Hikes & Cars

A weekend without a plan turned into a photo-hunting day. I was kind of wondering how to make the most of a Saturday with great weather and noticed a holiday car show across the street. As I was walking back from my loop around the parked cars I stopped at 1973 Landrover, it was parked away from the shiny muscle cars. Just as I snapped my last shot of it the owner, Lee, came up and we started talking. Turns out he’s my idol now. He runs a creative photography/brand marketing business out of a hangar at Torrance Field in a 40’ shipping container built on stands high enough to park his small collection of cars under. This Landrover is one of 3 he has, along with an air-cooled Porsche and a Toyota FJ Cruiser. I spent 2 hours talking to him about cars, cameras, and camping trips. It got me motivated to go on a little excursion for photos so I packed some snacks and water and headed up to the Angeles mountains. I came here back in April when I first got my Nikon but there was a trail that I passed that intrigued me. It led to San Gabriel Peak, timing was perfect to get there and hike up in time for sunset. The scenery is pretty nice, you can see Big Bear’s snow covered mountains, Mt. Baldy, and this day it was clear enough (thanks to recent rain) to see all the way past Catalina Island to San Clemente and Santa Barbara Island, both of which were about 120 miles away.

I hiked back in the blue-hour and got back to my car in the dark, the temperature had dropped down into the high-30s. There was supposed to be a ULA rocket launch later Saturday night, so I setup in Redondo for that, but unfortunately it was scrubbed - but it was nice to see so many locals crowded along the road at the beach waiting for it to launch and put on a show.