For my birthday this year, Rachel took me to the newly remodeled California Academy of Sciences. I used to love coming to this place as a child, my grandmother worked there teaching photography seminars to students and while she was there after hours, I’d get to wander the halls and explore the ancient insects, dinosaurs, minerals, and ancient cultural exhibits and I feel that having that experience really shaped who I am today.

Which brings me to this new museum. Sure it’s “green” and tries to bring awareness to Californians about the “Energy Crisis” and so on, but there are no real exhibits like those they used to showcase. Their Tyrannosaurus Rex “Sue” replica has been wheeled inside and greets you at the entrance to the buffet, while the rain forest bio-dome and planetarium take up the majority of the main hall. The only other exhibits on the main floor are “CA energy crisis” related, the croc pit from original museum, the original stuffed African animal hall, and the evolution of animals on Madagascar. The huge aquarium they used to have seems not even half the size of the original and the awesome shark tank they had is long gone, as are any sharks. It seems the focus from the older museum, which encouraged learning, academia, and showing the public things they could not see anywhere else, has turned to largely a giant day care where toddlers were the most prominent age group, and the emergency of the polar ice caps melting etc take precedence over showing people what they actually would be losing.

For me this new museum was a huge disappointment. Seems as if people are more interested in flashy exhibits and cartoon characters than to really take a look back into the past and how it relates to present day life.

That being said, I was not too inspired to even break out the camera, but aquariums always get me at some point. I shot around the crowds and crouched out of peoples views to carefully try to capture these macro shots.