{"id":1017,"date":"2013-01-29T23:50:37","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T23:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2013-01-29T23:50:37","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T23:50:37","slug":"my-adventure-san-diego-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/?p=1017","title":{"rendered":"My Adventure | San Diego Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend my journey as a photographer took me someplace totally new and quite amazing.\u00a0 I went back and forth and whether I was going to go or not.\u00a0 I’m not a super social person and the idea of going someplace like this without anyone I actually knew made my anxiety level a little high!\u00a0 I asked my husband if I should go (thinking he would give me an out) and he said, “Why not, what do you have to lose?”\u00a0 He was right.\u00a0 I can’t grow as a photographer if I don’t take risks and get out of my little bubble of security.\u00a0 The morning we were supposed to head out, it was raining and a bunch of people ended up backing out.\u00a0 I had it set in my mind that this was something I needed to do, so off I went.<\/p>\n

I met up with some other photographers at one of our trolley stations so that we could carpool out there since it was over 120 miles away.\u00a0 I decided to drive since I felt like I needed to have control over at least something.\u00a0 I met the two ladies that were going in my car and they were both just so wonderful!!\u00a0 So where did we go?\u00a0 Well, the first stop on this little adventure was Salvation Mountain<\/a>.\u00a0 I am not a religious person.\u00a0 I am a more of a spiritual person.\u00a0 For me, this was less about the message of the mountain and more about the dream that Leonard Knight had when he built this place.\u00a0 Unfortunately he now resides in a convalescent home here in San Diego, but his dream stays alive through volunteers and the many visitors that his mountain gets.\u00a0 It was such an amazing place.\u00a0 We were able to climb this huge mountain that was made of hay, clay, and paint.\u00a0 There were rooms built into the mountain out of branches and paint and windows.\u00a0 It really was an amazing place.<\/p>\n

\"SanSalvation Mountain.\u00a0 Leonard Knight’s masterpiece.<\/p>\n

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\"SanInside one of the “rooms” in the mountain.\u00a0 It was awesome how it almost felt alive in there.\u00a0 All the colors and textures were so beautiful.<\/p>\n

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\"SanThe “belly of the beast” was so awesome.\u00a0 Amazing that all of this came out of the mind of one man.<\/p>\n

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\"SanThis was the truck that Leonard called home for so many years.\u00a0 No electricity.\u00a0 No water.\u00a0 No plumbing.<\/p>\n

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\"San<\/p>\n

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The next stop on our little adventure was “the slabs.”\u00a0 Slab City<\/a> was strange, but in a good way.\u00a0 It is what is left of Marine barracks from WWII and has become the home of hundreds of squatters, boondockers, and people who want to live a simple life off the grid.\u00a0 My first impression was that it looked like an RV camp.\u00a0 The more we drove around, I noticed how dirty it was.\u00a0 Because there is no sort of trash service out there, it looks like a lot of people just toss their trash out the door.\u00a0 I learned that Slab City has it’s own internet cafe, church, library, night club, exclusive social club, skate park, snack bar, and alien crash site.\u00a0 Most of these places are run by generators and solar panels.\u00a0 The other thing I learned about this place is that there are no laws.\u00a0 It seems like everyone helps each other out and they all seem to be pretty happy people.\u00a0 I did notice a lot of drug usage and I’m sure it is one of the reasons that has driven people to live in the slabs.\u00a0 Not necessarily the access to drugs, but because of the poverty that drug use can lead to.\u00a0 There is no monetary cost to live at the slabs.\u00a0 Even with the drugs and alcohol, there was just something about this place that made you want to stay.\u00a0 I think if I were in a situation without kids and a family, I could see myself spending time out there (minus the drugs and alcohol.\u00a0 yuck).<\/p>\n

\"SanOne of the performers at “The Range.”\u00a0 They have live music here every Saturday night.\u00a0 When we were here, they were doing their annual talent show.\u00a0 I just have to say, this guy was an amazing musician.\u00a0\u00a0 A very drunk, but amazing musician.\u00a0 He has only been at the slabs a short time, but now calls it home.<\/p>\n

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\"SanOne of the seating options at The Range.<\/p>\n

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\"SanI think I’ll be bringing my own chair to sit in next year!!<\/p>\n

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\"SanOne of the “slabbers”<\/p>\n

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\"SanA group of people that call the slabs home.\u00a0 They come from different places, and ended up at Slab City for different reasons, but they all call it home now.<\/p>\n

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Part of Slab City is another little community called East Jesus<\/a>.\u00a0 This is a little community of artists.\u00a0 Because this is a family friendly blog, I can’t show many pictures of the artwork, but I will say that the people here are just great.\u00a0 If you find yourself at Slab City, you have to check this place out!!<\/p>\n

\"SanThey are currently working on creating a fully sustainable garden and vineyard.\u00a0 The hope is that the only thing they would have to worry about is water.\u00a0 They have plans on creating a huge water tank that will hopefully take care of them during the 120 degree summer heat.<\/p>\n

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\"SanOne of the pieces of art.<\/p>\n

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After East Jesus, we raced out to Bombay Beach<\/a> to catch the sunset.\u00a0 It was such a beautiful depressing place.\u00a0 This place used to be a resort back in days but it’s like it just got sucked up in the mud.\u00a0 Whats left are the ruins of old homes and cars and businesses.\u00a0 It’s like after it got sucked up into the mud, the town moved back a few 100 feet and started over again, but was never really able to make anything of it self.\u00a0 I really want to go back again when there is more light and get some photos of the actual town and the remains of the old town.<\/p>\n

\"San\"San\"San\"San<\/p>\n

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading!!\u00a0 I know I usually don’t write about my photos and I just like to let them speak for them selves, but I felt like I had something to say about this little adventure.\u00a0 I absolutely can’t wait until next year so I can do it again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend my journey as a photographer took me someplace totally new and quite amazing.\u00a0 I went back and forth and whether I was going to go or not.\u00a0 I’m not a super social person and the idea of going someplace like this without anyone I actually knew made my anxiety level a little high!\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1038,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saflowerphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}