Thursday, April 19, 2007 - End of the World

Some people - many people - move to California to start again. You hate your life, you feel stuck, so you chuck it all, sell or give away most everything, pack what you guess you might need and drive to the far end of the continent - and you reinvent yourself. It's an old story - the Eagles sang about it in the Hotel California album; in fact, that whole album is about what happens when you get here, and you get as far west as you can get, and nothing is better, just different, and a sadly scary.

This is the place - as far west as you can get - the pier at Venice Beach on a quiet Thursday afternoon. The end of the line. As the Eagles song goes, "You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye."

Looking back, inland, the world is not empty.

And some people try to have fun (yeah, surfing with a parasail is tricky) -

There are other things to do…

Blank window with a view to the empty Pacific -

Just a wall, urging something -

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the 'fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik