Category Archives: Los Angeles County

Two intersections in Diamond Bar: The Grand Avenue Beautification Project

In 2015 the city of Diamond Bar completed their Grand Avenue Beautification project, which included redesigning the medians and parkways of the Grand Avenue / Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue / Longview Drive intersections. The landscape architecture work was done by David Volz Design.

Happily enough, Diamond Bar Boulevard aims directly at Mt. Baldy, creating a view no photographer can resist*:

Mt. Baldy (Mount San Antonio) seen from the southern side of the Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue intersection in Diamond Bar. Rocks, median art, and flowering plants (yellow yuccas - Hesperaloe parviflora) are all visible, including a car. The stoplight is showing all green lights and a green left turn signal. This was part of the 2015 rebuild of the Grand Avenue and Diamond Bar Boulevard intersection for Diamond Bar's 2015 "Grand Avenue Beautification" project, landscape architecture for the project was by David Volz Design.
Mt. Baldy (Mount San Antonio) seen from the southern side of the Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue intersection in Diamond Bar.

The Longview Drive intersection is at the eastern edge of the city, and features a new entrance sign for the city:

A full view near sunrise of the sign at the eatern edge of Diamond Bar's Grand Ave. This was part of the 2015 rebuild of the Grand Avenue and Longview Drive intersection for Diamond Bar's 2015 "Grand Avenue Beautification" project, landscape architecture for the project was by David Volz Design.
A full view of the sign at the eastern edge of Diamond Bar’s Grand Ave.

The sign is pretty just after sunrise, but the copper elements really stand out when it’s diffusely lit:

The entrance sign to Diamond Bar on the eastern edge of the city. This image, taken in the shade, highlights the coppery accents of the sign. This was part of the 2015 rebuild of the Grand Avenue and Longview Drive intersection for Diamond Bar's 2015 "Grand Avenue Beautification" project, landscape architecture for the project was by David Volz Design.
The entrance sign to Diamond Bar on the eastern edge of the city.

Iron plates form a repeating theme through the project, serving not just as elements on the entrance sign, but also as artistic inserts on parkway columns, display pieces in medians, and tree grates.

Metallic cutouts with a windmill pattern are frequent in the Grand Ave. corridor; this one is on the large entrance sign on the eastern edge of the city. This was part of the 2015 rebuild of the Grand Avenue and Longview Drive intersection for Diamond Bar's 2015 "Grand Avenue Beautification" project, landscape architecture for the project was by David Volz Design.
Metallic cutouts with a windmill pattern are frequent in the Grand Ave. corridor; this one is on the large entrance sign on the eastern edge of the city.

Continue reading Two intersections in Diamond Bar: The Grand Avenue Beautification Project

An introduction to the beauty and diversity of lichen

Last week I visited Vasquez Rocks, and wrote about the trip in this post. While the geological features were neat, what really interested me were the critters growing on the rocks. After all, what organismal biologist can go to a park with the word “rocks” in the name and not look for lichen?

For those who don’t remember Bio 101, lichen are a symbiotic organism: they’re a fungus and either a green alga or cyanobacterium living as a single unit. Fungi are masters of living in dry, dessicated environments with low nutrients (many plants have fungal symbionts that help the plant’s roots get nutrients out of the soil). However, fungi can’t obtain energy from sunlight.  Luckily for lichen, algae and cyanobacteria are photosynthesis experts. Pair the two up and you’ve got an amazing organism: one that can survive in a desert, exposed to the full summer sun all day while living on nothing but bare rock. No soil to get nutrients out of. No possibility to send roots down to the water table. They’re awesome.

But from far away, lichen don’t look like much1 . After all, many species of lichen require years to grow a centimeter or two (growth rates of lichen are typically reported as mm/year). But look up close, and the beauty of these organisms reveals itself as a complexly structured body consisting of beautiful lines, textures, and colors.

A brown-fringed gray foliose lichen overgrowing at least three other morphologies of lichen on a rock.   I believe the primary lichen has numerous isidia (small finger-like structures protruding from the thallus).  My best guess is that this is in _Physcia_, but I'm not sure.  This lichen was found in Vasquez Rocks County Park in Los Angeles County. The scale bar is 5mm (contact me if you want a version of the image without the scale bar). (Marc C. Perkins)
A brown-fringed gray foliose lichen on a rock. My best guess is that this is in _Physcia_, but I'm not sure. The scale bar is 5mm (contact me if you want a version of the image without the scale bar).

Quick quiz: how many species of lichen are visible in that picture?

The gray one that fills the frame is the dominant individual, but there’s at least four species visible2. And the gray one is overgrowing all the other three.  This is competition, lichen style. Lichen have only a limited amount of area where they can grow (the surface of some substrate), and inevitably they start to run into each other. Since they get their energy from light, whoever can overgrow the other is likely to win. You’re witnessing a fight to the death.

The number of lichen visible in that picture also demonstrates another characteristic of lichen that I love: they’re diverse. Walk into any given habitat that’s amenable to lichen, and within a few feet you’ll likely find a dozen or more different species. They’ll be different colors, textures, shapes, and sizes. See, for instance:

A crustose yellow ascomycete lichen growing on a rock.  Multiple apothecia are visible.  I believe this may be _Acarospora socialis_, but I'm not sure.  This lichen was found in Vasquez Rocks County Park in Los Angeles County. The scale bar is 5mm (contact me if you want a version of the image without the scale bar). (Marc C. Perkins)
A crustose yellow ascomycete lichen growing on a rock. Multiple apothecia are visible. I believe this may be _Acarospora_ (_Acarospora socialis_?) or _Pleopsidium_, but I'm not sure. The scale bar is 5mm (contact me if you want a version of the image without the scale bar).

Most lichen are ascomycetes, meaning that their fruiting bodies are based around asci, which are often found in cup-shaped structures. Take a look at the picture above, and you’ll see a couple of little cups; these are their apothecia, and they’re filled with spores that will be released into the air to grow into new lichen.

Adding to the diversity of lichen is the range of sizes they come in. Compared to the two above, the ones below are growing as tiny individual units:

Continue reading An introduction to the beauty and diversity of lichen

Vasquez Rocks: Day and Night

Last Tuesday Greg was invited to give a talk at the Lancaster Photographic Association; we carpooled up there, and on the way stopped at Vasquez Rocks. This county park houses an unusual formation of rocks, whose main claim to fame seems to be that they’ve been featured in numerous movies and TV shows.

Vasquez Rocks, in Los Angeles County, were featured prominently in the Star Trek episode "Arena".  This is the rock formation on the left-hand side of the classic shot of Kirk facing off with the alien Gorn. (Marc C. Perkins)
Vasquez Rocks from the parking lot, which is the same view that is often used in films.

Vasquez Rocks were featured prominently in the Star Trek episode “Arena1. The formation seen above is on the left-hand side of the classic shot of Kirk facing off with the alien Gorn; scroll down on this page to see the classic Star Trek shot2.

The rocks are indeed visually interesting, and I wish we’d had more time to explore them.  I got distracted by all the beautiful lichen present (which will the feature of a separate post), and so didn’t even make it halfway around the rock formations before we had to leave.

Many people were having fun climbing the rocks, leading to great opportunities to add some scale to the pictures:

A woman climbs the primary peak of Vasquez Rocks, an unusual formation of rocks in Los Angeles County that's been featured in many films and TV shows (including Star Trek!). (Marc C. Perkins)
A woman climbs the primary peak of Vasquez Rocks.

As we drove home after Greg’s talk we watched a beautiful sunset over I-14, and decided to stop at the park to see what we could find. We got there just as dusk was ending, and the park was sadly closed.  But we set up outside and had fun playing with star photography.

I’ve been drooling over star trails for some time now, and before the trip Greg had been nice enough to send me an excellent star trail tutorial, as well as post an excellent example of the start trail genre to motivate me. Thanks to his help, within a few minutes I’d captured this:

A star trail taken just after dusk from outside the Vasquez Rocks park.  I love the yellow-orange misty clouds and rocky silhouette at the bottom.  This was my very first star trail; many thanks to Greg (of Alpenglow Images) for helping me capture this! (Marc C. Perkins)
A star trail taken just after dusk from outside the Vasquez Rocks park. Click on the image to view it on a dark background.

Sadly, when I captured the first picture of the night (to test exposure time and composition) and looked at the preview, I thought the lines next to the stars meant that the tripod had vibrated during the shot. Oops. Who knew the stars moved so fast?

Greg then informed me that to freeze the motion of the stars the longest shutter speed you can use is 600 divided by the focal length of the lens. We didn’t know if that was the cropped focal length or the actual focal length of the lens, but I used it as an estimation to get frozen stars:

Taken just after dusk from outside the Vasquez Rocks park proper, this exposure was short enough to freeze the stars' motion.  This was my very first starry night shot without star trails; many thanks to Greg (of Alpenglow Images) for helping me capture this! (Marc C. Perkins)
Taken just after dusk from outside the Vasquez Rocks park proper, this exposure was short enough to freeze the stars' motion. Click on the image to view it on a dark background.

Continue reading Vasquez Rocks: Day and Night