Michael D. Ferguson Photography: 4th of July Festivities

I hope your Fourth of July celebrations were great (and safe)! This weekend was especially memorable for me because I got my brand new Nikon D90 camera on Friday afternoon.

Naturally, I had to try it out.

I scribbled down the series of streets that would lead me to that secluded spot on the Palos Verdes peninsula (from a couple of posts back) on a piece of engineering paper and set out about 30 minutes 'til sunset. My plan was to get there with plenty of time to set up a great shot and break in the new camera with a spectacular sunset. As I headed up the hill I realized that the marine layer hadn't burned off and that the spot would be immersed in clouds - but there was a silver lining to this story. I set up the tripod anyway and stayed until dark to get the light trails I had been trying for last time.

*Note: the pic got cropped so click on it to see it in full. Same goes for every landscape picture posted thus far. I'll work on that.
--UPDATE-- The problem is fixed! Just had to modify the template CSS a bit :)

The next morning (the 4th of July, if you're keeping score at home) I picked up my friend Cori to meet our compadre Adrian and his amiga Jessica at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro. There was a ceremony for the ringing of the Korean Friendship Bell (which we missed because they did it early) and several vintage vehicles were on display.

This is the same place dad and I went for Father's Day but we missed something. Dad and I saw the Korean Friendship Bell and the southern part of the installation but we had not ventured up to the battery itself. It was amazing. We went into the Osgood and Farley Battery and explored the history. This place would have kicked some serious butt had the enemy been foolish enough to try to roll into the Los Angeles harbor. Long story short: we learned some awesome stuff and saw 18 feet of a 50-foot 14-inch-shell-firing battleship-destroying planet-exploding evil-grin-inducing hulk of a gun that was installed at Ft. MacArthur during its glory days.

Well, that would have been enough fun for one day but it's the Fourth of July! This only comes about once every year, I think. Dad and I headed over to one of his coworker's fiesta and had a good time. Andrew came over after a little bit and when it started to get dark he and I made the executive decision to go to a hill near LAX to see the area fireworks. From this spot we could see fireworks displays from the Coliseum, Marina del Rey, the Hollywood Bowl, El Segundo, and tons of other private ceremonies. Andrew was kind enough to lend me his tripod for the fireworks.