Victor Valley, CA

So I am driving around trying to scout out the area for photo shoots because I am new here.  Here being Victorville, CA.  I had been in Fontana for almost a year and just relocated to Victorville here in the VictorValley.  I had been driving around a few places, doing my ‘drive by shooting’ with my camera, when it occurs to me that the area was poised to blow up before the great economic meltdown of 2008 – The Great Recession as it is known in the financial world.  I say that because you can see signs of development that simply stopped.  So many places were in that predicament all over the country.  But why were people coming to Victor Valley in the first place?  The place gets crazy hot in the summer (it sits in the Mojave Desert) and crazy cold, with snow, in the winter.  In the winter, people do get “snowed in” up here when the CHP closes the Cajon Pass on I-15 – that means you are cut off from getting down below into San Bernardino/Riverside Metro and on to LA.  Well, you could always reverse direction and head to Vegas I guess.  But aside from being a place to stop and eat on your way to and from Las Vegas, why would people want to live out here?  I only came because it was cheap relative to many other areas in So Cal.  Nevertheless, the place was growing before the Great Recession.  Median house prices were above $350K back then.  I believe there is something more going on here than meets the eye.  Clearly, I am going to have to learn more.  But look for yourself:

I was out next to Mojave Narrows Regional Park on June 2 looking for interesting places to do a photo shoot.  Look at those mountains in the background.  California is full of impressive geography if you just pause to look.  I shot these with my Canon PowerShot A540 – still working my old faithful.

With my PowerShot A540 in hand on June 4, I was driving around way out in the far parts of Apple Valley (yeah, the “far parts”) and saw this abandoned place. Definitely, the ‘Hills Have Eyes’kind of stuff going on here. Oh, they filmed part of that movie out here. Makes you say hmm…

Yesterday, June 9, while driving to school (Cal State San Bernardino in North San Bernardino) on I-15, I observed how the smog was held at bay by the mountains as I drove through the Cajon Pass.  I know, what’s worse – texting and driving or shooting and driving?  It’s not as hard as it looks when you have a CanonPowerShot S5 IS with its “High-resolution 2.5-inch vari-angle LCD for easy shooting at any angle”.  Was that a plug or what?  They should hire me.

This last shot I took with the PowerShot S5 too.  I was just cruising the streets in Victorville hunting for places to shoot.  I just like how I caught the sun in this shot.  I shot this today, June 10, 2011.