Humans just cannot seem to leave well enough alone. An example of this is Oat Mountain, a mountain in the Santa Monica Mountain range. It is owned by the gas company, and the peak is home to telecommunications, so it has been spoiled.
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Aside from that fact, well enough cannot be left alone. I recently went up there for the first time in about 18 months (I have been going there since I was a toddler), and of course brought my camera.
This photo was taken in February 2008, and note the wall on the right of the photo:
I took the following last weekend, July 2010.
Now, Oat Mountain is kind of a hike to the top, and the only way that someone can get to it in a car is by owning a key (which not to many people have access to).
I am sad that someone would travel to the top of the peak, with spray paint, just to deface a wall that very few people will see.
I noticed when looking through my Flickr set of Oat, that the scenery has changed (of course), but so has my eye.
In February 2008, I was taking photos like this:
And in July 2010, I took a photo like this:
Now, for those of you that say, "What kind of camera is that? It takes such good pictures!" the first photo was taken with m first SLR, a Canon Rebel XTi. The last photo was taken with my iPhone.
Quite interesting to compare the type of photography and to see my growth as a photographer.
A couple of my favorites from this latest trip up there:
Of course I found the flowers on the otherwise brown mountain.
I'm also experimenting a little bit with some Lightroom presets and customizing:
This aged tone really spoke to me for this photo, because the tree is old, and the surrounding vegetation is brown anyway. I always think warmly of Oat Mountain because it has been part of my life, so this tone reflected my warm fuzzies for it as well.
Thanks for stopping by!