Big Rigs

Sunset on platforms A, B, C and D, (furthest back, in a line) and Henry (foreground center) - operated by Dos Cuadras. Houchin, on the right (with another, Hogan out of frame), operated by Signal/Carone Petroleum. 

On the heels of the last post about using a ridiculous big setup for photos of lizards, I recently shot using a similarly absurd setup. This time, I pointed my lens towards a different dragon - offshore oil platforms. To be fair, this is not my original idea. A buddy of mine in college noticed that several of the platforms line up and the sun sets directly behind them twice a year. This was back in the film days and before apps could tell you exactly where the sun would set each day. He had a much more difficult challenge, had to rent a super tele from Sammy's and I don't recall how successful he was. 

My image of Platform Holly from Isla Vista featured in the Davis Enterprise

With the Trump administration is pushing to open up more domestic oil production, including along our Santa Barbara coastline, the thought  of this image simmering in my mind came to a head. It was hitting the news cycle and another image of mine was used by the Davis Enterprise for their story on the matter. I was late to the game, but I'm sure the news will continue. It didn't come out exactly as I planned and I can think of ways to make it better if I tried again, but it was a fun little project. 

My first attempt, in the wrong location.

I brought the same Leica setup I shot the lizards with, but also had a Canon in tow that ended up working a little better for me. In this case, I went with a Canon M6 MarkII with the EF 100-400 II L and 1.4x tele-converter. That puts the lens at 560mm and with the 1.6x crop factor of the camera, I had an effective 896mm lens - squarely in telescope territory. I ended up attempting this three times, as each evening I came across one issue or another. The first day I was off in my alignment (I blame the app). The second, I was in the right spot, but there was a heavy blanket of fog. On the last attempt, it was clear, but that proved to be a problem as well, introducing a LOT of heat shimmer and too much contrast. 

Final attempt - this includes platform Hogan on the far right. Heat shimmer and contrast were issues.

For anyone who doesn't know about the area, Santa Barbara has a long history with oil production and it's part of our every day life here. Tar is common along the beaches and oil seeps are everywhere. Some brief history - The world's first ocean pier drilling was put in place here in 1896 and at one point, the Ellwood Oil Field (which is what I call "my beach" was the worlds largest known oil deposit. It was so important to the nation, that in 1942, the Japanese bombed it by submarine in what would be the first attack by a foreign power on the continental United States since the War of 1812. The now defunct Platform Holly, which is featured in many of my images (including the article shown), was built two miles offshore by Arco in 1966. Shortly after, in 1969, Union Oil's Platform A suffered a major blowout during drilling and caused a three million gallon oil spill - the worst the world had seen at the time. It proved to be a catalyst for the environmental movement and sparked the first Earth Day.