Rancho Los Cerritos, Long Beach

So happy I Stumbled upon Rancho Los Cerritos while I was working on a photography project in Long Beach with Visit Long Beach. It’s a historic GEM, it was "the largest and most impressive adobe residence erected in southern California during the Mexican period". Jotham Bixby, who owned the Rancho Los Cerritos, is known as the "Father of Long Beach"

 

You will need to join a tour with a Docent (free) if you want to visit the inside of the Rancho, their Docent was dressed up and narrated as one of the Bixby family members. Very interesting! I won’t say much so you have to experience this yourself. What I loved the most was that we went in almost every room of the rancho and they were fully decorated. Perfect for photographs!

Here are some photos I took during the tour, enjoy!

Images shot with Nikon D7200 on Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens (my favorite duo right now!)

Moonlight Forest Festival

I was invited to the Moonlight Forest – Lantern Art Festival launch party. The wings you see in my album might not still be there, but seems like they have added a few displays after my visit.

Dates: October 26, 2018 - January 6, 2019

Location: Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia

Tickets:
Wednesday – Thursday: Adult $25, Children (ages 3-17) $20, Senior (62+) $23
Friday – Sunday: Adult $28, Children (ages 3-17) $23, Senior (62+) $25

New York Photography Tour & Lesson

I have partnered with IfOnly during my New York City trip over the Labor Day weekend and took the New York City Photographic Journey with Ben Asen. 

The booking process was really easy, just needed to decide on the experience I wanted and choose a date and time I am available. The booking then goes to the Luminary for confirmation. This is when Ben messages me to confirm his availability and have a conversation about the location and our meeting point. I really liked this process, feels less like just any transaction. I got to know Ben a little more before we met. 

We met on Sunday night at 6PM, this allows me to take some photos during day light, sunset, and city lights at night. Here are some of the photos I shot:

Ben showed me how to play with lighting and exposure on the camera when the lighting started to get dark. Building with sunset reflecting on it will always look better than during day time. 

I really like this sailboat photo under the Brooklyn Bridge! 

This was my very first photography lesson and tour and loved the experience. Photography is way for the photographer to showcase their way of looking at the world through the camera lens, and seeing what others see will help broaden your point of view. Ben mentioned the same thing by saying if there were 100 photography students photographing the same thing, they will produce 100 different photos. The photos I took from this experience are really different from what I normally take, and this definitely changed my way of looking at things. I am considering taking photography tours in the different cities I will visit.