A Fiery Kiss of the Sun...

"A sunset is the sun's fiery kiss to the night."

Crystal Woods

Sunset at Seal Beach...taken from the pier this time!

There's nothing more peaceful to me than the ocean...

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Sunset Symphony...

"There's never one sunrise the same or one sunset the same."

Carlos Santana

Partaking in a photography challenge group online...
the challenge was "silhouette".

This is the pier at Seal Beach, California.
A beautiful Saturday evening, there were a lot of people walking the pier.
I had my polarizer filter on the lens...28-120mm.

ISO 400 - f5.6 - 1/800 sec.



Check out photos from all over the world by clicking on the images below...

Stormy Weather...

Brings to mind... Stormy Weather...

...a little rain must fall.

"Into each life a little rain must fall."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry didn't live in California...

I See It...Do You See It?

"I have found that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people

or hate them than to travel with them."

Mark Twain

While this looks like a travel photo, it really isn't it.

I took this while being trained as a docent for Mono Lake.

This funny old pier is on the south side of the lake, west of the South Tufa's.

You have to take this old dirt road from one of the viewing spots off of Hwy 395

to get here.

My fellow docents were enjoying the day, looking for Osprey with their binoculars!

To visit other Little Corners of the World...

Click on the image below!

It's 5:00 somewhere...

I'm participating in a Facebook Photography Challenge

and this week's challenge is 5:00...

Waaaaahhhh!!!

It has to be a photo taken this week!

But I want to submit this one from our trip to Death Valley in 2014!!!

Wish I Knew...

Wish I knew about this lovely walk along Mammoth Creek when we lived here!!!

Not bad for an iPhone!!!

This stately old tree was hauntingly beautiful...

Wish I could remember the name of these flowers!  Anybody?

Just...cool...

 No place is more beautiful than Mammoth Lakes in the summer...

Guess who misses it up here?

Mom?  Can we go for another walk???  P-l-e-a-s-e!!!

Tall Ship...

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you don't do

than those you did.  So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from a safe harbor.  Catch the wind in your sails.

Explore.  Dream.  Discover."

Mark Twain

One of the tall ships in Dana Point, California

This is one of my favorite photos that I've taken over the years...

I took this in Dana Point, California during a class excursion for a Tri-Community Photography class.

2010

At the time I had a Nikon d70s...

1/160  at f 6.3  ISO 400  70mm (18-70mm)

In Memoriam...

To really get a grasp on the enormity of the sacrifice of our soldiers in war....

...one should visit a National Cemetery.

This happens to be the American Cemetery in Normandy.
The cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach, site of the D-Day Allied invasion of German occupied France.

The cemetery is stunningly beautiful.

The precision of the markers, equally stunning.

There is a sense of awe when visiting there.
Row after row after row of these beautiful crosses...
each one marking the sacrifice of an individual, a family, a community, our nation.

We walked from the cemetery down to the beach...
a pristine and beautiful coastline.
Hard to imagine the brutal battle that raged there so many years ago.

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below."
John McCrae



Our World Tuesday...

 



 

Found Art???

Sooo...

I got an email from a woman who's doing a video project about this old building in Pasadena.

 In particular, the Julia Morgan YWCA building.

She found me through my friend and fellow blogger Petrea Burchard,

 who did a post about Julia Morgan and the YWCA building on her blog,  

Living Vicuriously in 2012.  

I never did post any of my pics...

actually, I never did anything with them.

So I found the pics in my archives...

...and after going through them I found this one.

Call me crazy...the peeling walls etc. looked like an impressionist painting to me!  

With no post processing other than straightening the lines!!!

What do you think???

Here are some of the other pics from that day...

Julia Morgan is notable first and foremost because she was the first licensed female architect

in the state of California. 

An interesting building, eh?

Making Friends...

So why did I pick this one to feature here?

I loved the colors...the shadows highlighting the architectural structure...

and I especially love the guy giving me the high sign!!!

A middle class neighborhood in CapeTown, not far from the Township that we visited.

"The friends of our friends are our friends."

Congolese Proverb

A Solitary Reflection...

"With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves.

For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves."

Eric Hoffer

There are certain photos that I've taken over the years that have stayed with me in my 

creative mind...

...this is one of them...

Every now and then, I go back to it...play with it a bit...

and every time...I love it...

1/6 sec  f 6.3  ISO 200  95mm (24-120mm 4.0)

Click on the images below for more weekend reflections or skies from around the world...
 

One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human. Loren Eiseley
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/reflection_4.html

One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human. Loren Eiseley
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/reflection_4.html

South African Sunset...

"South Africa never leaves one indifferent.  Its history,

its population, its landscapes and cultures - 

all speak to the visitor, to the student, to the friend of Africa."

Tariq Ramadan





Click on the image below to visit more skies across the world...