Model Homes

I’ve driven past this place more times than I can count. It sits right off the road in Homeland, an old manufactured home sales lot with a small stucco sales office, bars on the windows and a row of homes lined up behind a chain-link fence. In all those trips, I never once thought of it as something worth photographing.

This time I pulled into the parking lot, and something changed. Standing there instead of passing by at highway speed, I realized the place told a story about the area. The dirt lot, the fenced-in homes waiting for buyers, the granite hills in the background and the security bars on the office all say something about Homeland and the kind of place it is. I thought that if I framed it properly, I might be able to pass that story along through a photograph.

So I slowed down and built the frame piece by piece. I worked out the composition so that the sales office anchors the left side and the row of homes carries your eye across to the hills on the right. With a 6x17 panoramic camera, nothing about that happens by accident. The structure of the photo has to be built deliberately, one adjustment at a time.

The sales office is the heaviest element in the frame. Its bright stucco wall is broken by two dark rectangles, the barred security door and the barred window, and those are the first things your eye goes to. They set the tone for the whole photo. A palm tree peeks over the roof behind it, and the address number, 31838, sits up under the eave like the building’s only name tag.

From there, the chain-link fence takes over and leads you to the right, past the strip of lawn and along the row of manufactured homes. The homes repeat across the frame, one after another, almost like a line of model units on display, which is exactly what they are. The granite hills rise behind them and close off the right side of the picture.

I also left a lot of room for the dirt lot in the foreground. It takes up nearly the bottom third of the frame, and that empty space matters. It puts some distance between you and the buildings and gives the photo a quiet, slightly abandoned feeling. The tones stay restrained throughout: the light stucco and pale dirt, the darker shapes of the doorway, window and trees, and an open sky over all of it.

This isn’t the kind of image that stops you in your tracks, and it isn’t trying to be. It’s an honest photograph. It shows the area as it is, without dressing it up. Sometimes that matters more than making a striking picture.

A lot of the places that say the most about a region are the ones we drive past every day without noticing. This was one of them for me. I’m glad I finally stopped.

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A manufactured home sales lot off Highway 74 in Homeland

Tag Name	Data
Title	Model Homes
Image Description	The barred sales office of an aging manufactured home sales lot faces a dirt lot, with units lined up behind chain-link fencing, in the unincorporated community of Homeland in Riverside County.
Keywords	6x17 film, Americana, Highway 74, Homeland, Inland Empire, USA, address number, affordable housing, barred windows, black and white, boulders, built environment, california, chain-link fence, commercial building, daytime, dirt lot, empty, everyday life, exurb, granite hills, gravel lot, home sales, homeland california, housing, housing market, landscape, manufactured home sales lot, manufactured homes, mobile home dealer, mobile homes, modular homes, nobody, palm trees, panorama, panoramic, portra 160, riverside county, roadside, rural development, rural housing, sales office, security bars, security door, small business, southern california, spring, stucco building, unincorporated Riverside County, vernacular architecture, weeds
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	CCB
Camera Model Name	CCB 617C
Lens Model	Schneider 90mm f/8 Super-Angulon
Focal Length	90.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	19.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/30 second
Aperture Value	22.00
ISO	160
Date/Time Original	Sunday March 01, 2026 11:25am
City	Homeland
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	490 meters (1607.6 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7435818783056
GPS Longitude	-117.105626051639
Map	Google Map Link

Waiting for the Bus

This is one of those photos that took more than one trip to get right.

I shot it with my 3D-printed 6x17 panoramic camera. It has no built-in viewfinder, so the first time I photographed this bench, framing was mostly estimation and a bit of faith. The composition I had in my head never made it onto the film. So I came back with my Linhof 617 viewfinder mounted on the camera.

The second time, I took my time, as I always do. I made sure the camera’s pitch and roll were exactly level and that the framing was perfectly square to the bench, the stop pole and the fence line behind it. I even shot two frames, because I thought I might have shaken the camera on the first one. A wide 6x17 frame shows small mistakes quickly, and I didn’t want to make a third trip.

Getting the shot wasn’t exactly peaceful. To fit the whole scene in, I had to stand with my back very close to Highway 74, with cars rushing past pretty quickly just a few feet behind me. I wore my yellow reflector vest, which I’d recommend to anyone shooting along a road like this. No photo is worth getting clipped by a car.

This is a centered composition, and I built it that way on purpose. The bench sits in the middle of the frame, and the bus stop pole rises from right behind it and runs straight out the top of the picture. Together they form a strong central axis. Normally I’d avoid putting the subject dead center, but here the symmetry works. It makes the bench feel formal and deliberate, almost like it was placed on a stage, and that makes its emptiness more noticeable.

Squaring the camera to the bench was essential. Because I shot it straight on, every line in the scene runs parallel to the edges of the frame. The back and seat of the bench, the rails of the chain-link fence and the top of the wooden fence behind it all stack up as flat horizontal bands. If the camera had been even slightly off, those lines would have started to converge, and the calm, orderly feeling of the photo would have fallen apart.

The scene is also built in layers, and most of them are barriers. In front of the bench there’s open dirt. Behind it is the chain-link fence, then a wooden fence, and then the hills. It’s fences behind fences, with the “Private Property” sign on the gate at the left spelling it out. The bench faces out toward the road, but everything behind it says keep out. That contrast is a big part of the story for me.

The vertical elements give the frame its rhythm. The chain-link fence posts repeat across the whole width of the photo, and the bus stop pole is the tallest and strongest of them, so it reads as one more post in the line while still standing apart. The edges are balanced too. On the left, the gate and the bare hillside fill the corner. On the right, the trees and the circular stone wall carry the weight. Neither side pulls your eye away from the center.

I gave the foreground plenty of room. The dirt and weeds take up roughly the bottom third of the frame, which puts a little distance between you and the bench, the way you’d see it walking up to the stop. The sky, on the other hand, is just a thin strip at the top. Keeping it small holds the attention down on the ground, where the story is.

I pre-visualized this one as a black and white image. In my head it was always about shapes and tones, and in black and white the composition is at its purest. The fence becomes a fine texture, the bench becomes a clean, simple shape, and the central axis of bench and pole stands out clearly. But when I saw the color version, the blue of the RTA bench made a strong case for itself too. In color, the bench pops against the dry grass, the tan dirt and the rusty brown of the wooden fence, and it becomes the first thing you see. So I’m sharing both here, and you can decide which one you like better.

As for what the photo means, I’ll leave that to you. A lone bench with nobody waiting can tell a lot of different stories. Maybe the bus just left. Maybe it hasn’t come in years. Maybe someone sits here every morning and just wasn’t there that day. I’d rather let you make up your own story.

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Color image

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Black and white, as I pre-visualized it

Tag Name	Data
Title	Waiting for the Bus
Image Description	A Riverside Transit Agency bench and bus stop pole stand in an overgrown dirt lot in front of chain-link fencing and a “Private Property” sign in unincorporated Riverside County, east of Homeland near the Highway 74 corridor.
Keywords	6x17 film, Americana, Highway 74, Homeland, Inland Empire, RTA, Riverside Transit Agency, State Route 74, USA, Winchester, boulders, bus bench, bus stop, california, chain-link fence, daytime, dirt lot, empty, empty lot, everyday life, exurb, granite hills, homeland california, landscape, nobody, overgrown weeds, panoramic, portra 160, private property, project74, public transit, public transportation, riverside county, roadside, rural development, rural transit, southern california, spring, suburban sprawl, transit access, transit desert, transit infrastructure, transportation equity, unincorporated Riverside County, urban planning, vacant lot
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	CCB
Camera Model Name	CCB 617C
Lens Model	Schneider 90mm f/8 Super-Angulon
Focal Length	90.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	19.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/30 second
Aperture Value	25.00
ISO	160
Date/Time Original	Sunday March 01, 2026 11:00am
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
Location	Green Acres
GPS Altitude	490 meters (1607.6 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7389183350028
GPS Longitude	-117.087715015014
Map	Google Map Link

That cycle of burning out

Where I've Been

If you've noticed it's been quiet around here lately, you're not imagining it. There's probably only one of you out there reading this blog, but if you've been wondering what happened to me, here's the story.

This isn't the first time I've stepped away from photography. During the many years I shot weddings, the camera slowly stopped being a source of joy and started feeling like a job. I still gave every couple my best work, but I remember plenty of weddings where I was just focused on getting through the day. It wasn't the same thrill I felt when I first started. For years, I didn't pick up a camera unless someone was paying me to.

Then, eventually, I picked one up again just for myself, and the bug bit me all over again. That cycle of burning out and falling back in love has happened a few times over my career, so I've learned not to panic when the break comes.

This time was different, though. I didn't stop because photography had become a chore. I stopped because two other parts of my life needed my full attention.

Getting my health back

I've always eaten fairly healthy, but apparently not healthy enough. I'd been dealing with aches and pains that I chalked up to approaching my late 50s. On a whim, I tried cutting out sugar, and within a few days the pain started to fade. That got my attention.

So I committed to a multi-month effort to cut sugar out completely, or as close as I could get. Within the first few weeks, most of the pain was gone, and my mobility felt years younger. I made a conscious decision to give myself three months to focus on nothing but getting healthier. It was well over 100 degrees on many days this summer anyway, so setting aside the after-work and weekend photo outings wasn't a hard call.

Now, at the end of October, I feel like I'm in my 30s again. There's still some lingering pain, but it gets better day by day. Clearly, my body didn't agree with sugar.

A new job and a long couple of months

At the same time, I started a new job. I've been in the car business for more than 30 years, and I've seen it all. Even so, this position needed much more fixing than I expected. It's nothing I can't handle, but it's taken a lot longer than I planned. Learning new people, new processes and new problems while trying to turn things around meant working practically around the clock, seven days a week, for the past couple of months. That took a toll, both mentally and physically, and it left no room for photography.

The good news is that I've accomplished most of what I set out to do at work. A few things remain, but everything runs far more smoothly than it did a couple of months ago, and I finally have the mental space to enjoy myself again.

Back behind the camera

As I write this, I'm deciding what gear to pack before I jump on the freeway and head down to Huntington Beach to see my young granddaughters. This is the first weekend I'm taking fully off, and I can't wait to get my head back into my hobby.

I've also got a big backlog of film and digital images waiting to be edited, so my plan is to work through those and get back into a regular rhythm of posting. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how it goes.

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One of the many new pieces of gear I still have to get out and get going and test - a 6×17 back

My 2026 Reading Year - A Mid-Year Check-In

Six months into the year, and I’ve made it through 24 books. Averaging exactly 3.0 stars, which sounds unspectacular until you think about what that number actually represents — a real mix of genuine surprises, comfortable old favorites, and a handful of books I probably should have DNF’d but stubbornly finished anyway. At this rate, I’m on pace for somewhere around 48 to 50 books by December, which means my goal of hitting 50 this year is looking very achievable. If anything, I might blow past it.

I wanted to sit down and actually think through what this first half of the year has looked like, not just log the star ratings and move on. There’s a real story in the data if you look closely, and some patterns I hadn’t quite noticed until I laid everything out side by side.

The Standouts

Four books earned the full five stars from me this year, and together they tell an interesting story. Judge Stone by Viola Davis genuinely had me hooked from start to finish — the kind of book where you look up and realize you’ve read for two hours without noticing. Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo was similarly excellent: well-paced, satisfying ending, exactly the kind of book that makes you feel good about the time you spent with it. Revenge Prey, the 36th entry in John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport series, was a return to form — no gimmicks, no over-the-top set pieces, just a solid, well-executed crime novel. And The Fourth Option by Jack Carr was an absolute page-turner from the opening chapters, the kind of thriller that makes you cancel plans.

Here’s what jumps out at me: three of those four favorites — Davis, Rindo, and arguably Carr — are authors I picked up this year after doing some actual research into reviews rather than just grabbing whatever was on the bestseller table. That’s not a coincidence. It’s paid off. When I put in the effort to actually vet a book before buying it, I’ve been rewarded. That’s a habit worth keeping for the back half of the year.

The Disappointments

Not every experiment worked out, and five books this year got the dreaded one-star rating. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker didn’t land for me at all — I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone spend time on it. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a reread, and I’d hoped maybe I’d missed something the first time around, but no — still poorly written regardless of how famous Fitzgerald was. Slaughterhouse-Five just wasn’t for me. Neither was The Little Prince, which I found to be an odd little fantasy story that never grabbed me. And then there’s In Too Deep, the 29th Jack Reacher novel, which I think marks the point where I’m officially done with that series — Reacher has just run its course for me.

What’s notable here is the pattern: three of my five worst reads this year were classic, “important” literary titles rather than genre fiction. Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Saint-Exupéry — books that show up on every “must-read” list you’ll ever see — just didn’t do it for me. I think this confirms something I’ve suspected for a while: I’m a commercial thriller and mystery reader at heart, and I probably shouldn’t keep forcing myself through literary classics out of some sense of obligation. Life’s too short, and there are too many good thrillers waiting.

The Comfortable Middle

The bulk of my reading this year has lived in that solid 3-to-4-star range, and it’s mostly been series fiction — the stuff I come back to year after year. Joe Pickett, two Longmire books, Colter Shaw, another Lucas Davenport entry, J.P. Beaumont. I also branched out into some standalones like The Women, Mad Mabel, and Naked in Death, all of which were perfectly decent reads without quite reaching the top tier.

But going back through my own reviews, I noticed I kept using the same complaint over and over: “predictable,” “far-fetched,” “formula.” Books in the Longmire series, The Brothers McKay specifically, and that last Reacher book all got hit with some version of this critique. There’s a real pattern of long-running series leaning too hard on outlandish, life-or-death survival situations to manufacture tension, when honestly the characters and the humor are strong enough to carry a quieter story. It’s starting to feel like these authors don’t trust their own foundations anymore.

Looking Ahead

So where does that leave me for the second half of the year? I think the lesson is clear: keep researching new authors before buying, since that’s where the real discoveries have been. Ease off the classic literary fiction I’m reading out of obligation rather than actual interest. And maybe give some of these long-running series a breather, or at least go in with tempered expectations about where the plot is headed.

Here’s to the next 25-plus books and hitting that 50-book goal by year’s end.

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Books read so far for 2026

A Roadside Discovery on 29 Palms Highway

I was driving back from Roy’s Motel and Café in Amboy, that lonely stretch of Route 66 nostalgia sitting out in the Mojave, when the desert did what it does best — it threw something unexpected in my path. I’d already stopped a few times to test out a new 3D printed camera, shooting each scene twice: once on film through the homemade body, once on digital as insurance. That instinct to hedge my bets turned out to be the right call. When I got the film back, every frame from that camera was ruined by light leaks — streaks of stray light bleeding across the images, turning what could have been interesting exposures into unusable waste. It happens with a build like that; you’re working with an untested seal, an untested body, and the desert sun doesn’t forgive small gaps. I won’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed, but I was glad I had the digital backup running in parallel, because this particular shot needed to exist.

What stopped me here was pure reflex. I caught the yellow building out of the corner of my eye and snapped my head to the right — one of those involuntary double-takes you get when a shape or a color doesn’t belong to the landscape around it, or maybe belongs to it a little too perfectly. There was no shoulder to pull onto in the moment, so I had to keep driving, find a place to turn around, and loop back to actually stop and look at what I’d seen. That kind of chase-the-image moment is part of what I love about shooting on the road — the photograph doesn’t come to you, you have to go back for it.

Once I was standing in front of it, the building did all the work. The mustard-yellow paint, faded and patchy from decades of sun, still held onto the ghost of its old sign, hand-lettered and half-legible now, a business that clearly hasn’t sold a refrigerator in a very long time. The corrugated roll-down door, the cracked concrete apron out front, the overhang held up by two thin posts — it all reads like a stage set for a story that already ended. And then, just when I thought the frame was complete, I noticed the vintage RV parked behind the fence line, half-hidden by scrub brush. That was the detail that sealed it. One relic photographing another.

I gravitated toward the panoramic stitch for this one because the format suits the way I encountered the scene — wide, sweeping, taking in the empty lot, the chain-link, the distant hills, and the sky pressing down on all of it. The extra width lets the eye wander, as mine did, from the sign to the doorway to the RV and back again. These are the images I chase: quiet, abandoned, human-built things left to the desert, photographed in a way that lets them tell their own story.

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Abandoned Appliance Store Joshua Tree California

Tag Name	Data
Title	Abandoned Appliance Store Joshua Tree California
Image Description	A sun-bleached yellow commercial building, formerly housing Maldonado Appliances, sits abandoned along a desert highway in Joshua Tree, California. Originally constructed as a gas station, the structure was later repurposed as a retail shop before closing. Weeds push through the cracked asphalt lot. A vintage RV is visible behind chain-link fencing to the left. The Mojave Desert and distant hills of the San Bernardino Mountains stretch across the horizon.
Keywords	6x17, 6x17 panorama, American West, Maldonado Appliances, Mojave Desert, San Bernardino County, United States, abandoned building, abandoned store, appliance store, california, canopy, commercial building, cracked asphalt, defunct business, dereliction, desert decay, desert landscape, documentary photography, former gas station, ghost town, joshua tree, landscape photography, neglect, panorama, panoramic photography, roadside architecture, stitched panorama, urban decay, vernacular architecture, wide format, yellow building
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS R5
Lens Model	EF50mm f/1.2L USM
Focal Length	50.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	17.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/800 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Sunday March 08, 2026 01:35pm
City	Joshua Tree
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	870 meters (2854.3 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	34.1351849183478
GPS Longitude	-116.331280641672
Map	Google Map Link

Why I will not buy a Hasselblad

Hasselblad Used to Mean Something. Giving Gear Away to YouTubers Is Changing That.

For as long as I’ve been into photography, Hasselblad has occupied a different tier in my mind than almost any other camera brand. It wasn’t just equipment — it was an aspiration. The kind of system you worked toward, saved for, and eventually earned the right to own. Hasselblad’s reputation was built on precision, exclusivity, and a legacy that stretched from medium-format studio work to the Moon landing. Owning one said something about where you were in your craft.

That’s part of why it’s been so disappointing to watch the brand hand out its gear for free to YouTubers in exchange for video coverage.

When Aspiration Turns Into Advertising

I understand the business logic. Influencer seeding is cheap, effective marketing, and Hasselblad is hardly the only company doing it. But there’s a real cost to this strategy when the brand in question has spent decades cultivating an image of rarity and craftsmanship. When a camera that once felt like a milestone shows up unboxed by a creator who didn’t pay for it, didn’t necessarily earn it, and may not even keep using it past the sponsored video, the equipment stops feeling special. It starts to feel like product placement.

The exclusivity was never just about price. It was about the sense that the people using this gear had deliberately chosen it, often after years with other systems. Free gear handed out for exposure undercuts that entirely. It signals that the brand cares more about impressions and click-through rates than about its relationship with the photographers who actually buy into its ecosystem.

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Roberts Cottages in Oceanside shot on my Hasselblad 500CM

The Trust That Gets Spent

Brands like Hasselblad don’t just sell hardware — they sell a story about what owning that hardware means. Every giveaway aimed at growing a YouTube channel’s subscriber count chips away at that story a little more. It reframes the camera as just another tech product competing for attention rather than a tool with a legacy worth respecting.

I had genuinely planned to upgrade to Hasselblad gear at some point. That’s no longer the plan. Not because the cameras got worse, but because the brand’s own marketing has made me wonder what, exactly, I’d be buying into.

A Brand’s Choice to Make

None of this means influencer marketing is inherently wrong, or that other companies haven’t done the same thing without consequence. But Hasselblad built its name on being different — on standing apart from the churn of constant product cycles and algorithm-chasing content. Free gear for YouTubers is a strategy brands use to manufacture relevance. It’s not a strategy that fits a brand that already has it.

If Hasselblad wants to retain the loyalty of photographers who see the brand as something to work toward, it might want to reconsider whose hands its cameras end up in—and why.

Changed my mind about film cameras

As I have mentioned, I sold most of my gear in 2024. I initially had plans to purchase another 500 or 501 body because I liked the camera. However every time I go to look and shop for one I just have this bad taste in my mouth. I feel like I have been betrayed. I may eventually buy another film camera, but it is very, very unlikely that I will ever support the new Hasselblad that gives away free cameras to people who make videos. I understand what they wanted to do, but they should not have given them. They could have either invited several influencers to an event or just let them use them for a short period.

How the light moved across the scene

Some photographs announce themselves immediately. Others make you work for them. This image of a cluster of rural mailboxes at a dusty crossroads in the San Jacinto Valley fell firmly into the second category — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I first came across this intersection almost by accident, the way you often stumble onto the best subjects. There was something immediately compelling about it: the row of mismatched boxes leaning at odd angles, the faded stop sign, the open sweep of valley behind it all, the snow-dusted mountains sitting quietly on the horizon. It had the kind of accidental composition that rural places seem to arrange for themselves, without any human intention toward aesthetics. I knew I wanted to photograph it, but I also knew I hadn’t found it at the right moment yet.

So I scouted. I came back at different times of day, watching how the light moved across the scene, how the shadows shifted, how the sky changed character from morning to afternoon. I shot the location on 35mm black-and-white film on one of those early visits — testing the bones of the image, working out its geometry. The frames were useful, but something wasn’t quite sitting right. The format felt too contained for what the scene was asking for. This was a wide, lateral subject — a lineup, a procession — and it needed room to breathe.

That’s when I decided to come back with my Linhof Technorama 617S and commit to the 6x17 panoramic format. The decision changed everything. Suddenly, the mailboxes had context, the landscape had weight, and the relationship between the road, the boxes, and the mountains in the distance could be felt the way it actually feels standing there. The Schneider 90mm Super-Angulon takes in the world with a kind of quiet authority, and on that February afternoon, with the light coming in at just the angle I’d been waiting for, the scene finally gave itself up.

The one element I wrestled with in post-processing was the shadows in the foreground — cast by trees just outside the frame, cutting across the dirt road in bold diagonal stripes. My instinct at first was to remove them. They felt intrusive, like something that had wandered into the picture uninvited. I tried. But each time I pulled them out, something went with them. The foreground felt empty, unanchored. The shadows, it turned out, were doing real work — adding texture, depth, and a sense of time of day that grounded the whole image. I left them in, and I think that was the right call.

Rural scenes like this one keep drawing me back. There’s a character to them that’s hard to manufacture and impossible to fake — something in the weathered surfaces, the improvised arrangements, the sense that life has been lived here without much concern for how it looks from the outside. I find that honesty more interesting than almost anything else a camera can find.

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Rural scenes like this one keep drawing me back

On location video

Tag Name	Data
Title	Cluster of Mailboxes at Rural Crossroads Hemet California
Image Description	A row of mismatched rural mailboxes lines a dusty intersection in Hemet California. The weathered boxes mark the convergence of scattered properties across an undeveloped landscape of scrub, palm trees, and distant snow-dusted mountains. A faded stop sign anchors the corner against an open sky.
Keywords	6x17, 6x17 film, California desert, Inland Empire, San Jacinto Mountains, San Jacinto Valley, address markers, crossroads, decay, desert foothills, dirt road, documentary photography, exurban, faded, hemet, intersection, kodak portra 160, landscape, linhof technorama, mailboxes, medium format, open sky, palm trees, panorama, panoramic photography, postal service, power lines, riverside county, roadside, rural Americana, rural California, rural infrastructure, southern california, stop sign, suburban fringe, undeveloped land, utility poles, weathered, wide angle
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Linhof
Camera Model Name	Linhof Technorama 617S
Lens Model	Schneider 90mm f/5.6 Super-Angulon
Focal Length	90.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	19.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/60 second
Aperture Value	19.00
ISO	160
Date/Time Original	Sunday February 22, 2026 02:24pm
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	500 meters (1640.4 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7395652932972
GPS Longitude	-117.097313496769
Map	Google Map Link

Canon Date Codes: How to Read Your Lens or Camera Serial Number

Canon used a date-code system on its cameras and lenses for decades, from the 1960s until roughly 2020. Understanding these codes is genuinely useful — whether you're buying used gear and want to verify a seller's claims about age, trying to track the manufacturing history of a vintage lens, or simply satisfying your curiosity about when a piece of equipment was built.

How the Code Works

Each Canon date code is made up of three components printed or engraved on the camera body or lens barrel, usually near the mount or on a data plate:

First letter — identifies the manufacturing plant where the item was produced.

Second letter — indicates the year of manufacture, cycling through the alphabet (A = 1960, B = 1961, and so on, repeating every 26 years)

Next two digits — represent the month of manufacture (01 = January, 12 = December)

So a code like UH04 would decode as: manufactured at plant U, in 2019 (H in the third cycle of the alphabet), in April (month 04). This matches the example on the Canon TS-E 17mm tilt-shift lens pictured below, which carries the code UH0409 — April 2019.

It's worth noting that because the alphabet cycles every 26 years, the letter alone doesn't tell you the exact year — you need to use context (the product's known production window, the lens mount type, etc.) to determine which cycle applies. For instance, H could mean 1967, 1993, or 2019.

Manufacturing Plants

The first letter in the code identifies where the product was made. Canon has operated factories primarily in Japan (notably in Utsunomiya and Fukushima), as well as facilities in Taiwan, Malaysia, and China for certain products. While Canon has not officially published a complete plant-code key, the most commonly documented plant identifiers seen in the wild include U (widely associated with Utsunomiya, Japan — Canon's primary lens factory), among others. If plant identification is critical for your research, cross-referencing with community databases like Ken Rockwell's Canon date code reference or the Fred Miranda forums can help fill in gaps.

What If There's No Date Code?

If your Canon lens or camera body doesn't have a visible date code, it was likely manufactured under Canon's newer serial number system, which Canon transitioned to around 2020 as production shifted more heavily toward RF-mount mirrorless products. These newer serial numbers encode manufacturing information differently and aren't decoded the same way. Ken Rockwell's Canon date codes page is a helpful reference for both systems.

Why This Matters for Buying Used Gear

Date codes are particularly valuable when purchasing second-hand lenses. A seller listing a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II as "barely used" can be fact-checked — if the date code indicates a 2008 manufacture date, that lens is now nearly 20 years old, regardless of how it looks externally. Conversely, finding a mint-condition lens with a recent date code can give you confidence that you're getting something that hasn't had decades of wear on the focus helicoid or aperture blades.

Date codes also matter for warranty and service history research, since Canon's authorized repair centers can use the manufacturing date alongside the serial number to look up service records.

Here is a chart of Canon Date Codes

A	1960	1986	2012
B	1961	1987	2013
C	1962	1988	2014
D	1963	1989	2015
E	1964	1990	2016
F	1965	1991	2017
G	1966	1992	2018
H	1967	1993	2019
I	1968	1994	2020
J	1969	1995	2021
K	1970	1996	2022
L	1971	1997	2023
M	1972	1998	2024
N	1973	1999	2025
O	1974	2000	2026
P	1975	2001	2027
Q	1976	2002	2028
R	1977	2003	2029
S	1978	2004	2030
T	1979	2005	2031
U	1980	2006	2032
V	1981	2007	2033
W	1982	2008	2034
X	1983	2009	2035
Y	1984	2010	2036
Z	1985	2011	2037

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Sample date code of UH0409 on my Canon TS-E 17mm lens Showing manufactured 2019

Refusal to stand at attention

I first noticed this scene during my daily commute, the kind of casual observation that photographers learn to cultivate — a peripheral glance that registers something worth returning to. The morning light was catching the mailboxes at just the right angle, and the Green Acres Automotive sign loomed behind them with an almost theatrical authority. I filed it away mentally and kept driving, but the image stayed with me.

When I returned for scouting, I confirmed what my instincts had told me: this was a photograph worth making properly. The relationship between the humble row of mailboxes and the commercial sign behind them created a quiet tension that felt distinctly American — the domestic and the commercial sharing the same strip of dirt shoulder without ceremony or apology. I took reference frames and made plans to come back another time when the light was right.

Patience is the discipline that separates a snapshot from a photograph, and when I returned on the day I finally made this image, the light and weather aligned the way you hope but cannot guarantee. I set up the Linhof Technarama with deliberate care, leveling it precisely on both pitch and roll axes. What you see in the frame is the world as it actually sat before me — no optical correction, no architectural rectification. The camera was simply a perfectly calibrated witness.

In the field, I made an important compositional decision: I opened the frame wider by standing a bit further back than my original scouting shot. That choice breathed life into the left side of the image, allowing the scene to read more completely as a narrative. The automotive sign needed room to anchor the right side while the mailboxes spread across the foreground without feeling compressed. The weeping tree behind the fence line softened the background and provided tonal relief. The distant hills closed the scene geographically, grounding it unmistakably in inland Southern California.

What I find most compelling about these mailboxes is their refusal to stand at attention. They lean and tilt, each one slightly off plumb in its own direction, as though decades of ground movement and indifferent maintenance have conspired to give each one a distinct personality. No two are the same height, color, or model. They are a small democracy of the weathered and the functional, serving rural addresses that the postal service reaches by dirt road. That collective imperfection says something true about this stretch of Hemet that no perfectly composed architectural subject could.

I like this photograph. It is a row of mailboxes. That is enough.

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Row of Mailboxes Green Acres Hemet California

On location video

Photo Metadata

Tag Name	Data
Title	Row of Mailboxes Green Acres Hemet California
Image Description	A cluster of rural mailboxes lines a dirt shoulder along Highway 74 in the Green Acres neighborhood of Hemet, California. A hand-painted sign for Green Acres Automotive anchors the right side of the frame, its faded lettering and arrow pointing off-screen
Keywords	6x17, 6x17 film, American vernacular, Green Acres, Inland Empire, United States, automotive shop, california, commercial strip, dirt road, documentary photography, film, film photography, film scan, hand-painted sign, hemet, kodak portra 160, landscape, mailboxes, medium format, panorama, panoramic photography, riverside county, roadside, rural mailboxes, sign, signage, small town, street photography, suburban fringe
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Linhof
Camera Model Name	Linhof Technorama 617S
Lens Model	Schneider 90mm f/5.6 Super-Angulon
Focal Length	90.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	19.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/60 second
Aperture Value	19.00
ISO	160
Date/Time Original	Sunday February 22, 2026 01:51pm
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
Location	Green Acres
GPS Altitude	480 meters (1574.8 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7392801016694
GPS Longitude	-117.079069725028
Map	Google Map Link

Schneider Center Filter Color Shift: How It Ruined My 6x17 Shoots and What I Learned the Hard Way

I thought I was doing everything right. I had invested in a Schneider center filter for my panoramic 6x17 setup, and headed out on multiple shoots confident that I was getting the best possible results. What I didn’t know - what nobody told me - was that the Schneider center filter color shift problem was quietly destroying my images one frame at a time. Now I’m looking at a list of reshoots that didn’t need to happen, several frames from a recent Miami trip that I lost, and a hard lesson learned about assuming a premium piece of glass does exactly what it promises.

What Is the Schneider Center Filter Color Shift Problem?

For anyone working in the 6x17 panoramic format, a center filter is designed to correct the natural light falloff that occurs with ultra-wide-angle lenses. Because of the extreme angle of coverage required to fill that long, narrow negative, light reaching the edges of the frame is significantly dimmer than light hitting the center. A center filter compensates for this by being denser in the middle and gradually becoming more transparent toward the edges, effectively evening out the exposure across the entire panoramic frame.

On paper, it’s an elegant solution. In practice, it comes with a serious and frustrating side effect: a color cast that damages the image in two distinct ways. This is the Schneider center-filter color-cast issue that the large-format photography community has discussed for years, and one I wish I had researched more carefully before committing to real shoots.

How the Problem Showed Up in My 6x17 Work

I had several shoots lined up - primarily architectural exteriors in urban environments, streetscapes, and buildings - all requiring the wide panoramic coverage that the 6x17 format delivers so well. I added the Schneider center filter to every frame because that’s what you’re supposed to do with this format, right? The filter exists precisely for this purpose. It felt like responsible shooting practice.

When the results came back, something was clearly wrong, and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out exactly what I was looking at.

The Schneider center filter color shift in my 6x17 negatives appeared as a very specific and troubling pattern. The center of the image was pulling a yellowish-brown overlay - a warm, muddy tone that sat over what should have been a clean, neutral rendering in the middle of the frame. Meanwhile, the edges and corners were moving in the opposite direction, developing a noticeable blue cast, especially in the darker tonal areas. Since a large portion of my architectural work includes asphalt in the foreground - parking lots, streets, driveways - that blue shift in the corners was impossible to ignore. Asphalt that should render as a neutral dark gray was reading distinctly cool and blue, particularly toward the outer edges of the panoramic frame.

The result was an image that looked as if it had been processed with two conflicting color grades applied simultaneously - warm and yellow-brown in the center, and blue and cold at the edges. This is not a look I can live with. And it’s not a problem that announces itself clearly until you’re already committed to the shots.

At first, I considered the film, then the processing, then the scanning. It took real troubleshooting to finally land on the Schneider center filter as the source. By that point, the damage had been done across multiple negatives, multiple locations, and multiple projects.

Why This Happens

The core issue is that no center filter is truly color neutral. The graduated density that makes the filter function is created using materials that interact with different wavelengths of light in ways that are not perfectly consistent across the color spectrum. In the 6x17 panoramic format, this problem is potentially amplified because the format demands so much from the edges of the image circle-the very areas where the filter’s optical properties transition most rapidly.

The yellowish-brown center cast and the blue edge shift are two sides of the same problem: the filter is not transmitting color uniformly as its density changes from center to edge. Under real-world shooting conditions - mixed light, architectural subjects with strong tonal contrast, foreground elements like asphalt that reveal color shifts plainly - these inconsistencies become highly visible.

This isn’t a manufacturing defect in the traditional sense. It’s a well-documented characteristic of Schneider center filters that experienced photographers have discussed at length in large-format photography communities. The frustrating part is that Schneider does not prominently disclose this, and for photographers using center filters for the first time on 6x17 work, there is no built-in warning that the correction they’re adding to address vignetting also introduces a color problem they may not immediately recognize.

There Is No Perfect Fix - But There Are Options

I want to be direct about this: there is no single, clean solution to the Schneider center filter color-shift problem. What the photography community has come up with are workarounds, and their effectiveness depends heavily on your workflow and how much post-processing time you’re willing to invest per image.

I have not tried these filters, but the most commonly recommended hardware alternative is switching to a Rodenstock center filter. Rodenstock filters have a strong reputation within the large-format community for being more color-neutral, and many photographers report using them successfully on Schneider lenses of the same filter thread size. The redesigned Rodenstock center filters in particular are widely cited as the most neutral option currently available. If color accuracy is critical to your work, this is the closest thing to a genuine in-camera solution.

In Lightroom, the Masking tool in the Develop module lets you isolate specific areas of an image - including corners - and apply selective color temperature adjustments. For a 6x17 negative with different color problems in the center versus the edges, this means potentially building separate masks for the warm center zone and the cool edge zones and correcting them independently. It can be done, but it is time-consuming; it requires careful work on every affected frame, and the results are not always fully convincing because the cast is not a clean, uniform shift - it’s a gradual gradient that changes across the frame.

What I’m Doing Now

I’ve stopped shooting with center filters entirely, and I don’t plan to go back.

After going through the troubleshooting process, dealing with the reshoot obligations, and honestly evaluating the time I’ve spent trying to correct these color problems in post, I’ve come to a straightforward conclusion: it is easier to correct for vignetting itself - or just allow it to be there - than it is to try to figure out the color correction for what the Schneider center filter introduces. Vignetting in the 6x17 format is a real issue, but it’s predictable. I can correct for light falloff in post-processing with a radial gradient and luminosity adjustments, which take minutes per image. The color shift from the center filter - the yellowish-brown center overlay, the blue corner cast, the uneven gradient between them - takes far longer to address and never corrects as cleanly.

The center filter was supposed to simplify my workflow. Instead, it complicated it in ways that cost me time and money. Removing it from my kit was the right decision.

If you’re researching the Schneider center filter color problem before committing to serious work in the 6x17 format, you’re already in a better position than I was. Test thoroughly under real shooting conditions - especially if your work includes architectural subjects and foreground elements like asphalt that will reveal color shifts immediately. The Schneider center filter color shift is real, it’s well-documented, and the cost of discovering it on the job is higher than most photographers expect.

Shoot without it. Correct the vignetting in post. Move on.

Nothing Left But the Frame

I was in Twentynine Palms, California, heading back home from Roy's Motel and Cafe in Amboy - one of those classic Route 66 stops that still manages to feel like a portal to another era - when something caught my eye along Amboy Road. About a hundred feet off the pavement, half-swallowed by the Mojave, stood the skeleton of a building. No context, no sign, no explanation. Just a collapsed shell of wood and plywood baking under a blue desert sky. I pulled over.

The shoulder was soft, that loose, sandy kind of soft that the high desert specializes in. I made a mental note on the way in and didn't forget it on the way out - I spun my wheels getting back onto the road, the tires kicking up a small rooster tail of sand before catching. A minor tax for the shot.

There weren't many cars that morning, which is typical for Amboy Road. It's not a commuter corridor. The people out there are either headed somewhere specific or, like me, wandering with cameras. The quiet made it easy to stop, to stand still, to actually look at the place.

And there was a lot to look at. The building has been stripped to its bones - walls gone, windows gone, whatever life once filled it long since scattered. Plywood panels cover parts of the frame, tagged with graffiti in thick black marker, someone's handwriting pressed into the desert record. Debris fans out across the sand: boards, panels, things I couldn't identify from where I stood. In the background, the Little San Bernardino Mountains hold their position on the horizon the way desert mountains do, patient and indifferent. The sky was a hard, clean blue. No clouds. No ambiguity.

The weather was genuinely pleasant - not the punishing heat the area is famous for, but a mild, almost cooperative March morning. Perfect conditions for working in the desert, which I've learned not to take for granted.

I shot it with two cameras. The first was a 6x12 3D-printed panoramic body - its first photo outing since it just arrived in the mail a few days prior to this trip. I had high hopes. I shouldn't have. When I got home and processed the film, the entire roll was destroyed by light leaks and film flatness problems. The camera body had failed silently, the whole time, in the desert sun, and I had no idea. It's the kind of loss that stings.

Fortunately, I'd backed it up. My Canon EOS R5 with the 50mm f/1.2L was also in my kit that morning. I stitched roughly eleven frames in PTGui to produce the final panorama. I always reach for PTGui on wide stitches like this - when you're using a 50mm for a panoramic stitch, Lightroom tends to leave too much barrel curvature in the result. PTGui renders it far more rectilinear, more honest to what the eye actually sees standing in that flat, open desert.

The 3D-printed camera is gone from my kit, sent back to its maker. The R5 image works for me. I was glad I brought my digital pano kit along for the ride that morning. When I'm shooting large- or medium-format film, I tend to leave my digital kit at home so I can focus entirely on film. I use an iPhone to take notes or other digital photos on those days. I think my subconscious must have known that the 3D-printed camera had not been tested yet, and it was probably a good idea to take backup photos so the entire trip would not be lost.

I left out the name of the camera company because the company is very well known and is bound to have some problems rolling out new cameras. He gave me my money back, including shipping, so I don't think it would be fair to have Google or other agents index light leaks and other problems for his camera company.

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Abandoned Structure Mojave Desert Twentynine Palms California

Tag Name	Data
Title	Abandoned Structure Mojave Desert Twentynine Palms California
Image Description	A derelict single-story building stands exposed to the elements in the open Mojave Desert outside Twentynine Palms, California. Windows and exterior walls have been stripped away, leaving a skeletal wood frame covered with plywood tagged with graffiti. Debris litters the sandy ground. The Little San Bernardino Mountains rise in the background under a clear March sky.
Keywords	6x17, Inland Empire, Little San Bernardino Mountains, Mojave Desert, San Bernardino County, Twentynine Palms, abandoned building, boarded windows, california, decay, derelict structure, desert Southwest, desert decay, desert landscape, documentary photography, ghost structure, graffiti, high desert, neglect, panorama, ruins, stitched panorama, urban exploration, wide format, wood frame construction
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS R5
Lens Model	EF50mm f/1.2L USM
Focal Length	50.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	17.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/1000 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Sunday March 08, 2026 11:41am
City	Twentynine Palms
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	370 meters (1213.9 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	34.1656898782333
GPS Longitude	-115.770274143303
Map	Google Map Link

Bowie House Fort Worth - Gorgeous Design and Frustrating Execution

I went into this stay expecting a polished, high-end experience given the price point and reputation, and on the surface, Bowie House delivers — the design and furnishings are genuinely impressive. The room felt curated, with an upscale, boutique feel, and small touches, like the art and photography books left out for guests, added some personality to the space. When you actually managed to get a staff member in person, they were polite, warm, and attentive.

Unfortunately, much of the experience felt like style over substance, and several basic functional choices left me questioning whether anyone had actually tested this room from a guest’s perspective.

The light switches were genuinely one of the most frustrating parts of the stay. There’s nothing intuitive about them, and it took real trial and error just to figure out which switch controlled which light. Once the room was dark, this became a serious problem — there was no traditional switch you could feel for in the dark, so turning a light back on meant fumbling around blindly. For a property at this price tier, that’s an inexcusable oversight. It’s the kind of thing that sounds minor until you’re standing in a pitch-black room at 2am trying to find a bathroom light.

Then there’s the lack of basics. No coffee maker in the room — at a luxury hotel, in 2026, that feels like an odd corner to cut. No desk to work at either, which is a real problem if you’re traveling for any reason beyond pure leisure. And in the middle of summer, housekeeping had piled a heavy fur blanket on the bed — completely impractical for the season and clearly more about aesthetics than guest comfort.

Small details added up too. The trash cans in the room were tiny, barely larger than a tennis ball, which is almost comically impractical. And there wasn’t even a trash can near the door when exiting the restroom — a small thing, but the kind of thing that makes you wonder about the overall thoughtfulness of the design.

The most irritating part of the stay, though, was the communication. I had a clear “No Service Needed / Do Not Disturb” sign on my door, and the hotel still texted me asking when they wanted to come service the room. The property seems to rely heavily — almost exclusively — on texting for guest communication, and it comes across as impersonal and, frankly, a little tone-deaf when it overrides something as explicit as a door sign. It felt like dealing with a bot rather than a hotel staff member who was actually paying attention.

And then there are the cowboy-themed uniforms for the wait staff, which felt like a forced bit of Fort Worth branding that came across as gimmicky rather than charming.

Overall, Bowie House has all the makings of a great hotel — beautiful spaces, nice furnishings, and capable staff — but it’s let down by a string of practical missteps that shouldn’t exist at this price point. The design team clearly put a lot of thought into how the rooms look, but not nearly enough into how they actually function for someone staying there. For the cost, I expected a more seamless experience.

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Bowie House Luxury Hotel in Fort Worth Texas

Where the Court Still Stands

There is a basketball hoop nailed to the side of a cinderblock building in the Green Acres area of Riverside County, California, and it is still there. That fact - its persistence - is what makes this photograph quietly devastating.

Shot on 35mm film with a Canon EOS-3, the image is black-and-white, which suits it. Color would be a distraction here. What the photograph needs is contrast: the dark corrugated metal of a collapsed shed folding in on itself in the foreground, and behind it, just far enough away to feel like another world, a low rectangular building painted white, with a backboard and rim mounted above what was once a garage door or equipment bay. No net. No court markings visible beneath the chest-high grass and reeds. Just the hoop, still plumb, still at regulation height, waiting.

The Green Acres community sits in the unincorporated reaches of Riverside County, in that wide, overlooked corridor between Perris and Hemet where the San Jacinto River basin flattens out into scrub and field. It is not a neighborhood that appears on many maps, and when it does, it appears without ceremony. The hills in the background of this photograph are granite - old, indifferent, sun-bleached - and they have watched this valley go through several versions of itself: ranching, small farming, rural residential, and now this, a kind of suspension, where the built environment decays at different speeds depending on what it was made of and who still cares.

The shed in the foreground has given up entirely. Its corrugated metal panels have buckled and splayed outward, the roof has collapsed inward, the whole structure tilting at an angle that suggests not a single catastrophic event but a long, slow surrender to gravity, weather, and disuse. Graffiti tags mark the panels - not murals, not statements, just signatures, the territorial notation of people passing through a place that no longer belongs to anyone in particular. The vegetation has moved in around it: tall reeds, invasive grasses, the kind of growth that follows water and neglect in equal measure.

And yet the cinderblock building stands. Green Acres in Riverside County, California, is a small community where, in this photograph, the building’s walls still stand strong, and its roofline forms a clean edge against the sky, with a palm tree rising just behind it in that distinctive Southern California fashion - unexpected and beautiful. Someone built this structure to last, and in Green Acres, it has. Whoever mounted that basketball hoop did so with intention. This photograph of Green Acres hints at a past when this place was filled with life, the sounds of play and daily activity still suggested even in their absence. Especially in its absence.

Urban decay is too clean a phrase for what this image shows. Decay implies a process moving toward an end. What this photograph captures is something more ambiguous - a place between uses, between people, between what it was and whatever it might become. The hoop remains. The shed has fallen. The grass grows through everything, indifferent to both.

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A corrugated metal shed lies collapsed under graffiti amid dense riparian overgrowth along the San Jacinto River basin near Green Acres, California. Behind it stands a cinderblock outbuilding bearing a basketball backboard set against the granite ridgeline of the Perris Valley.

Tag Name	Data
Title	Collapsed Shed Green Acres Area Riverside County California
Image Description	A corrugated metal shed lies collapsed under graffiti amid dense riparian overgrowth along the San Jacinto River basin near Green Acres, California. Behind it stands a cinderblock outbuilding bearing a basketball backboard set against the granite ridgeline of the Perris Valley.
Keywords	35mm film, Canon EOS-3, Ilford FP4 Plus, Inland Empire, Perris Valley, San Jacinto River basin, abandoned structure, agricultural fringe, basketball hoop, black and white film, black and white photography, california, cinderblock building, collapsed shed, corrugated metal, dereliction, documentary photography, film photography, graffiti, granite hills, infrastructure decay, landscape, neglect, overgrowth, project74, riparian vegetation, riverside county, rural decay, southern california, urban blight
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS-3
Lens Model	EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length	40.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/500 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Saturday January 31, 2026 02:12pm
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
Location	Green Acres
GPS Altitude	470 meters (1542.0 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7382460449889
GPS Longitude	-117.080097178317
Map	Google Map Link

Stranded Before Sunrise

There are mornings that test you before the day even begins. Get out of bed, make breakfast, brew the coffee, and head out the door with every intention of being productive, punctual, and prepared. The commute is supposed to be the easy part - that familiar stretch of road between home and the office that you’ve driven so many times it requires almost no conscious thought. Then, somewhere along that routine path, your car decides it has other plans entirely.

That’s exactly what happened on what started as an ordinary morning commute. A few miles in, the temperature warning light flickered to life on the dashboard - that small, ominous amber glow that every driver dreads and most hope to never see. The instinct for some might be to push through, to bargain with the engine and hope the light resets on its own. But ignoring a heat warning is how a manageable problem becomes an expensive catastrophe. The smarter move was to signal over, pull onto the shoulder, cut the engine, and let things cool down.

So there it was - sitting on the side of the road, hazard lights blinking, frustration mounting while watching a steady stream of commuters cruise past without a second glance. After several minutes, the engine temperature settled, and cautiously, confidence returned; I eased back onto the road. Relief bubbled up, but just as it began to take hold, the morning took another turn.

Within minutes, the temperature gauge climbed urgently again. The engine wasn’t simply running warm - something was fundamentally wrong. No third attempt, no wishful thinking. Another pullover, this time permanent. If your vehicle warns you twice in one morning, you need to listen. The car was done, and so was the solo commute. What comes next is the reality many drivers hope to avoid: calling for help.

The only logical call at that point was to Triple A. And here’s the honest truth about roadside assistance: membership is worth every single penny. In a moment of stress, on the shoulder of a busy road with cars whipping past, having that card in your wallet is genuine peace of mind. However, peace of mind and a smooth customer experience are two different things. Navigating through layer after layer of automated phone menus - press one for this, press two for that, please listen carefully as our options have recently changed - while sitting in a disabled vehicle is a frustration that didn’t need to exist. Roadside emergencies are stressful enough without an obstacle course standing between you and a real human voice. Streamlining that process would be a meaningful improvement for a service that is otherwise invaluable. Still, help was on the way.

A tow truck was finally dispatched, and the wait began - forty-five minutes that felt much longer while stranded on the highway shoulder, time ticking toward the workday's start. There’s a particular helplessness that comes with waiting in a breakdown - nothing to do except wait, stay calm, and be grateful you pulled over safely.

The tow truck eventually showed up and began loading my vehicle. That’s when the photographer's instincts kicked in. The fog was thick and cinematic, the tow truck’s amber lights cutting through the grey in a way that was genuinely compelling. Out came the iPhone. In raw mode, the shot was framed, the light was perfect, the mood was exactly right - tow truck, flatbed ramp deployed, the disabled vehicle being loaded in the misty background. A legitimately strong image. With the photo taken, it was time to move on - and nerves would soon eclipse creativity.

When the driver finished loading my vehicle, I climbed into the cab, and we took off. We quickly merged onto the highway. I was pinned to my seat as we were pulling G’s up to 80 miles per hour through the same thick fog that looked so moody through the lens. What seemed cinematic before felt far less poetic at high speed with poor visibility. Helplessness sets in when you’re in that cab - your car strapped behind you - with no control. It was a white-knuckle stretch I didn't need.

The arrival, thankfully, was safe.

Once the car was inspected, the culprit was identified: a broken idler pulley. It’s a component most drivers never think about, and that anonymity is exactly what makes it dangerous. The idler pulley guides and maintains tension on the serpentine belt - the long, winding belt that simultaneously drives the alternator, water pump, air conditioning compressor, and power steering pump. When the pulley snapped off, it took the serpentine belt down with it. Without that belt, the water pump stopped circulating coolant, and the engine overheated almost immediately. One small, inexpensive part triggered a cascade of consequences that derailed an entire morning.

The lessons from a day like this are worth keeping. Respect your warning lights. Maintain your roadside membership. And if you’re a photographer, document the experience.

Some mornings, arriving safely - a little late, a little rattled, but in one piece - is the only victory that matters.

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Rancho Towing Flatbed Responds in Fog Winchester California

Tag Name	Data
Title	Rancho Towing Flatbed Responds in Fog Winchester California
Image Description	A Rancho Towing flatbed truck based out of Temecula, California, prepares to load a pickup truck on a foggy morning along a roadside pull-off near Winchester, Riverside County, California. The truck's amber warning lights illuminate the heavy marine layer as the operator deploys the flatbed ramp.
Keywords	Hino truck, Rancho Towing, Winchester, amber lights, broken down vehicle, california, commercial vehicle, early morning, emergency services, flatbed, flatbed tow truck, fog, foggy morning, highway, low visibility, morning fog, pickup truck, ramp, riverside county, road service, roadside, roadside assistance, southern california, temecula, tow truck, towing company, transportation, vehicle recovery, warning lights
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Apple
Camera Model Name	iPhone 16 Pro
Lens Model	iPhone 16 Pro back triple camera 6.765mm f/1.78
Focal Length	6.80mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	24.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/60 second
Aperture Value	1.80
ISO	100
Date/Time Original	Wednesday June 03, 2026 05:42am
City	Winchester
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Speed	0.06 kmh (0.04 mph)
GPS Altitude	463.4 meters (1520.3 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.6385083333333
GPS Longitude	-117.085188888333
Map	Google Map Link

Hemet did not decay overnight

Hemet didn’t decay overnight. Its decline was a slow bleed, decades in the making. Forces both national and hyperlocal conspired to hollow out a city. Hemet never had the institutional muscle to fight back.

Hemet was built on farming. It was also shaped by retirement dreams. Through the mid-twentieth century, it was a quiet agricultural community in the San Jacinto Valley. The city sat far enough from Los Angeles to feel removed but close enough to attract retirees seeking affordable warmth. The city grew on that demographic — modest, fixed-income, low-demand. It wasn’t glamorous. But it worked.

The first rupture came with deindustrialization. As manufacturing collapsed across the American interior in the 1970s and 80s, the Inland Empire absorbed waves of working-class families. These were people priced out of coastal counties. They came for cheap housing. But the jobs that were supposed to follow never fully materialized. Hemet became a place people landed, not a place they chose. The distinction matters. Cities built on aspiration invest in themselves. Cities built on affordability tend to extract and neglect.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Hemet's economy depended on trade, service, and agriculture, mainly serving retirees. Growth-strained services without creating a strong economic base. Then, in 2008, foreclosure rates surged, property values fell, and Hemet’s population continued to grow, according to census data. Many elderly residents or those with fewer resources found it hardest to leave; meanwhile, social challenges and resource shortages compounded. Law enforcement was under-resourced amid rising addiction, homelessness, and crime.

Hemet’s decay isn’t unique — other Inland Empire cities share similar stories — but in Hemet, it’s been allowed to persist. Despite recent efforts to prioritize economic development, the city lacks the tax base and visibility to attract outside support that wealthier municipalities quietly secure.

The concrete barriers tagged with graffiti in a cracked industrial lot aren’t vandalism on an otherwise healthy city. They’re a legible text. They say: nobody is coming.

I made this photograph on a cold January afternoon. I used a Canon EOS-3 loaded with Ilford FP4 Plus, working at 24mm, stopped down to f/8. The choice of film was deliberate. There’s something about the grain structure of FP4 in bright, flat California light. It renders neglect honestly, without the drama that faster films can introduce. There is also no false romance that digital processing often adds to the experience of poverty.

I was drawn to its geometry. The concrete barriers form a line that pulls the eye straight back through the frame. That line leads past the graffiti, past the dumpster, past the chain link, and toward the palm tree and the San Jacinto Mountains. The mountains sit clean and indifferent on the horizon. That juxtaposition felt like the whole story. The mountains haven’t changed. The sky is the same sky. It’s everything in the middle ground that has been allowed to come apart.

The frame almost announced itself. What struck me standing there wasn’t despair exactly — it was the stillness. Midday: no wind, nobody around. A manhole cover centered in the foreground like a period at the end of a sentence. The shadows of the utility lines cut diagonally across the asphalt. The light was hard and democratic, illuminating everything equally and flattering nothing. That felt right. This place doesn’t need atmosphere. It needs a witness.

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Alessandro Street Hemet, CA

Tag Name	Data
Title	Dead End Hemet
Image Description	Concrete barriers tagged with graffiti block a cracked asphalt street in Hemet, California. A dumpster, utility poles, and a lone palm tree stand against the San Jacinto Mountains in this sun-bleached Inland Empire industrial corridor.
Keywords	35mm film, American West, Canon EOS-3, Ilford FP4 Plus, Inland Empire, San Jacinto Mountains, alley, analog photography, black and white photography, california, concrete barriers, dead end, documentary photography, dumpster, graffiti, hemet, industrial corridor, palm tree, power lines, riverside county, southern california, street art, tagging, urban decay, urban landscape, utility poles
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS-3
Lens Model	EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length	24.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/800 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Tuesday January 13, 2026 01:00pm
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	480 meters (1574.8 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7461840866278
GPS Longitude	-116.973839761681
Map	Google Map Link

Hemet Stock Farm

Standing across the street from the Hemet Stock Farm entrance, I raised my camera and composed the shot. The symmetry of the old arch framed perfectly between two massive pepper trees, the white X-pattern gates closed tight, a faded "Private Property" sign hanging at the center. A lone abandoned shopping cart rested to the right — an almost poetic symbol of neglect. I shot it in black and white because some subjects simply demand it. Color would have softened the edges of the sadness. Black and white tells the truth.

What I didn't fully appreciate in that moment was just how much history I was pointing my lens at.

According to the City of Hemet, businessman W. Whittier established a stock farm in Hemet in the early 1900s, called the Hemet Stock Farm, with a half-mile racetrack as part of his efforts to improve the town, which included founding the Bank of Hemet and developing other local infrastructure. Whittier — wasn't about to be outdone. Whittier partnered with Edward L. Mayberry, a man with a passion for trotter horses, to build a competing facility. Financial troubles eventually forced Mayberry out, and Whittier took full control, acquiring both the land and the racing stock. It was a very California story — ambition, competition, and money all tangled together from the very beginning.

By 1909, a full facility had been completed on a parcel bounded by Oakland and Devonshire Avenues and State and Gilbert Streets — a racetrack, boarding stables, grandstand, and a manager's residence that still stands as the oldest structure in Hemet. Originally painted all in white, it was, by all accounts, Whittier's crown jewel. A forty-acre showcase of what a prosperous valley town could build when it put its mind to it.

At the Hemet Stock Farm, the early years were nothing short of remarkable. In 1910, a trotter named Wilbur Lou — bred right there on the property — set a world record for yearling stallion trotters, going on to break track records at multiple venues across the country. That same era saw the first airplane to land in Hemet — a 1910 Deperdussin monoplane — touch down on the track in 1913. Motorcycle races drew crowds of 2,000 people to a town that barely counted 1,000 residents. For a brief, golden moment, this forty-acre farm put Hemet on the map in ways that went far beyond horses.

Community members who responded to a local Facebook post about the Hemet Stock Farm paint a vivid and surprisingly personal picture of the farm's later decades. One woman recalled her uncle running the property in the late 1960s, describing summer BBQs on the grounds and the ranch in beautiful, well-kept condition. Her uncle went on to become a successful horse trainer at Del Mar and Santa Anita — the kind of career that gets its foundation in places exactly like this. Another commenter remembered the Seeley family still keeping brood mares there well into the 1970s, with foals playing in the front pastures on warm valley mornings. Others recalled barn dances, Ramona Pageant first-nighter parties, and even a Sheryl Crow music video filmed somewhere on the grounds. The farm never quite stopped being a gathering place, even as it aged.

But time and neglect are patient forces, and they eventually won. The grand pepper trees that once lined the property — trees that locals remember as defining the entire character of the Hemet valley skyline — are mostly gone now.

Efforts in the early 2000s to purchase the Hemet Stock Farm property and convert it into a heritage park were outbid by a private developer whose mixed-use plans — which would have retained some historic buildings and created a heritage park component — ultimately stalled when the real estate market collapsed. Today, the farm sits protected from outright demolition by historic zone permit requirements, but that protection only goes so far. Recent community concern about condominium development on the site suggests the clock may still be ticking.

When I pressed the shutter that day, I was thinking mostly about light and composition — the way the morning shadows stretched across the cracked asphalt, the texture of weathered wood against the sky. But photographs have a way of becoming something more than what you intended when you took them. This one turned out to be about memory, loss, and a community still quietly grieving something it hasn't quite let go of yet.

The gate is closed. Whether it stays that way or gets bulldozed entirely remains an open question.

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Hemet Stock Farm - photo taken January 2026 on 35mm Black & White film

Tag Name	Data
Title	Hemet Stock Farm
Image Description	The gated entrance to the abandoned Hemet stock farm stands weathered and closed, a forgotten remnant of California's agricultural past
Keywords	35mm film, Ilford FP4 Plus, abandoned, abandoned farm, black and white, black and white film, black and white photography, derelict property, documentary photography, farm gate, farm sign, film photography, hemet california, hemet stock farm, mailbox, monochrome, nostalgic, overgrown entrance, private property sign, ranch entrance, rural decay, rural gate, shopping cart, stock farm, urban decay, vintage, weathered gate
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS-3
Lens Model	EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length	40.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/800 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Thursday January 15, 2026 11:20am
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	480 meters (1574.8 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7512377166675
GPS Longitude	-116.973848186622
Map	Google Map Link

The harsh midday desert sun

There’s something quietly compelling about this black-and-white panoramic shot of an old commercial building in Hemet, California. I captured this on my iPhone in RAW mode, and it’s a testament to just how far smartphone photography has come — and how much creative control you gain when you step away from the convenience of auto-processed JPEGs.

When the iPhone shoots in RAW (using the .DNG format), it bypasses the aggressive computational processing Apple bakes into its standard photo pipeline. That means no automatic sharpening, no AI-driven noise reduction, no boosted contrast curves. What you get instead is pure, unprocessed sensor data — the photographic equivalent of undeveloped film. In the right hands, this unlocks a level of tonal control that JPEGs simply cannot match.

My Canon R5 is usually my main camera, known for producing detailed and beautiful images, but I didn’t have it on hand this time. Instead, I used my iPhone, carefully leveled on a tripod, which still delivered impressive results. The gradations in the white stucco facade of the shuttered building are nuanced and detailed — you can see subtle texture and weathering without the blown-out highlights that iPhone JPEG processing often introduces in bright, high-contrast desert light. The sky retains gradation rather than collapsing into a flat gray wash. These are the quiet victories of shooting RAW, even on a phone.

One of the compositional elements I’m most pleased with here is the sense of depth. I used the standard lens. The angle of the composition pulls the eye from the cracked asphalt in the foreground all the way back through the commercial strip — past the roll-down security doors, past the mid-ground signage, to the tall California palms and sky in the far distance. The result is a scene with genuine three-dimensional weight.

The building itself acts as a leading line, its roofline and awning angling diagonally from the lower left toward the upper right, naturally guiding the viewer’s gaze deeper into the frame. This is a classic street-photography composition, and I think about it regardless of which camera I’m carrying.

The harsh, flat midday desert sun — typically a photographer’s enemy — became an asset here. Strong overhead light carves hard shadows beneath the roll-down doors and creates a graphic, almost abstract quality in the facade’s corrugated metal surfaces. Converting to monochrome amplified this effect, stripping away color distractions and letting the viewer engage purely with form, texture, and light.

The billboard for Budology dispensary on the right adds context and a touch of irony — a glossy, modern advertisement hovering above a business that appears long shuttered. It’s exactly the kind of visual tension I look for when shooting urban street scenes.

What this image ultimately proves to me is that RAW mode on the iPhone isn’t just a technical curiosity — it’s a genuine creative tool. When my R5 stays home, I no longer feel like I’m compromising. Paired with a thoughtful eye for composition and light, the iPhone produces results that hold up by any standard. The best camera really is the one you have with you.

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First Class Tires - old repair shop

Tag Name	Data
Title	First Class Tires
Image Description	First class tires in Hemet California.
Keywords	6x12, abandoned building, black and white, hemet california, tire dealer
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Apple
Camera Model Name	iPhone 16 Pro
Lens Model	iPhone 16 Pro back camera 6.765mm f/1.78
Focal Length	6.80mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	24.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/8500 second
Aperture Value	1.80
ISO	64
Date/Time Original	Thursday May 28, 2026 11:35am
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Speed	0.00 kmh (0.00 mph)
GPS Altitude	500 meters (1640.4 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7479202199972
GPS Longitude	-116.945368363436
Map	Google Map Link

Hemet Fire Station Number Three

Some photographs arrive easily. You pull up, set the tripod, expose the film, and leave. Hemet Fire Station Number Three was not one of those photographs. It took me several separate visits — scouting trips and shooting days — before I finally came away with a frame I was satisfied with. What began as a simple architectural study of a modest civic building became a quiet obsession, a lesson in patience, light, and the stubborn unpredictability of real-world locations.

I first became interested in Hemet Fire Station Number Three because of its honest, unassuming character. There is nothing ornate about it. It is a simple wood-panel structure with a brick base. It has a two-bay garage and a small attached home-station for the firefighters.

I use a viewfinder app on my phone to pre-visualize compositions and print them out before committing to a location. On my first scouting visit to Hemet Fire Station Number Three, I walked the perimeter thoroughly, checking angles from the sidewalk and from across the street. The panoramic 6×17 format I had in mind for this project demands a carefully considered horizontal composition, and a small shift in position can dramatically change the frame.

The big tree in front of the station was the first challenge. Beautiful as it was, it threw a sprawling shadow across the forecourt and the home section for most of the morning, and on the garage in the afternoon. It also blocked most of the station, so a direct shot from across the street was not going to work. After waiting a few days for the sun to come out, I returned for another scouting visit at noon and confirmed what I had suspected: the shadow situation was clean only around solar noon. I then tried an angle closer to the building, off to the right, to get a view inside the tree. The angle felt better and had some dimension. Now I had a composition and knew how much rise I would need to keep the lines straight. I just needed to wait until noon on a sunny day to come back and shoot.

The next complication at Hemet Fire Station Number Three was the apparatus bays themselves. A fire station is a working building, and fire trucks come and go. On two of my actual shooting attempts, one of the large apparatus doors was open, and a truck was partially visible, cutting into the clean geometry I needed for the composition and letting too much light in from the rear of the station. I simply had to wait. That is the nature of location work — the building is not posing for you, and the world does not pause for your camera.

On my final successful visit to Hemet Fire Station Number Three, I had a clean window of perhaps a few minutes with no vehicles in the frame. I used every one of them to set up, compose my pre-planned frame, set the rise, focus, and shoot. Funny enough, when I was done, the bay door opened for the engine to leave on a call. I smiled and gave a thumbs-up to the firefighters as they were leaving.

For this shot, I used Kodak Portra 160, my Chamonix 5×7 field camera, a Dayi 6×17 roll-film back, and a Nikkor 90mm f/4.5 SW lens. In the final image, Fire Station Number Three is captured in ideal conditions, with clear light, flags raised, and an unobstructed foreground. In the distance, the valley floor opens up, and the mountains sit quietly behind. It is a simple picture of a simple building. I like it. It also looks great in black and white.

The process of large-format shooting requires you to earn your photographs. Hemet Fire Station Number Three gave me exactly the kind of challenge that keeps me coming back to this way of working — and the kind of satisfaction, when it finally comes together, that no other photographic method quite replicates.

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Hemet Fire Station Number Three

Tag Name	Data
Title	Hemet Fire Station Number Three
Image Description	Hemet Fire Station Number Three, situated at 4110 W. Devonshire Avenue, Hemet, CA, serves as one of the emergency response facilities for Hemet.
Keywords	6x17, 6x17 film, film scan, fire station, hemet, hemet california, kodak portra 160, panorama
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Chamonix
Camera Model Name	Chamonix 57Fs-2
Lens Model	Nikkor-SW 90mm f/4.5
Focal Length	90.00mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	19.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/60 second
Aperture Value	20.00
ISO	160
Date/Time Original	Sunday February 22, 2026 12:30pm
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Altitude	460 meters (1509.2 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.7511884266703
GPS Longitude	-117.014926883406
Map	Google Map Link

Hemet Mobile Home Parks

Hemet Mobile Home Parks: Affordable Living in the Heart of the San Jacinto Valley

For decades, mobile home parks have helped define Hemet, giving residents an affordable, community-focused lifestyle in this inland Southern California city. Hemet stands out in the greater Los Angeles region thanks to its mobile home communities in the heart of Riverside County's San Jacinto Valley.

A History Built on Manufactured Housing

Hemet's landscape changed in the 60s with the building of Sierra Dawn, considered the country's first "mobile home subdivision" with individual lot sales. This spurred the development of other parks and retirement housing, establishing Hemet as a retirement destination and driving residential growth. This legacy lasts, making mobile home parks a key part of the city's culture.

What Makes Hemet Mobile Home Parks Unique

Hemet mobile home parks differ from those in larger California cities in their sense of community, affordability, and scenic setting between the San Jacinto Mountains and rolling western hills, which offer residents a quieter lifestyle.

Many Hemet mobile home parks cater to the 55-and-older community. Devonshire Downs, family-owned since its inception in 1968 by the Craven Family, consistently delivers amenities that promote healthy, active living for contemporary retirees. Communities like this have welcomed residents nationwide—and even internationally—for decades.

Royal Holiday, a 55-plus retirement community, offers affordable living with amenities such as a pool, whirlpool spa, clubhouse, fitness center, and RV storage. Full-service communities like these attract retirees on fixed incomes to Hemet.

All-Ages Communities and Family-Friendly Options

Not all Hemet mobile home parks cater to seniors. The Californian Mobile Home Park, established in the 1970s, is an all-ages community praised by residents for its staff and ongoing improvements. This variety allows people to find a park fitting their needs and budget.

Town and Country Mobile Home Park, close to downtown Hemet on North State Street, is an all-ages community located near major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Sprouts, and Stater Bros. Markets, as well as recreation spots including Seven Hills Golf Club and Diamond Valley Lake.

Why People Choose Hemet Mobile Home Parks

The appeal of Hemet mobile home parks lies in their lower cost relative to California's median home price, reasonable commutes to employment hubs, and amenities such as clubhouses, pools, activities, and strong community ties. Many residents describe their neighbors as the best they've had.

The city itself offers a rich backdrop. Residents enjoy Diamond Valley Lake, the Ramona Bowl Amphitheater, the Western Science Center, and a vibrant downtown with local shops and a farmers' market.

A Living Tradition

Hemet mobile home parks offer rare opportunities in California: homeownership, authentic community, and a high quality of life without a six-figure income. From Sierra Dawn to today's thriving parks, Hemet champions the idea that everyone deserves an affordable, comfortable home. For thousands, these parks deliver exactly that.

A Personal Note: The Home in the photo below is on Acacia Avenue

When I photograph Hemet mobile home parks, I am always struck by the peaceful dignity of what I see through my camera. This particular home on Acacia Avenue stopped me in my tracks. Shot on black-and-white film, it presents itself with a kind of midcentury pride — the wide, low roofline extending like open arms, twin carport overhangs framing the facade symmetrically, and a freshly raked gravel yard with two young trees planted with obvious care. There is nothing accidental about this scene. Someone has deliberately, lovingly tended this place. The shuttered windows and horizontal siding echo postwar California optimism, a time when a modest manufactured home in a warm valley town was the fulfillment of a genuine American dream. Standing at the curb on a still morning, camera on my tripod, I perceived the weight of that history. This isn't just a house — it's a statement of pride, of belonging, of permanence earned on modest means. That, to me, is what Hemet mobile home parks are truly about.

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Acacia Avenue Mobile Home in Hemet

Tag Name	Data
Title	Acacia Avenue Mobile Home in Hemet
Image Description	Typical mobile home in Hemet in a mobile home park
Keywords	35mm film, Ilford FP4 Plus, black and white, black and white film, hemet california, house, mobile home, mobile home park
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS-3
Lens Model	EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length	40.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/800 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	125
Date/Time Original	Thursday January 15, 2026 10:40am
City	Hemet
State	California
Country	United States
Location	Valle Vista
GPS Altitude	540 meters (1771.7 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.74435831335
GPS Longitude	-116.900615710003
Map	Google Map Link

Visual Obsessions

Sixteen years is a long time. Cameras changed, phones became studios, and the world turned itself inside out more than once. And yet, standing in a Costco parking lot in Temecula recently, I found myself doing something I had done in Yorba Linda back in 2010 - crouching low beside a wall of red shopping carts, squinting through a viewfinder, chasing the same geometry I had chased before.

The two images sit side by side now and the resemblance is almost embarrassing. Both shoot along a long diagonal line of nested carts. Both lean into the repetition of red handles and silver wire. Both try to find something almost sculptural in an object that exists purely for hauling bulk olive oil and oversized cereal boxes. The recent Temecula image has that warm, slightly dusty quality of midday Southern California sun. The Yorba Linda shot is cleaner, the carts newer, the handles brilliant red. But the instinct behind both photographs is identical.

I think this is one of the quiet truths about being a photographer over a long stretch of time. We return to the same visual obsessions the way writers return to the same themes. We are drawn to repetition, to pattern, to the way ordinary objects become abstract when you get close enough and choose your angle carefully. The subject is almost beside the point. It could be carts, or telephone poles, or chairs stacked outside a closed cafe. What we are really photographing is the way our brain organizes the world.

There is something both humbling and reassuring about discovering your own fingerprint sixteen years later. I did not plan to remake an old photograph. I just saw the carts, felt the pull, and pressed the shutter. Some habits go deeper than memory. They live somewhere closer to instinct.

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Costco Yorba Linda in 2010

Tag Name	Data
Title	Costco Yorba Linda
Image Description	Shopping carts at Costco in Yorba Linda
Keywords	basket, cart, costco, parking lot, patterns, shopping, shopping cart
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Canon
Camera Model Name	Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens Model	EF16-35mm f/2.8L USM
Focal Length	16.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/200 second
Aperture Value	8.00
ISO	100
Date/Time Original	Thursday January 14, 2010 09:30am
City	Yorba Linda
State	California
Country	United States
Location	Anaheim Hills
GPS Altitude	75 meters (246.1 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.875315
GPS Longitude	-117.743941666667
Map	Google Map Link

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Costco Temecula in 2026

Tag Name	Data
Title	Costco Temecula
Image Description	Costco Temecula employee lines up carts outside the store in Temecula
Keywords	basket, cart, costco, parking lot, patterns, shopping, shopping cart, temecula
Copyright	Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved
Artist	ExpertPhoto.com
Make	Apple
Camera Model Name	iPhone 16 Pro
Lens Model	iPhone 16 Pro back triple camera 2.22mm f/2.2
Focal Length	2.20mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format	14.00mm
Shutter Speed Value	1/500 second
Aperture Value	2.20
ISO	20
Date/Time Original	Thursday March 05, 2026 11:58am
City	Temecula
State	California
Country	United States
GPS Speed	0.00 kmh (0.00 mph)
GPS Altitude	325.9 meters (1069.2 feet) above sea level
GPS Latitude	33.5208111116667
GPS Longitude	-117.1547
Map	Google Map Link