The Santa Monica Pier was actually the first attraction I visited when my Dad and I traveled to Los Angeles back in March.  At the time, I might have been a little too hungry, jet-lagged, and sick to really absorb the atmosphere.  But I remembered with fondness the ferris wheel on the pier and wanted to capture it in action.

The blue hour, or twilight, is the period of time after the sun sets but the sky remains bright. The light is beautiful, and it's the perfect time to photograph the evening lights while there is still blue in the sky.



The Santa Monica Pier opened as the Municipal Pier and was actually constructed in 1909 to hold a pipe which flushed sewage out into the ocean (that disgusting practice ended in the 1920s)!  It was the first concrete pier to be built on the west coast and became a popular fishing location.  The amusement park was added in 1916 to compete with neighboring Ocean Park and Venice Pier.

For the first time in almost ten years, I visited Southern California.  I had been only once before in 2005 for the Disneyland's 50th Anniversary celebration and only ventured outside of Anaheim for one night when we decided to drive to Hollywood.  I remember being frightened and holding onto my father's hand as Spiderman and other creepy, knock-off characters jumped out at me, attempting to get money for pictures.

However, despite my only experience in Los Angeles being a terrible childhood memory, I for some reason narrowed down my graduate school options down to the Los Angeles area.  I liked two architecture schools in LA, and after studying abroad in Genoa and conquering city life in NYC, I thought that LA might be worth another try.  More importantly, the weather is moderate year round, it's close to the beach, has a cruise terminal.... and is less than an hour away from Disneyland!!!  So at the end of March, my father and I flew to LA to see if this city could be in my future.

We had no plans except to visit UCLA's open house and tour SCI-Arc.  So we found ourselves the first evening having not eaten anything except McDonald's breakfast that morning and a $7.99 cheese platter on the plane and unsure of what to do.  Luckily, Dad was a bit more familiar with the area than I was and sought out the Santa Monica Pier which we decided would be just fine for dinner.