Getty Center Fountain at Night #2

Here's another shot of the fountain on the plaza at the Getty Center taken at night. Here's my other photo of the fountain on the plaza at the Getty.

Canon EOS 20D
Canon 18-55mm lens at 25mm
1/5 sec at f/8.0
ISO 800

Echinacea Purpurea at the Getty Center Gardens

The central gardens at the Getty Center in Los Angeles were designed by artist Robert Irwin. (Getty Center The Central Garden) Irwin who conceived of the palette and structural layout worked with landscape design firm Spurlock Poirier to pull off this spectacular garden. The buildings, by the way, were designed by architect Richard Meier.

Visiting the Getty is as much an outing to be in awe of the architecture and the gardens as it to be in awe of art. To tell you the truth, I personally get more out of the buildings and the gardens than I do of the art. The art, of course, is highly specialized since John Paul Getty collected "antiquities". However, the Getty is building a substantial photographic collection currently and always has a large photographic exhibition running, and the "current exhibitions" are typically not focused on antiquities and are very compelling.

The photo of a coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) was taken on my recent visit there. The garden was in full-bloom and if you've never been and live in the LA area or will be visiting, the Getty Center is well-worth the visit in so many respects.

Canon EOS 20D
18-55mm lens at 55mm
1/40 sec at f/9

ISO 400

Getty Center Garden Reeds

One of the most frustrating things about posting photos to the Internet is the need to "optimize" the file size so that the images don't take too long to load. And you need to consider that many people are still using dial-up to access the Internet, so if you want people to spend time looking at your photography, you have to basically size the images for the slowest connections. This means converting your files from an uncompressed format, to the standard compressed image file format that we all know as jpeg.

The frustrating thing is that in doing so you lose so much image information that was was a bright and varied palette ends up flat and "dumbed-down" in terms of its color range. Then there's the whole range of monitors out there too, some with millions of color available and well-calibrated, to those that are best suited to rendering text, not colorful images.

This photo of reeds in the garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles is a case in point. The original photo has a rich palette of color consisting of greens, blues, some red, and yellow. Turn it into a jpeg file and it becomes very gray. It was so bad that for the first time I even spent some time trying to adjust the colors of the jpeg image. Still, its a mere shadow of the original. This photo will print beautifully from the uncompressed file, and will greatly exceed any expectations gained from viewing it online.

Just so that you can get some idea of what the original looks like, I have created a small tiff file of the photo - small for tiff, that is; 400x500p pixels with a mere 75dpi resolution. It's 800kb nonetheless, but if you have the bandwidth or time and would like to see it, here's link to it: photo of Getty Garden Reeds tiff format. You will be prompted to open or download the file so don't be shocked if that happens. Hope you like it.

Canon EOS 20D
18-55mm lens at 35mm
1/15 sec at f/11
ISO 400

405 Freeway from the Getty Center

405 Freeway at Night from the Getty Center

The Getty Center is located on the western side of the 405 freeway just as it rises into the Sepulveda Pass from L.A.'s Westside. At the southern end of the Getty there is parapet that runs out to the edge of the site overlooking a cactus garden and the 405 freeway. This is where I took this photo.

In the lower left of the photo you can see the classic shape of the old Holiday Inn Hotel, but which since 2006 is now a boutique hotel known as The Hotel Angeleno. In the distance are the lights of what I believe is Century City, but I am not 100% sure of that. Perhaps if you know the area well, you could post a comment confirming or correcting me.

Getty Center Fountain at Night

I've been to the Getty Center many times, but a recent visit there was the first time I've been there at night. Of course that afforded some new and unique opportunities for my camera, like this shot of the fountain in the main plaza area. Got some nice reflection on this.

Canon EOS 20D
70-300mm lens at 75mm
1 sec at f/13 ISO 800