That problem was solved recently when I discovered that the Port of Long Beach offers weekly boat tours. Instead of shooting from land, I was able to capture my images from the water, out of range of the trucks and with the blessing of law enforcement.

I love shooting big industrial landscapes. What they lack in conventional beauty, they often make up for in aesthetically pleasing geometry and symmetry. I also like being witness to the innovative ways we solve big problems. How do we efficiently transport as many cars as we can from one continent to another? How do we reduce the cost of launching a rocket into space? How do we efficiently load and unload a ship the size of four football fields?

Here, for example, is a group of gantry cranes used to load and unload container ships:

Gantry Cranes – Port of Long Beach, California

Because the Earth is nearest to space at the middle of the planet, rockets are occasionally launched from floating platforms at the equator in order to reduce costs. Long Beach is home to one such  platform, called the Sea Launch, which is towed by a ship called the Sea Launch Commander. Here they are:

The Sea Launch and Sea Launch Commander – Port of Long Beach, California

Electricity is produced at the port by the Harbor Cogeneration Facility, which is a 100 megawatt natural gas-fired electrical generation plant.

Harbor Cogeneration Facility – Port of Long Beach, California

In addition to all of this 21st century technology, the Port also has some throwbacks to the past, including the Queen Mary…

Queen Mary – Long Beach, California

…and some Art Deco warehouse facilities, dating from the mid 1950s:

Pier D – Port of Long Beach

Girl in Cowboy Boots - SFO

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Stetson and Cell Phone - SFO

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Sleeping Soldier - SFO

I arrived early enough to capture several long exposures before the sun came up and then stuck around to photograph the dawn surf patrol.

Newport Pier - Newport Beach, CA

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Newport Pier - Newport Beach, CA

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Solitary Surfer - Newport Beach, CA

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I have seen so many amazing sights from the window of an airplane: lightning storms all along the eastern seaboard as I flew from D.C. to Miami; the thin, green ribbon of the Nile tracing its way through the Sahara; the flood-stricken Great Plains states; the mast of an enormous sailboat poking through the fog as we took off from Orange County, California; the Grand Canyon and the Meteor Crater in Arizona; the Milky Way and countless full moons and sunsets. As I think about those experiences, I feel indicted by Louis CK’s widely viewed Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy rant on Conan O’Brien’s talk show.

So, on a recent two hour flight, when I found myself in a row by myself, I moved from the aisle to the window, put away the stacks of reading materials I had brought and pulled down my camera from the overhead bin. It was hot on the ground and the air was hazy, but I still took about 250 photographs along the way. It was another example of a recurring phenomenon in my life as a photographer: the camera helps me to see. The world is an amazing place. I need to remember to slow down and look at it.

Here are a couple of images from my recent flight:

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