Coronado Aerial Photos
Aerial photographs of Coronado, California, including Coronado Island, the Hotel del Coronado, and the San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge.
These five Coronado Aerial Photographs are just a selection. If you like them, please be sure to see also my full collection of Coronado Aerial Photos and a gallery of San Diego Aerial Photos.
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| Hotel del Coronado, known affectionately as the Hotel Del. It was once the largest hotel in the world, and is one of the few remaining wooden Victorian beach resorts. It sits on the beach on Coronado Island, seen here with downtown San Diego in the distance. It is widely considered to be one of Americas most beautiful and classic hotels. Built in 1888, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. Image ID: 22287 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| San Diego Coronado Bridge, known locally as the Coronado Bridge, links San Diego with Coronado, California. The bridge was completed in 1969 and was a toll bridge until 2002. It is 2.1 miles long and reaches a height of 200 feet above San Diego Bay. Coronado Island is to the left, and downtown San Diego is to the right in this view looking north. Image ID: 22288 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Coronado Shores, a group of 10 condominium buildings south of the Hotel Del, on the water on Coronado Island. Image ID: 22297 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, situated on the Silver Strand between San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean, is the West Coast focal point for special and expeditionary warfare training and operations. The famous “swastika building” is seen on the southern (left) side of the base. Image ID: 22298 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Sunset over Coronado Island and Point Loma. Image ID: 22335 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
Blue Whale Aerial Photos
Blue whale aerial photos
This blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) was photographed from the air as it surfaced off the coast of Redondo Beach (near Los Angeles, California) to exhale and take a new breath, before diving underwater to feed on krill.
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| Blue whale, exhaling as it surfaces from a dive, aerial photo. The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth, exceeding 100′ in length and 200 tons in weight. Image ID: 25953 Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: Redondo Beach, California, USA |
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| Blue whale swims at the surface of the ocean in this aerial photograph. The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth, exceeding 100′ in length and 200 tons in weight. Image ID: 25952 Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: Redondo Beach, California, USA |
I recorded the GPS position (latitude, longitude) each time I took a photo of a blue whale. Curiously, the blue whales remained in a small area directly over the submarine canyon that lies offshore of Redondo Beach, as seen in the below screen shot from Google Earth. My hunch is that the krill upon which the blue whales were presumably feeding was gathered in, or near, the canyon. You can click the image below to bring up the Google Earth display, showing the images superimposed where they were photographed above the Redondo Beach submarine canyon.
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To see more blue whale aerial photos, or stock photos of Balaenoptera musculus, click on the links or use the search box at upper left.
Keywords: blue whale, aerial photo, Balaenoptera musculus
San Clemente Island Aerial Photograph
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 48' 40.28" N, Longitude: 118° 20' 45.81" W, Coord: 32.81119°, -118.34606°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, California on 9/30/2010
Aerial photograph of San Clemente Island, California
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| San Clemente Island Pyramid Head, the distinctive pyramid shaped southern end of the island. Image ID: 26003 Location: San Clemente Island, California, USA |
San Clemente Island is where I have done the majority of my scuba diving. For at least 20 years I’ve been admiring the beautiful kelp forests, reefs and marine inhabitants of San Clemente Island, almost always aboard the San Diego-based dive boat Horizon. These days I’m lucky if my schedule allows me to get out there once a year for a bit of diving, but when I do and I finally get underwater it feels like I am home in a way: beams of light filtering through the towering stands of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) on a sunny day still take my breath away (figuratively speaking). The long, flowing schools of baitfish and hefty bat rays are wonderful to behold. San Clemente Island is owned and managed by the U.S. Navy, and at times we have seen Naval jets scream just overhead as the pilots show off to the earth-bound boats below. I have often wished I could join one of those pilots so that I could see my favorite island from the air, to see it in its entirety. I finally got a chance to do that. I recently took a survey flight up the coast with a pilot friend and photographer friend and we decided to fly out to the islands. After passing by Catalina Island we looked over the waters on the weather side of San Clemente Island, from Castle Rock at the northwest end to Pyramid Cove at the southeast end. What a great day!
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| Kelp beds adorn the coastline of San Clemente Island. Image ID: 25984 Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera Location: San Clemente Island, California, USA |
Catalina Island Aerial Photograph
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 33° 29' 4.34" N, Longitude: 118° 36' 37.83" W, Coord: 33.48454°, -118.61051°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, California on 9/29/2010
Aerial photograph of Catalina Island
I was very fortunate recently to have the opportunity to fly over Catalina Island, and was able to take a few photographs of the West End of the island. Growing up in Newport Beach I used to visit Catalina fairly often as a kid, and as an adult I have been diving around most of the island, but I have only seen Catalina clearly from the air a few times. Catalina Island is one of California’s jewels. It is one of the Channel Islands and shares the rugged Mediterranean appearance of its siblings. Santa Catalina Island (as it is properly known) lies less than 20 miles offshore from the Los Angeles area at its closest point. Catalina is 22 miles long and reaches of height of 2,079′ at its summit. Seen here is the west end of the island. The brown patches just offshore of the island are the upper reaches of “kelp beds”, or submarine kelp forests, which are some of the most beautiful marine habitats anywhere in the world and a major attraction at Catalina Island. Eagle Rock is seen next to the largest kelp bed (for the curious: here’s a photo underwater at Eagle Rock)
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| Aerial photo of Catalina Island, West End. Image ID: 25978 Location: Catalina Island, California, USA |
Interesting fact: down there on somewhere on the West End lives a family of bald eagles whose nest can be observed by webcam.
Alien Spaceport Discovered In California
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 54' 24.87" N, Longitude: 114° 21' 33.12" W, Coord: 32.90691°, -114.3592°
Filed under: Aerial Photography on 8/4/2009
Last year on my flight home from Albuquerque (where I went to photograph birds at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge), our plane was driven off-course by a strange stream of magno-gravitronic pulses, and we found ourselves over an area of California not normally seen from commercial planes. The pilot requested that all the passengers lower their window shades. As everyone else did so, I noticed outside my side of the plane curious patterns on the ground below. It appeared to be some kind of airport carved into the desert below. I snapped off a photo of it, then noticed that the 6′5″ “flight attendant” was rushing down the aisle toward me with a serious face. Fortunately, he tripped and fell as another magno pulse rocked our plane. This gave me just enough time to pull the flash card with the photos from my camera and replace it with another before he then confiscated my gear. “Dude, this is not Burma,” I thought, but decided not to resist. Once we landed I got my camera back from another burly “flight attendant”, but all the images had been erased.
Anyway, once I got home I pulled the card containing the surreptitious image from where I had stashed it (you don’t want to know) and viewed it in Photoshop. This is the one image I got before Mr. Man got my stuff:
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| A top secret, high security alien spaceship depot in the desert east of the Colorado River. Long suspected but only confirmed to exist for the first time with this photograph, this is a derivative high tech interstellar flight complex arising from work originally conducted at the (nonexistant) Area 51. Strangely, certain curious aspects of this location, such as the circle and long oval tracks which support landings and liftoff of gravity drive Martian and Saturnian craft, are not shown on Google Earth, while other features in this photograph area such as the long ovoid skateboard track are indeed seen on Google Earth and can be matched to this image. The US Government will likely deny the mere existence of this bizarre Martian landing area. Alien Spaceship Landing Field, California, USA. Image ID: 22130 Location: Alien Spaceship Landing Field, California, USA  View this Image in Google Earth! |
It appears to be some kind of alien spaceport. It could be where Elvis and Michael Jackson are. I think all the TARP money is really going to this place. Maybe its a gigantic doomsday neutron-meso-meta-particuloid accelerator capable of creating a miniature black hole to devour liberal California. What I find curious is that some features in this image can be matched against Google Earth’s imagery, while others cannot. Could Google’s images be subjected to government scrubbing before they are loaded onto the Google Earth servers? I smell a conspiracy. Check out the Google Earth view of this same location. You be the judge of whether something fishy is going on:
From Google Earth, this shows the location of an apparent alien spaceport, but the image appears to have been altered to hide the existence of the facility.
I am undertaking considerable personal risk in sharing this information. If my blog disappears, or I suddenly go silent and stop posting for a while, please start asking the difficult questions on my behalf.
San Diego Pictures
My San Diego pictures are now on Photoshelter in addition to the photos of San Diego on this website. There is even a nifty slideshow of them. Don’t watch too long, however, or you will want to move out here.
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| San Diego Coronado Bridge, known locally as the Coronado Bridge, links San Diego with Coronado, California. The bridge was completed in 1969 and was a toll bridge until 2002. It is 2.1 miles long and reaches a height of 200 feet above San Diego Bay. Coronado Island is to the left, and downtown San Diego is to the right in this view looking north. San Diego, California, USA. Image ID: 22288 Location: San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Keywords: San Diego pictures, San Diego, California, stock photo, picture, landscape, scenic, travel, image, photograph.
Hotel del Coronado, San Diego
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 40' 40.33" N, Longitude: 117° 10' 46.73" W, Coord: 32.67787°, -117.17965°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, California, San Diego on 2/7/2009
An aerial photo of the Hotel del Coronado, known affectionately as the Hotel Del. It was once the largest hotel in the world, and is one of the country’s few remaining wooden Victorian beach resorts. It sits on the beach on Coronado Island, seen here with downtown San Diego in the distance. It is widely considered to be one of Americas most beautiful and classic hotels. Built in 1888, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.
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| The Hotel del Coronado, San Diego, California, USA. Image: 22287 Location: San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
See more of our San Diego Photos.
Crystal Pier, San Diego
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 47' 52.4" N, Longitude: 117° 15' 46.29" W, Coord: 32.79789°, -117.26286°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, California, San Diego on 2/5/2009
Crystal Pier, a combination hotel and pier in the Pacific Beach community of San Diego, extends 872 feet out into the Pacific Ocean. A few dozen cottages sit on the pier near its base. It was built in 1925. Seen beyond Crystal Pier in this aerial photo are Mission Bay and, to the upper right, downtown San Diego.
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| Crystal Pier, 872 feet long and built in 1925, extends out into the Pacific Ocean from the town of Pacific Beach. Mission Bay and downtown San Diego are seen in the distance. San Diego, California, USA. Image: 22294 Location: San Diego, California, USA
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| The Crystal Pier and Pacific Ocean at sunrise, dawn, waves blur as they crash upon the sand. Crystal Pier, 872 feet long and built in 1925, extends out into the Pacific Ocean from the town of Pacific Beach. Image ID: 27239 Location: Pacific Beach, California, USA |
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| The Crystal Pier and Pacific Ocean at sunrise, dawn, waves blur as they crash upon the sand. Crystal Pier, 872 feet long and built in 1925, extends out into the Pacific Ocean from the town of Pacific Beach. Image ID: 27243 Location: Pacific Beach, California, USA |
See more of our San Diego Photos.
Ocean Beach Pier, San Diego
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 45' 10.11" N, Longitude: 117° 15' 29.66" W, Coord: 32.75281°, -117.25824°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, California, San Diego on 2/3/2009
Here is a view of the Ocean Beach Pier (”OB Pier”) with Sunset Cliffs and Point Loma, and even one of the Coronado Islands in the distance.
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| Ocean Beach Pier, also known as the OB Pier or Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast measuring 1971 feet (601 m) long. Sunset Cliffs and Point Loma extend off to the south. San Diego, California, USA. Image: 22459 Location: San Diego, California, USA
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| Ocean Beach Pier, also known as the OB Pier or Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast measuring 1971 feet (601 m) long. Image ID: 27387 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Ocean Beach Pier, also known as the OB Pier or Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast measuring 1971 feet (601 m) long. Image ID: 27391 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
See more photos of San Diego
Aerial Photos of San Diego
Here are a couple of new aerial photos from our recently updated collection of San Diego Photos.
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| New Point Loma Lighthouse, situated on the tip of Point Loma Peninsula, marks the entrance to San Diego Bay. The lighthouse rises 70′ and was built in 1891 to replace the “old” Point Loma Lighthouse which was often shrouded in fog. San Diego, California, USA. Image: 22295 Location: San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Downtown San Diego and Petco Park, viewed from the southeast. San Diego, California, USA. Image: 22300 Location: San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Recently I had a chance to go flying with Ron Niebrugge, an Alaska-based photographer who spends a lot of time shooting in California in winter months. We had a picture-perfect flight, just super, and managed to fly over most of the landmarks we had on our wish list. If you use Google Earth, you can see the flight track we had as well as a sampling of the images I took positioned where they were taken by clicking both of the following two links (you’ll need Google Earth installed for this to work):
http://www.oceanlight.com/kml.php?file=20090116.kml
http://www.oceanlight.com/22285-22305.kml
I managed a lot of keepers and will be posting some of them in the coming days.
Aerial Photo of a Blue Whale
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 48' 8.56" N, Longitude: 117° 23' 23.17" W, Coord: 32.80238°, -117.38977°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, Blue Whale, California, San Diego on 9/14/2008
Here is another blue whale aerial photo shot from our recent flight over the Coronado Islands and Nine Mile Bank. More blue whale aerial photos.
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| Blue whale. The sleek hydrodynamic shape of the enormous blue whale allows it to swim swiftly through the ocean, at times over one hundred miles in a single day. La Jolla, San Diego, California, USA. Image: 21250 Species: Balaenoptera musculus Location: La Jolla, San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
North Island, Coronado Islands, Mexico
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 32° 25' 46.12" N, Longitude: 117° 17' 36.06" W, Coord: 32.42948°, -117.29335°
Filed under: Aerial Photography, Mexico on 9/12/2008
From a recent flight over Islas Coronados (Coronado Islands, Mexico) recently, seen here is the western exposure of North Coronado Island viewed from the southwest. Do you see the crack between the rightmost tip of the island and the main island? There is a narrow submerged passageway through that crack from the east to the west side of the island which we have swam through while diving. If the water in the slot is calm, there are often sea lions hanging out there. On this day you can see that the wave energy was high and it would have been a ass-over-teakettle tumbler of a ride for a diver to swim through that passageway.
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| North Coronado Island, aerial photo, viewed from the south. Coronado Islands (Islas Coronado), Coronado Islands, Baja California, Mexico. Image: 21317 Location: Coronado Islands (Islas Coronado), Baja California, Mexico View this Image in Google Earth! |
Blue Whale Aerial Photograph
I had a chance to go flying with a pilot friend whom I had not seen in a few years, and jumped at the opportunity. Flying in small planes is a lot of fun, and it allows us to see the ocean in ways one cannot from the coast or on a boat. The plan was to fly over the Nine Mile Bank and around the Coronado Islands. We saw hundreds of Risso’s dolphins, and two huge herds of what appeared to be short-beaked common dolphins (it was difficult to be sure from altitude but they were one of the smaller dolphin species). Mola mola (ocean sunfish) were sunning themselves on the surface, we saw about a dozen of them without really even looking very hard. And we found at least four, perhaps five, blue whales above the submarine trench off La Jolla. The only times I have ever truly seen an entire blue whale, clearly and for more than a few moments, is from the air. When observed from a boat, only about 10-20% of a blue whale is visible at a time. When seen underwater, which is quite rare, the entire blue whale may be briefly visible if the water is clear enough but it is nonetheless difficult to truly appreciate the detail and sleek lines that a blue whale has in such a fleeting moment.
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| Blue whale, swimming through the open ocean. La Jolla, San Diego, California, USA. Image: 21248 Species: Balaenoptera musculus Location: La Jolla, San Diego, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
I was glad to have a new Nikon D3 with me since we had less than optimal photography weather and the camera has great performance in low light. The skies were mostly cloudy this day, so the lighting on the whales was flat and without contrast. The low light levels also meant I was fighting for enough shutter speed to freeze the motion of the whales against the shaking of the camera in my hands as I tried to keep it steady shooting out the small plane. I jacked up the ISO to 1600 and even 2000 for some of the shots, and the results were amazing: the color was intact with plenty of detail in the shadow areas and very little noise. I’ve shot film on these animals before in ideal conditions and even then it was difficult to obtain sharp appealing images. Shooting good images with film on this day would have been impossible, and was difficult even with my Canon bodies (1DsII and 5D). But the Nikon D3 recorded so much detail at high ISO that with the usual raw conversion steps (white balance, curves, levels) I was able to glean some real keepers.
Aerial Photos of Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
While out hiking around the Exit Glacier area I was so impressed by the weather that I decided to go to the airport and look for a pilot to take me flying. I love flying in the little planes, wheeled and float alike, in Alaska. For some reason I feel safer and more at ease on those small planes. Perhaps it is because I can actually meet the pilot and get a small sense about whether he cares to go on living as much as I do. (On the big planes I might get a robotic “bah-bye” from him after the flight is over.) I met Jim Craig of Scenic Mountain Air who agreed to take me up later in the day, although he felt that the clouds would fill in making flying over the fjords unspectacular. We abandoned the usual flightseeing tour route and just flew around looking for clear air. I figured that since everything below us was amazing, just finding some clear air and sun would allow for good picture taking. Jim is a pilot, flight instructor and writer who really knows the area and flight conditions well, and I enjoyed talking to him as we flew.
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| The Kenai Mountains rise above thick ice sheets and the Harding Icefield which is one of the largest icefields in Alaska and gives rise to over 30 glaciers. Kenai Range, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, USA. Image: 19016 Location: Kenai Range, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, USA |
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| The Kenai Mountains rise above thick ice sheets and the Harding Icefield which is one of the largest icefields in Alaska and gives rise to over 30 glaciers. Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, USA. Image: 19022 Location: Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, USA |
We flew over parts of Kenai Fjords National Park and the Kenai Mountains, including in particular the enormous Harding Icefield, a broad expanse of thick ice through which jagged peaks appear. The Harding Icefield spawns over thirty glaciers, so there was glacier somewhere in sight below us at almost all times. We then left the national park boundaries and flew over the Resurrection Mountains, seeing different glaciers, lush green valleys and dramatic mountains. My hour in the air was up too quickly.
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| Glacier and rocky peaks, Resurrection Mountains. Resurrection Mountains, Alaska, USA. Image: 19015 Location: Resurrection Mountains, Alaska, USA |
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| Aerial view, Resurrection Mountains. Resurrection Mountains, Alaska, USA. Image: 19051 Location: Resurrection Mountains, Alaska, USA |
Jim Craig can be reached at (907) 224-6607 or by email at jcraig9218@yahoo.com.
Blue Whale Photo in BBC Wildlife
BBC Wildlife is the finest wildlife magazine in the UK and Europe, and one in which I have enjoyed seeing my images occasionally appear. The November 2006 issue has a nice article about blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), authored by Anna McKibbin, leading with a two-page spread of a shot I took some years ago while flying over the ocean in a small plane.
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See also:
blue whale photos, Balaenoptera musculus photos, blue whale aerial photos.
Blue Whale Aerial Photo
This blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), was photographed offshore of the coast of Baja California, Mexico:
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Keywords: blue whale photos, Balaenoptera musculus
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Updated: May 19, 2013
