It’s funny how you want to travel somewhere once you see photos taken by others. Professional photos are nice but they seem to miss the “excitement” factor exhibited by the everyday, on a budget traveler. Maybe it is because they are trying so hard to get the perfect picture that they lose sight of capturing the true essence of a place.
My dad had some adventures in his younger years, and the photos he took always made me want to go and see those places. This past weekend I was able to do just that.
Over our bed in the master bedroom we have two photos of Catalina Island. One is of the Catalina Museum and the other is a distance shot of Avalon.
I recently had the opportunity to go to Catalina thanks to a deal on Groupon. I was going to be in the area visiting a friend so it was the perfect time to go and the perfect time to see if I could capture the same views my dad did earlier. (Note: next time I will take a picture of the pictures I want to take so I can remember the angles and zooms. I got close to his photos but not exact.)
The first image was of what I thought was the Catalina Yacht Club. The building turned out to be the Catalina Island Museum. Lesson here, read up on the sites before going!
I found it interesting how the yachts have gotten bigger over the years and more extravagant.
The second image was a distance shot of the main town of Avalon. Unfortunately, I was so focused on the museum building that I did not get as many of the town. Thankfully I had a few that would work.
Since I did not take photos of the photos I wanted to recapture, this was the closest I came to the Avalon shot my dad took. His is a zoomed in shot where mine is pulled back to capture more of the town. The town has grown but minimally. I am going to guess this is due to the heavy restrictions on development in order to keep the island a natural habitat. You can definitely see more homes up the hill.
Now I am looking forward to taking other pictures of places my dad captured but first I need to find more of his photos.