Immersed in San Diego: Walking and Capturing Its Spirit
This post that's super photo-driven. I show you a large body of work from a past trip with some thoughts about the photos I took and why I took them.
I’ve been thinking about how to share more of my photography with you here, and this is what I’ve come up with—for now, at least. I’ll post photos along with the areas I was walking around when I took them. I might also include a bit about my thought process, what I was hoping to capture, or even what didn’t quite work out.
If you enjoy this or have suggestions on how I can better share photos here, let me know! Alright, let’s get started!
Downtown San Diego
In these first few photos, I focused on capturing reflections and texture throughout the city. It’s not something I usually photograph, so I was setting a challenge for myself.
Here we come to our first fail. I was trying to get a double reflection selfie, but I forgot to manually focus on the 2nd mirror. Oh well, we learn and move on; thankfully it wouldn’t have been anything special anyway, just something I was playing with.
I’m a sucker for long shadows and this one made me think he was being followed by his shadow monster on a hard day's work.
I know some find it controversial to photograph the homeless. But, I never do it with bad intentions when I click the shutter. I really just liked the pink pants, and that’s it.
This photo is nothing great but again I loved the color and how much it popped in the bright sunlight.
A thing I do a lot in my photography is take a frame within a frame. Here, I saw a kid running to catch the train that just pulled into the station.
Waterfront
I wasn’t going to take this photo, but I'm so glad I did. Such a cute moment between a mother and her child taking photos of her being silly. Street doesn’t always have to be in your face, flash, super close, in my mind. Sometimes I’m on the lookout for these human moments.
Again, a human moment. A husband and wife enjoy the view. But, for me, the pillar breaks them up. It lets them share the moment in their own way.
I wanted to try this so bad!
Balboa Park
For whatever reason, while I was in the park, I was in the mood to capture motion blur, as you’ll see below. I needed an ND filter so badly, but I just didn’t have it on this trip.
Dramatic lighting is always something I’m going to stop for and capture.
I’m pretty sure this woman dropped her phone in the water. I loved the woman in red with the other guy on the far end who seemed to not care at all but watch on anyways.
Old Town
Color… Old town was just filled with so much color I was almost overwhelmed by it.
The night before heading to Old Town, I watched all of this show on Netflix called American Primeval, and for some reason, this photo reminds me of that show.
I mean come on look at all this color.
Overall, I loved my time in San Diego, and I feel like I got to try a few new things photography-wise and grow. That's what it’s all about, isn’t it?
If you like this kind of post, show it some love. I will do more photo-driven posts about my past and future trips. Thank you all for the support; it means everything to me.
I definitely like the format and explanation/thought process. I might try to focus on one or two things only for each post and perhaps expand more, just a suggestion ☺️
There are some really great shots, Joshua! I really loved both the long shadows and the dramatic lighting. Enjoy this post form a lot, too🙌🏻!