Wings + Wonder + Water Birds of the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve
American White Pelicans © Amanda Thompson
It’s through a delightful dose of serendipity that my book and I have landed in Focal Points Magazine. A handful of years ago I attended Open Show Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, back when it was a smallish space squeezed tight into the tactile, colorful texture of Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood. There were a few photographers doing presentations that evening, but none sparked my interest until the work of the last one, a guy named Joe. I still remember my inner thrill when his mystical shot of a great heron in silhouette, standing backlit in a saffron sea of mist and moodiness, came up on the screen.
I was simultaneously transfixed and transported. I was certain that a shot this magical had to have been taken in China or some distant location where these exquisite, sculptural birds and the otherworldly atmosphere shared the same time and space certainly somewhere unattainable without great expense and long days of travel. I waited as Joe described the shot. I waited to hear the exotic name of the far-away place that would confirm that I wouldn’t be able to get there anytime soon, if ever. Then he said it – The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve. What? That was definitely an unusual name, but it was also a familiar one, like the Sepulveda 5