses to receive a copy of my upcoming vintage release, "Journey of the Heart," set in 1946 Sonoma California.

California Lighthouse Series - Point Sur, CA

California's Central Coast is one of the longest and remotest areas of the coastline. Let me paint you a picture – we all know where LA is, now go approximately 100 miles north and you find Santa Barbara. Approximately a 2 hour drive north from Santa Barbara is San Luis Obispo and San Simeon, where the Hearst Castle resides. Continue north and the coast turns rugged and remote. The next major city you'll come up to is Carmel and Monterey – an approximate journey of 3 hours. Point Sur is in this rugged patch of land, closer to Carmel and Monterey. While there were lighthouses near San Luis Obispo and Carmel, it was soon determined one was needed at Point Sur.

The big shipwreck that spurred action was the Ventura in 1875. It should be noted that while not having a light on Point Sur contributed to the wreck, it didn't help the Captain was drunker than a skunk.

Congress soon allocated the money for Point Sur to be built. The facility was constructed on a 361 ft. tall rock. Between the rock and mainland is a "tombolo," lowland that is covered with water from time to time cutting off the rock from the coastline.

The light at Point Sur was lit on 1 August 1889. According to my research, it first used an oil wick lamp with whale and lard oil then kerosene used as the fuel. Finally, a 1st order Fresnel lens was brought in. The lens was practically 9 feet tall itself. The visibility of the lens was 23 nautical miles.



To help out during dense fog, a foghorn was installed – run by coal generated steam.

Point Sur is known as a light station – not a lighthouse. Why? Because it was so remote, it basically had to provide for itself since there was no road until 1937.

There was 1 head keeper and 3 assistant keepers. A cistern held the water, a barn held the cattle and horses, and blacksmith shop provided metal supplies. The kids didn't go to school daily. In 1927 a school teacher was assigned. They were usually young women straight out of college. Unfortunately, they didn't last long since the area was so remote and lonely.

How did the station get their supplies? Animal feed, coal, and firewood arrived on long, broad ships known as a "lighthouse tender." It would anchor near the station and the supplies put on skiffs and towed to land. That's a hard life if you ask me.



Finally in 1937, Highway 1 connected Point Sur to the rest of the world. Known in California as the Pacific Coast Highway, it runs as close as it can to the California coast from San Diego to the northernmost border. Once that happened, the US Coast Guard took over the lighthouse station in 1939.

Ships still wrecked though in 1894, 1909, 1915, 1921, 1930, etc. The most notable wreck wasn't a ship, though – it was a dirigible.

On 12 Feb 1935, the USS Macon, a dirigible crashed at Point Sur. The lighthouse keeper related that the fin went to pieces and the nose dived into the water. Out of the 83 crewmembers only 2 survived. The Macon was powered by helium. (much safer than hydrogen and that's not saying a lot) The skin was cotton, the frame, aluminum and the airship was 3 times as long as a Boeing 747. Top Speed? 80 mph. The Macon also carried 4 reconnaissance airplanes.



In 1974 the last Coast Guard keeper left the station. The light is now fully automated with an aero beacon used for light and airhorn instead of a coal-driven steam powered foghorn. The 1st order Frensel lens is on display at the Monterey Maritime museum. You can find a display of the Macon at the Point Sur light station visitor center. The station is one of the complete and preserved in California.


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California thursday - Ronald Reagan's Presidental Library

By: Stephanie Burkhart

Just a couple of weeks ago, I took my 8-year-old son, Andrew, to the Reagan Presidential library. I have to admit it was a real treat – not only to have presidential library in my backyard, but the Reagan library. He was president when I was coming of age. He inspired America to believe in itself again. He was president when I joined the Army and I was proud to serve for him.

Reagan's library is located in Simi Valley, CA. Construction began in 1998 and it was dedicated on 4 NOV 1991. (I was married on 14 NOV!) Interesting historical note: Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush were present when the library was dedicated.

The Reagan library has some cool exhibits including Reagan's early years in Dixon, IL, his career in film, and his time as California's governor in the 1960's.

What struck me, especially with the governor's exhibit, was that Reagan faced the same challenges that California faces now. California was in debt and facing an energy crisis. By the time he left office, California had made some hard decisions and was on the road to recovery.

What resonated with me, however, was the Cold War displays. There is a piece of the Berlin Wall on the grounds. I had been to Berlin and even have pieces of the wall myself. I saw the wall before it fell. I had a front row seat to the end of the Cold War in Nov 1989 as I was stationed in Germany when East Germans stormed the wall. I can still hear Reagan's voice. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
The most impressive exhibit is Air Force One, the Boeing 707 aircraft which carried Reagan and many other presidents around the world. It was retired in 2011 and transported to the library in pieces. The exhibit began showing in 2005.

Currently, Air Force One rests on pedestals 25 feet above the ground and you can walk through the plane, acquiring a feel for presidential travel.

The Reagan library is still an active place. In 2008, it hosted the GOP presidential debates. President Reagan was laid to rest on the grounds against a view that embodies the love and affinity he felt for California and the west.

Does anyone want to share their thoughts and impression of the Reagan years?

The Califorina Lighthouse Series - The Santa Cruz Lighthouse

Located on the northern shore of Monterey Bay, the Santa Cruz lighthouse was originally built in 1868.

I've always enjoyed visiting the ocean, and while I've never seen too many lighthouses, I find them fascinating. They capture the ambience of the romance of the seas. Each lighthouse has it's own unique story which I hope to share with you during these series on California Lighthouses.

The Santa Cruz lighthouse has a rich, sentimental history. It was a wooden structure with a tower modeled after the light at Ediz Hook, WA. Originally, the light was white, but soon was changed to red, so it could be distinguished from the various residential lights in the area.

Interestingly only ten years after it was built, the lighthouse faced destruction from erosion. It was moved 300 feet to firmer ground by several horses. The mover was paid $750.00 for the job! (in 1879)

What gives a lighthouse its personality are the people who care for it though. Every lighthouse has a story.

The Santa Cruz lighthouse's first caretaker was Adna Hecox. He moved into the lighthouse with his family in 1870. He provided for his family by growing a garden and keeping chicken. He passed away in 1883 and his daughter, Laura, become the next caretaker.


Laura was paralyzed on one side of her body, but she didn't let that slow her down. She became an avid amateur marine biologist, well respected by her peers and professors around the country. She retired in 1916.

Arthur Anderson became the caretaker after Laura. Electricity made his job easier. He retired in November 1940 and in 1941, the Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the light. With World War II, the Coast Guard turned the lighthouse into a lookout and the 54th Coast Artillery Regiment, an all-African-American unit, was assigned to the lighthouse with the mission to protect the coastline.

In 1948, the lighthouse, was dismantled, and it's lumber was used for other projects. In 1965, a family tragedy would give Santa Cruz a new lighthouse.

Mark Abott was 18 and drowned while body surfing off the waters 3 miles east of Santa Cruz, Mark's family, knowing his love for the ocean and lighthouses, built the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse on the land the old lighthouse had stood on.

Since then, the lighthouse has been home to the Santa Cruz surfing museum. Currently the Santa Cruz Surfing Club Preservation Society runs the lighthouse museum. Bits of Laura's collection of shells can still be found today at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.


Do you have a favorite lighthouse you like to visit?
Smiles
Steph

California Thursday - The California Strawberry Festival

This year the Strawberry Festival is going to be held the weekend of the 15th/16th in May. It's always held in Oxnard, California which is near Ventura and the Coast. We've gone to the festival for the past 3 years and I was planning to go again this year - we'll see. My son, Andrew, makes his 1st Holy Communion on 15 May - we'll see if we'll go later on that day or on the 16th.

What do I love about the Strawberry festival? The Strawberries of course! Some of the ripest, tastest Strawberries come out of this festival. The prices for a box of strawberries are resonable. (sp?) It's $3 for a small green plastic container and about $20 for a big case.

Another thing I love about the strawberry festival is that it reminds me of of "New England," a little bit. They offer bands throughout the day, they have plenty of food stands and serve strawberries in ways that I wouldn't think imaginable. There's strawberry pizza, nachos and even kabobs. I love the nachos. hehe. Of course, there's strawberry margeritas and even strawberry beer (which reminds me of BerlinerWeise from Berlin!)

My son, Joe, sipping a strawberry smoothie



There's a playland for the little kids called Strawberryland and one year I even met Strawberry Shortcake. hehe! (Sadly, Andrew didn't want to pose with her because she was a girl!)

There's also an area for vendors to show off their wares. From clothes to jewerly, soap and candles and woodworking you can find a little bit of everything at the festival. The price is cheap to get in $12,00 for adults and $6.00 for kids. It's a homey kid of way to spend the day with the kids.




If you get a chance, check out the festival. I love collecting the festival posters. They always promise to be colorful.

California Thursday - The San Fernando Mission

I don't know a lot about California history, but every week, I discover something new. This week though, I thought I'd look at something in my backyard - the Missions - and today, specifically, the San Fernando Mission.

I'm not quite sure of the dates, but early in California's history, and I believe this occured in the 1700's several Catholic priests traveled up from Mexico and wherever they stopped, they established a mission. The mission trail is called "El Camino Real" and there are a lot of missions that go up and down the California coast from San Diego all the way to San Fransiciso.

THE INTERIOR OF THE MISSION
(NOTE: A couple years ago I had a chance to attending a wedding here and I was very touched by the service.)


The San Fernando Mission is in Mission Hills in Los Angeles, about 20 minutes south of my home. The pictures of it capture that authenthic old style feel of past. I love to visit there because they have a Catholic store and I can go get my religous books and items there. I bought both my son's baptism candles there. The Mission also hosts wedding and quineneras (probably spelled wrong - but it is a Hispanic custom where a 15 year old girl is recoginzed as an adult, similiar to the sweet 16 custom that is more known about)


THE HISTORY OF IT:
Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary" (September 8), 1797. The prime location the padre selected, located along the principal highway leading to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, had been occupied by Francisco Reyes (then Los Angeles' mayor). However, after brief negotiations construction of the first buildings was soon underway (Mission records list Reyes as godfather to the first infant baptized at San Fernando).

INTERESTING NOTE: In 2003 comedian Bob Hope was interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Gardens.




The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission.

Information for this blog entry was taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Fernando_Rey_de_Espa%C3%B1a

California Saturday - Yosemite National Park

A Photo by Ansel Adams, taken in Yosemite.

I've never been to Yosemite, nor has my husband, but it’s a goal of his to take the family camping there as soon as our youngest, Joe, now three, is old enough.

Not quite understanding his passion, but accepting it, I decided to scour the Internet for interesting tidbits about the park to share. I have to admit, I found some gorgeous pictures.

Oh – silly me. For the longest time, and I don't know why – I used to confuse Yosemite with Yellowstone. I guess it's because I'm not native and I thought the "Y's" were interchangeable? Trust me, my DH has set me straight.

Yosemite is a national park in East Central California, kinda' below Lake Tahoe. It's over 760,000 acres and reaches the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The park includes granite cliffs, waterfalls, low valleys, and giant sequoia groves. I'm interested in the giant sequoias myself. There are three groves, the Mariposa, Tuolume, and Merced. The oldest standing sequoia is thought to be over 1800 years old.


HISTORY

Before the California gold rush, the Paiute and Sierra Miwok Indians lived there. Then the Gold Rush hit, bringing in a lot of White people to the area. Eventually, the Indians were resettled. (That's the nice way of saying that the Whites forcefully moved them to reservations near Fresno. Personally, I find that chapter of American history appalling, and I have a deep respect for the Native American Indians here in America.)

TIDBIT: The famous photographer, Ansel Adams visited Yosemite.

REALLY COOL TIDBIT: The Wawona Tree was a giant sequoia over 227 feet tall and 90 feet round! It was believed to have been over 2,300 years old. Unfortunately, it fell in 1969 under a heavy snowfall.


President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill on June 30, 1864, allowing for Yosemite park land to be preserved so the public could visit and it was to be managed by the state of California. The park, during this time, came under the protection of the 4th Cavalry Regiment, US Army.

President Theodore Roosevelt visited the park in May 1903. In 1906, he passed a law allowing the Federal Government to take over the park's management from California. It's probably a good thing, but for the last ten years, California can barely manage it's own government.

COOL NOTE: Yosemite was formed by glaciers. Glaciers are responsible for dramatic landscapes, tall mountains, and deep lakes.

Yosemite is opened year round, but much of the park is closed from late autumn to late spring due to snow. I can't wait to go!

A California Tidbit - The Hearst Castle

The Hearst Castle is a wonderful place to visit in California. It was one of the first things my husband and I saw when I came to California in 1998. For me, after spending 7 years in Europe and going European castle hoping, I didn't America had anything that could compare. I was wrong.

So who was Hearst? He was a newspaper mogel who lived in the early 19th Century.



William Randolph Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, to millionaire mining engineer George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, he enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Alpha chapter), the A.D. Club (a prestigious Harvard Final club.)


Interestingly, he was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. Nonetheless, through his newspapers and magazines, he exercised enormous political influence, and is sometimes credited with pushing public opinion in the United States into a war with Spain in 1898. He was also a prominent leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party from 1896 to 1935, although he became more conservative later in life.

In 1903, William married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Millicent bore him twin sons, David and Randolph, on December 2, 1915. The love of his life was Marion Davies, a famous film star at the time. Hearst died in August 1951. Davies died in Sept 1961.
After the death of Davies' niece, Patricia Lake (née Van Cleeve), Lake's family announced that she was in fact the birthdaughter of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Prior to the announcement, it had been said that Lake was the daughter of Rosemary Davies (Marion's sister) and her first husband, George Van Cleeve.


The Castle

The Castle itself was built on a 40,000-acre ranch purchased by William Randolph Hearst's father, wealthy miner George Hearst in 1865. Hearst Castle is located in San Simeon , California , almost exactly half-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco . The ranchland has grown over the years to encompass some 250,000 acres. The Castle is on the coast and in a remote area as well. The nearest town, San Simeon is rather rural. It is 43 from San Luis Obisipo It's a very private place and has a magnificant view of the California coast!



Hearst first approached American architect Julia Morgan with ideas for a new project in April 1919, shortly after he took ownership. Hearst's original idea was to build a bungalow, according to a draughtsman who worked in Morgan's office who recounted Hearst's words from the initial meeting:

I would like to build something upon the hill at San Simeon. I get tired of going up there and camping in tents. I’m getting a little too old for that. I’d like to get something that would be a little more comfortable.

Construction began in 1919 and continued until 1947 when Hearst grew ill in health.

Hearst Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres (0.5 km2) of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo. Zebras and other exotic animals still roam the grounds. Morgan, an accomplished civil engineer, devised a gravity-based water delivery system from a nearby mountain. One highlight of the estate is the outdoor Neptune Pool, located near the edge of the hilltop, which offers an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house. The Neptune Pool patio features an ancient Roman temple front transported wholesale from Europe and reconstructed at the site. Hearst was an inveterate tinkerer, and would tear down structures and rebuild them at a whim. For example, the Neptune Pool was rebuilt three times before Hearst was satisfied. As a consequence of Hearst's persistent design changes, the estate was never completed in his lifetime.


Although Hearst Castle's ornamentation is borrowed from historic European themes, its underlying structure is primarily steel reinforced concrete. The use of modern engineering techniques reflects Morgan's background as a civil engineering graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the first female architecture graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. During Hearst's ownership a private power plant supplied electricity to the remote location. Most of the estate's chandeliers have bare light bulbs, because electrical technology was so new when the Castle was built.


Info for this blog came from:
http://castles.draconian.com/hearst_castle.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Davies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle