The Getty

Considering the slow rate at which I'm blogging about our trip, it could seriously take me the rest of the summer to finish all the posts. This particular post took forever mostly because of the insane number of pictures involved and my obsession with tweaking every single one of them in my newish version of Photoshop. I seriously should probably get a grip and just post them as is, but at least it's good practice to help me figure out how this new program actually works!

Anyway, after we slept WAY in on the day after Eric's b-day, the family gathered together to decide what we would do for the day, and we decided to go to The Getty Center, home of the J. Paul Getty Museum. While I'm honestly not much of a fan of most museums (probably because I'm not much of an art connoisseur), I was really excited to visit the Getty simply because I'd heard all about the beautiful architecture, and I was super excited to have a cool place to take pictures. My photography assignment for the week was to shoot come landscapes and urban landscapes, and I thought this might be a fun place to do them.

The Getty campus certainly did not disappoint. The buildings were absolutely beautiful, the landscaping was phenomenal, and the view was flipping fantastic. I could have taken pictures there all day long, much to my husband's chagrin. Actually, the art was pretty interesting as well. While there were certainly a lot of paintings I didn't care much for or really appreciate, there were also many really beautiful pieces of work. There was also actually one entire gallery that was full of paintings by famous artists--famous enough that even I knew who they were! There was a Van Gogh, a Monet, a Renoir, and Degas, and a Cezanne, among others. Even though I'm not a huge fan of impressionism, it was still kind of cool to see a bunch of names I actually recognized!

There was another exhibit elsewhere in the museum that we also really enjoyed, but not because it was beautiful. It was a photography exhibit called "Engaged Observers" that contained several different photography documentaries. There were several photographers' collections that were intense and even horrific (lots of war and poverty) but also incredibly moving. They certainly weren't feel-good kind of pictures, but I was glad we saw them none the less.

My pictures probably won't do the beauty of the whole campus justice, but there might be a few that are worth looking at. The flower garden was especially gorgeous, and I don't do a horrible job photographing flowers since they are completely immobile. This is one of my favorites.


There was another bunch of pictures that was really more about being at the right place at the right time and nothing else. After a brief rain shower we went to the outdoor sculpture garden, and happened to capture this amazing view.


This was darn good luck for me, because I always go crazy for rainbows!

There are a whole lot more pictures from the Getty in the California album, so if you want to watch the slideshow, you can check it out here. Stay tuned for my next post, which includes one more great story about the Getty that ties nicely to our activity the next morning!