Wanderlust in the OC
Wanderlust— it’s a word used more than it probably should. But for two weeks in the middle of January, 2020, I did my best to experience the spontaneity and curiosity that the word demands.
I found myself in Anaheim for a class. Each day, I counted down the minutes until class ended so I could sprint out the door and crawl through LA traffic in hopes of catching the last bit of light that could expose the film in my cameras.
I tried to get to the Venice Beach Skatepark where I thought the good shots were waiting. But each time I tried, the hour drive pushed me into the January evenings of dusk and shadows. And when I finally made it, I was disappointed with the sketchy atmosphere. I’ve been in way worse neighborhoods, but it was enough for me to be uneasy, especially with the Leica. I snapped a few shots on Tri-X pushed to 1600, but I was doubtful that anything would come out. The two hours in traffic back to my hotel was the cherry on top.
From then on, I surrendered to the idea that I would have to stay closer to Anaheim. A quick scan of the map revealed a few spots with potential. Each day after class, I dropped a pin and asked Siri for directions. The Hollywood sign? The Peach Pit from 90210? Malibu? Nope. If it was more than a 45 minute drive, I knew I couldn’t miss out on the better light somewhere closer. Huntington Beach, Balboa Beach, and Newport Beach, were where I found myself speed walking to catch the sunsets.
Huntington Beach was full of surfers, volleyball players, photographers, and families obviously on vacation. It was January, and I couldn’t imagine how busy the beach would have been during the summer. This evening, tripods and long lenses lined the low tide beach with the sun setting behind Ruby’s Diner at the end of the pier. I didn’t know if I picked a lucky night, or if every Huntington Beach resident experienced that sunset every night.
I had no idea what I was looking for. I didn’t know that I would meet a local skim boarder, or a fly fisherman from Seattle, but I knew that it I would find something if I kept going. I drifted into the Balboa Peninsula and parked at the pier. The pier was less touristy than Huntington’s, and it was lined with fishermen instead of shoppers. I returned to the car and drove as far south as I could go down the peninsula. I parked and walked along the mouth to the Newport Harbor. Yachts motored past with music blaring. Teenagers hung out at Pirate’s Cove Beach. I snapped the shutter as I walked along the bike path toward the rock jetty. I wandered up the beach and watched a guy fly fishing in the surf. Behind him, a skinny blonde kid sprinted after his skim board and twisted over the breaking waves. Snap, snap, snap.
I sat in the sand and waited for the angle of the sunset to silhouette the skim boarder as he rode the lip of the curl. When he came back up the beach, I shook his wet hand and introduced myself. I offered to email him the photos, but told him he would have to wait for me to return home, develop the film, and scan it. He said he hadn’t used a film camera since high school.
I finished two rolls of Portra and one roll of Tri-X. When the shutter speed became too slow, I waved bye and headed back to the car.
Back in my rental car, I plugged the hotel into the GPS, rolled down the window, and smiled. I was lonely without my wife and kids, but I was buzzing with excitement for the photos, praying to Kodak that they were exposed correctly. I quickly realized the wandering was the best part. The one thing I planned to do, the Venice Beach Skatepark, was a failure. But the instant I embraced the spontaneity of allowing life to call me closer, I found that Karma’s plan was better than I could have imagined.
