Monday, November 28, 2005
When in Morro Bay, California...
...visit the Morro Bay Estuary Visitor Center [www.mbnep.org/about/location.php] perched over the spectacular harbor channel where playful sea otters, harbor seals, and all manner of boats pass by. You can also see the Morro Dunes Preserve (known to locals as "the sand spit") just across the channel.
Here Yours Truly is posed next to Discover The Estuary In 3-D, an environmental public outreach and education exhibit on permanent display featuring six stereo views presented in back-lit binocular viewing ports. Images are swapped out approximately every month making way for six new highlights from the 2003-2004 Morro Bay National Estuary Stereo Photo Survey, a 15-month photographic tribute to the landscapes, wetlands, riparian corridors, native plants, otters, sea lions, harbor seals, human activities, and wide variety of migrating bird species that depend upon the relatively pristine natural habitat of the Morro Bay estuary to survive. Morro Bay is the smallest of the 28-member national estuary system.
It is my hope that the images from this survey and future environmental studies may inspire proactive stewardship, conservation, and preservation of this, the most significant stopover habitat on the Pacific Flyway between the Sacramento River Delta to the north and the Tijuana Estuary and points south. 3-D is simply a (much) better way of conveying important visual information in our dimensional world and the interconnected web of life we share with creatures large and small.
While I remain a huge fan of stereo slide viewer presentations, I'm also developing new interpretive visitor center exhibits that will offer theatrically projected cinema-styled 3-D programs for groups as well as single-viewer 17"-22" glasses-free interactive viewing stations. That's right..3-D without glasses.
Morro Bay Estuary Visitor Center hours: 10AM to 5PM daily. Closed some major holidays. Address: 601 Embarcadero, 2nd floor. Visit the Morro Bay National Estuary Program's website at www.mbnep.org or call 805-772-3834 for more information.
