Navy at San Diego

San Diego is home to a very large US Navy base, as well as Naval Air Station, in San Diego Bay and Coronado Island. Thus, there were plenty of naval ships to watch and take pictures of as they sailed in and out of the bay as well as docked. Here are the ships I saw.

USS Carl Vinson CVN-70, USS John C. Stennis CVN-74, and USS Ronald Reagan CVN-76, Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarriers:

It's interesting seeing three supercarriers in port since only two are homeported in San Diego, the Carl Vinson and the Ronald Reagan (although the Reagan is moving to Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan to replace the USS George Washington as it returns for maintenance and is being replaced with the USS Theodore Roosevelt). I've tried looking up why the three carriers were in port at the same time but I couldn't find any information. Still, it was an awesome sight.

USS Mobile Bay CG-53, Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser:

USS Decateur DDG-73 and USS Stockdale DDG-106, Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers:

Also, got to see a lot of these around, Seahawks flying about (I can't tell if it's an SH-60 or MH-60 though). I saw at least 4-5 per day flying up and down the bay.

Twinning

Starting to publish and share my photography has been interesting and exciting. You can meet so many cool people by doing so and find new opportunities. For example, I published my picture from my earlier blog post, "My Car", to my Instagram page, and the Cars of ASU (@carsofasu) page commented on it, with one of the admins saying he owns an Accord, too. And by "Accord", I mean identical Accord: 2008 Honda Accord sedan in the EX-L trim line with White Pearl Metallic paint and sand/beige/tan interior. So, we decided to have a photoshoot together with our Accords at Tempe Town Lake.

Both of us regularly go out to shoot supercars/exotic cars/expensive cars, but it was nice shooting our cars. After all, these are what we drive everyday. For me, it was especially exciting to meet another Accord owner who both loves cars and likes the car he drives. It felt good appreciating our cars for what they had to offer, including an actually-pretty-decent amount of power and pull (hey, 268hp and 244 lb-ft of torque, especially in the era when V6 muscle cars could barely make above 200 with larger V6 engines, is pretty good). It was also cool talking about the small details of the car that only comes from long ownership, such as the leather on the center armrest peeling off or being able to feel exactly when VTEC kicks in (yo). 

But, the sun was setting and we already got yelled at by the people who patrol the lake for parking in front of the boat-launching area, so we decided to relocate and try some more photography.

We ended up going onto the Mill Avenue bridge that crosses over Tempe Town Lake and parking on the side. Oh, the things that you feel safer about doing when someone is with you. Neither of us would do this alone, after all. Since it was dark, i decided to try some long exposures, not only to help overcome the darkness, but to also create light streams past our cars. 

It's fun shooting with other people, not only because you feel more emboldened to try new shots, but also because you can talk about photography with them. As we waited for the exposures to finish, we talked about long exposures and other photography styles, continuing our conversations from Tempe Town Lake. 

Eventually, we came to the point where we agreed that we've taken "enough" pictures, since we both know how it is: we plan for some time to take photos, spend double the amount of time planned taking photos, and still feel disappointed in how all the images are coming out. So, with photos taken, information exchanged, and each other better known, we left the bridge in our cars. (And also the photos did come out pretty well.)

Thanks to Hemang at Cars of ASU for the shoot!

More photos:

My Car

Remember how I said I'd take some good shots of my car and write a feature about it? Well, the feature and all the shots still only exist in the future, but I went to South Mountain last evening and some of the shots I took excite me enough I can't wait to share them. Look forward to a feature of my Honda soon.

School's Over!

Well, my first year of college has ended, so now I should have free time to edit my pictures, especially since I thought I would be taking classes this summer and didn't look for a job, only to end up not taking classes, leaving me with all this free time. Expect to see many more posts!

The year went by fast, with all of time blurring together. Here's to carving out our roads to our future, where great things await.

Full res: https://www.flickr.com/photos/124240658@N06/17477375145/