Rising Above the Old

All around downtown in recent years, there has been a steady diet of condo high-rises being built. One of the places that certainly has seen high-rises pop up has been along the Pacific Highway, next to the historic Santa Fe Depot, in downtown San Diego, California.

I am not sure if folks are familiar with Andrew Hudson. But, he is the author and contributing photographer for his series of books, called Photo Secrets. In his series of books, he has a book titled, Photo Secrets San Diego. It was published I believe in 1999. But still, it is a great book or resource for photographers not only visiting San Diego, but photographers, such as myself, who live here in "America's Finest City."

One of the photos you will find in this book is of one of the signature Santa Fe domes. Now, back in 1999, these condo high-rises filling up the background were obviously not there. But, the shot that Andrew took years ago was shot facing downtown San Diego and using one of the downtown glass-window buildings as a background. The building had a very interesting pattern and worked perfectly to contrast against the dome.

I decided, since there has been a lot of new buildings rising up, why not take another look and a try a similar, but different take on the one that Andrew took. Now, it might be similar, but sort of has a different mindset than Andrew's photo.

For this photo, I wanted to portray the feeling that the old is being squeezed out and being dwarfed. The new is bigger, modern, better, etc... I really like how the condo high-rises in the background not only rise above the Santa Fe Depot dome, but fill in the background. Your guess is left to wonder how much higher these high-rises rise above the old Santa Fe Depot. Of course, it is a classic example of the contrast of old versus new.

This is a great reason why it is a good idea to not only take a wide-angle lens with you around the city, but also take a telephoto lens. This was shot with a 135mm lens.