Posts by Jefferson Graham
San Diego’s Carlsbad: Best photo spots in historic coastal beach town
As much as we love the Bubble, we do occasionally leave, and have been exploring the great non-L.A. California beach towns on recent episodes of PhotowalksTV, in search of great photo spots. This week, we’re in Carlsbad, the San Diego town known for the Flower Fields, a European style village, Legoland and the great beach.…
Read MoreHuge crowd celebrates Eclipse at Manhattan Beach Library
Even though the Eclipse 2024 wasn’t a total one, and we didn’t get “totality” we did get community awe and wonder at seeing the Moon cover the Sun for about an hour Monday morning. The Manhattan Beach Public Library staged an Eclipse viewing party, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. with long, long lines before opening to…
Read MoreTRAVEL: Blooms, History, Legos & another great beach in Carlsbad
The latest episode of PhotowalksTV heads south to the San Diego area, to explore the beach community of Carlsbad. The city has a lot going for it: a historic downtown that dates back to the late 1800s, a European style village, great beaches, local strawberry fields that go on forever and nearby some 55 acres…
Read MoreQ&A: Solar Eclipse & Phone Photography
On April 8, the great solar eclipse will take place in the United States, from the San Antonio area to the Maine/Canada border. Yes, you can photograph it with your phone. I’ve received so many questions about it, let me answer a few of the best ones here. What makes witnessing a total solar eclipse…
Read MoreSolar Eclipse: How to photograph with your iPhone, Galaxy or Pixel
The great Solar Eclipse, when the moon passes briefly between the sun and earth, will be on April 8th this year, and it’s easily going to be a photo highlight for many of us. Just not in the South Bay, or anywhere in California, where it won’t be able to be seen. The route starts…
Read MoreTRAVEL: San Diego’s Oceanside is worth pulling over for
The idea of the PhotowalksTV series is to take you along with me to great places, show you around and offer tips on how to best capture the location with your smartphone. When I do it right, I hopefully inspire you to visit places you either haven’t been before, or might consider revisiting, wowing you…
Read MoreNew Travel Video: San Diego’s Oceanside
The latest from PhotowalksTV: a short 90 minute drive from the Bubble (on a good day) or 2 hours or so, brings us to the cute North San Diego beach town of Oceanside. Like Manhattan Beach, Hermosa and Redondo, it also has a classic pier (way longer though, one of the longest in the state) …
Read MoreTRAVEL: San Francisco’s best views–Treasure Island
San Francisco has one of the most beautiful skylines in the world, but it’s one that’s hard to admire while you’re actually in the city. You need to leave and step away to capture her beauty. There’s a little island right off the Bay Bridge with a tiny population of 2,000 people, one restaurant, a…
Read MoreReturn to Venice Beach Again, it’s been cleaned up
Nearby Venice Beach has always been a fun, funky place to visit, but in recent years, it’s been over-populated by so many homeless encampments that many people preferred to stay away. But as I discovered on a recent visit, to film the latest episode of PhotowalksTV, Venice has been cleaned up. There are still a…
Read MoreSLO-MO: Tips on how to get great slow motion video
You might not realize this, but you live with Slow Motion video every day. Every movie, nearly every TV show and commercial, most YouTube videos—yup, they all showcase slow motion, and for a very good reason: it just looks so damn cool. (And just wait for the Super Bowl game–you’ll be seeing so many Slo-Mo…
Read MoreTRAVEL: San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island for city views
San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island is one of the top tourist spots in the city, to take a look at the former prison and trying to imagine what it must have been like to have lived there. It also makes a great spot for cities, most notably, getting shots of the City by the Bay from…
Read MoreTRAVEL: San Diego’s Mexico border town, Imperial Beach
During a recent trip to Tijuana, I tried to figure a way I could just walk down the San Diego coastline into Mexico, from the closest town, Imperial Beach, 5 miles away. After all, I could see the Tijuana skyline from the Imperial Beach Pier, and even closer from the four-mile long Tijuana Estuary, home…
Read MoreEvelyn Schmitt lives for Pierhenge, happening again Saturday
For Manhattan Beach resident Evelyn Schmitt, there are no greater days than the twice-yearly Pierhenge natural events at the Manhattan Beach Pier. That is when the sun sets in a way that finds it twinkling directly in-between the pilings of the Pier. (The same thing happens by the Manhattan Beach Library for “Lightgate,” when it…
Read MoreThe show must go on
Lynne Gross has hosted TV children’s shows, produced PBS shows, taught at two universities, and written 12 textbooks. She’s not done yet inside by Jefferson Graham Lynne Gross retired in 2009, at age 70, after teaching “a little bit of everything” at Cal State University Fullerton for 20 years. During that time, she…
Read MoreTRAVEL: How to do Tijuana the right way, with a tour
If you read and watch the news, you’ve heard the message: Tijuana is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the home to more murders in Mexico than anywhere else in the country, and a place many of us are advised not to go to on our own. The fine print is that most…
Read MoreKing Tide to be celebrated in the South Bay
Thanks to the position of the Moon and its gravitational pull on our planet this week, it’s time again for the King Tides in California and other coastal states this week. The exact dates for King Tides: Thursday and Friday January 11 & 12 and February 9, 2024. In California, there are state sponsored Tide photowalks…
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