Pages Tagged “Photos”
Reviews
- Fossify Camera ★★★☆☆ Basic camera app with support for flash, timer and video, optional EXIF. Lacks advanced processing like night sight. Images are slightly noisier than Google’s camera.
- Fossify Gallery ★★★★☆ Basic on-device gallery that lets you manage your photos without sending them to a cloud service just to deal with what’s on your phone.
- Image Toolbox ★★★★☆ An extremely powerful image editor for Android. And not just the usual features like crop, adjust contrast or brightness, maybe apply a filter, but you can do batch edits, format conversion, scaling the actual pixel image, editing metadata…all the things that mobile apps tend to hide behind the curtain. And it can preserve EXIF data when you want it to.
- Mobile Apps and Preserving Photo Metadata You’d think that ‘don’t change the stuff that the user isn’t changing’ would be a low bar, but most image editors I’ve used on Android tend to mess up the EXIF metadata one way or another.
- Scrambled EXIF ★★★★☆ One of those ‘does one thing really well’ apps: It’s a filter that removes all the date, time, location, camera, and other metadata from a photo as you share it from your phone.
- Sly (Image Editor) ★★★☆☆ Simple, friendly, privacy-respecting image editor for Android and Linux. Convenient for most basic photo adjustments, but metadata handling is currently broken, so I can’t use it to just crop photos for iNaturalist. Once that’s fixed, though…
Les Misérables
- Not exactly Javert’s bridge, but close enough Coincidence: A Flickr event I participate in ended up highlighting a photo taken at the exact spot as one of the personal shots I used on this site.
- Moonlight and Darkened Street Lamps Seeing the bright moon against an unlit parking lot light reminded me of the chase through the streets of Paris.
Blog Posts
- Eye of the Mall
In downtown San Francisco, there’s a multi-level shopping mall with an atrium and a skylight. If you stand in the dead center of the atrium and look up, it resembles an eye, looking down at you through a giant microscope. This was taken during WonderCon 2009. Years later, I posted it for a February 2015 […]
- Turtle! Duck!
Finally getting around to sorting through photos from a walk at the pond and botanical gardens at Polliwog Park…um…two months ago. The third duckling on the right was spooked by the turtle surfacing its head right next to it. Between this shot and the next, a few seconds later, it had darted away and hidden […]
- Plural of Eclipse
Yes, it turns out a colander *does* make a fun instrument for observing a solar eclipse! Also, thinking about how common eclipses actually are.
- Lunching Squirrel
This squirrel was completely nonchalant about two humans standing a few feet away. It just kept grabbing more berries and eating them. In retrospect, I should have pulled out the better camera once I was sure I had some clear shots on the phone, since it probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
- Partial Solar Eclipse Pics (October 2023)
It was hazy, and the weather forecast was partly cloudy, but the sun stayed visible and the eclipse glasses (used here for the photo) haven’t cracked! We didn’t do anything complicated this time: just took the glasses with us as we went about our morning, looking through the glasses every 15-20 minutes to see how […]
- Venus and Jupiter Conjunction 2023
A photo of Venus and Jupiter close together in tonight’s sky, and a close-up that appears to have very blurry images of Jupiter’s moons.
- Full Halo
A 22-degree circular halo spotted today, caused by sunlight refracting through ice crystals in the thin cloud layer.
- Entradero Basin: Spring and Fall
The flood control basin has been partly restored for stormwater infiltration and as habitat for native plants and migrating waterfowl, bounded by a city park on one side, baseball fields on the other, and hills all around. The city is currently expanding the basin while the water level is low.
- Halloween, the TL;DR Edition
Oddly quiet night here. Big change from last year when everyone seemed to be going all-out because they finally felt like they could.
- Monarchs!
From this afternoon’s walk along the greenbelt: About as many monarch butterflies in one photo than I’ve seen in the last few years! There were a whole bunch of them clustered on a pine branch above the path. I wouldn’t have even seen them, but other people out walking had stopped to check them out. […]
- Far Snows
We actually got quite a bit of rain (for Southern California, anyway) in December, and the mountains have stayed cold enough that the snow has stuck around for a few weeks! Here’s a view of the San Gabriels in mid-December, after a big storm. And here’s a comparable view a week into January. Nowhere near […]
- Oh, Hi There!
Saw this while walking around the neighborhood the other day.
- Meloetta is Ready for Rehearsal
All set!
- Hungry Hawk
Photos of a hawk that brought its breakfast of fresh pigeon to a tree, and the crows that tried to scare it off.
- Odd Geese
Grooming geese: Nature’s panorama fail. Seriously, though, I was determined to get some decent photos of these two geese because they are unusual. They’re clearly Canada Geese in terms of body shape and the pattern of markings. But every other goose of this type that I’ve seen has had white patches on the sides of […]
- Good Advice
A few Covid-19 rules are still in place at this botanical garden, though it’s a lot more relaxed than it was last spring when they managed to stay open even through the early-pandemic lockdowns.
- Humming…birb?
An Anna’s hummingbird perched at local park. Most of the time they donât stay in one place long enough for me to even focus on them, never mind catch a photo. Even when they pause somewhere like this one, it’s usually just for a few moments before they fly off again. Of course, the reason […]
- Reflections of Manhattan Village
An outdoor mall extension completed in 2020. Which wasnât exactly ideal timing. The courtyard was at least someplace they could set up chairs and signs reminding you to keep your distance. I saw a few people walking through on their way to somewhere else (like I was), and could hear an exercise class running in […]
- Halo Over Bike Path
A bright circle in the sky surrounds the silhouette of a stop sign blocking the sun. Below it, a bike path winds into the distance and electrical towers stretch upward.
- Smoky Orange Sun
We’ve had some ash fall over the past week, but the air quality at ground level has only been awful, not unbearable. But the light has just been wrong.
- Hark! A Spark! Standing in the Park!
It’s Pokemon Go Fest this weekend, and with a global pandemic going on, the normally travel-based event has gone virtual, with in-game events both free and paid. And, amusingly, downloadable papercrafts and stand-ups to print out. The kiddo wanted to make a stand-up of Spark, the leader of Team Instinct. And we had the cardboard […]
- Bar and Grille
The outside of the former Great Maple restaurant at Del Amo Fashion Center. It opened with the new upscale wing of the mall, and closed suddenly about a year later. (Like, people showed up to work and the door was locked.) Nothing’s moved in since then, and of course nothing’s likely to move in for […]
- Pokemon at the Park
Sneasel is disappointed that the museum is closed. Turtwig has found a new friend. (I had such a hard time trying to get it to face the right direction, which is why itâs still a little bit off. At least I didn’t need to worry about the real turtle wandering away while I set up […]
- Covid Garden
Finally made it out to the botanical gardens up in the hills for a hike. They’ve actually stayed open this whole time by requiring reservations to limit the number of people on the grounds at a time. (Also face masks, distancing, and closing off benches and some sections.) Ironically there were more people there than […]
- Dance of the House Finches
Two house finches, a male and a female, trading spots on on a cable over the course of five photos.
- Bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
I find myself thinking of “The Creation of Ãa” every time I see a hawk in the distance.
- Flappy Bird (No, Not That One!)
I don’t often get good photos of hummingbirds, since they move so quickly. I wouldn’t call this a good shot, but it’s an interesting one!
- Sorta Open. Maaaybe. If You’re Careful.
I mentioned last week that Manhattan Beach had closed all their parks outright, rather than just closing equipment and facilities. Over the weekend heat wave, they reopened at least Polliwog Park, taking down the caution tape from the perimeter and instead wrapping individual playgrounds, gazebos, sculptures and even picnic tables with metal fencing. And signs. […]
- No Ducks Past the Yellow Tape!
While some cities around here have only closed playgrounds and sports facilities at their parks, Manhattan Beach has closed their parks outright. Polliwog Park has a large pond year-round that attracts ducks, geese, coots, herons and more, plus the local gulls and pigeons that wander by. But the park has been literally wrapped in caution […]
- Despite everything else going on, it *is* still spring
Most people are stuck at home except for short trips (like this walk), but the hawthorns are still blooming.
- Tangents and Chords Across a Sun Halo.
Update: Someone on Flickr blamed this effect on aircraft emissions. No, these have been around long before aircraft. They’re caused by light refracting through ice crystals, which can be near the surface or high in the upper atmosphere. They get even more elaborate in places where it’s colder near the surface and more ice crystals […]
- Birds in the Social Distance
I finally recovered enough from the flu to get out for a walk in the neighborhood (while that’s still an option). More people were out than I expected, but they were all either solo or in small groups, keeping their distance. And it really helped my stress levels. I didn’t even go very far, just […]
- Last Walk Along the Coast Before the Virus (No, Not That One)
Last weekend, before the flu hit me, I tried to de-stress by going somewhere for a photo-and-nature walk. I ended up at the actual Redondo Beach, south of the pier. Partly because there was nowhere to park near the pier due to the Kite Festival, which now that I think of it may have been […]
- Fragments of a sun halo and a couple of contrails
Looks like the usual 22-degree circular halo.
- Hawkspotting
I’ve been seeing hawks lately when I’m out walking, which is new. I know partly it’s that I’m actively looking for suburban wildlife, but I’ve been doing that since last June when I started participating in iNaturalist. I started noticing how many squirrels and sparrows and phoebes and finches were around (in addition to the […]
- Bluebird Valentine
I spotted a western bluebird on Valentine’s Day morning. Seems appropriate. (Spotted in a tree at a city park. As I was trying to aim my camera, it flew down and landed on top of a birdhouse nearby, making it easier to see.) Update: This was the last photo I posted to Instagram before I […]
- Time Gate
When did they install the Guardian of Forever at this park?
- Winter Birds of Madrona Marsh
I went hiking at the marsh preserve this weekend and was astonished at just how many different types of birds I saw. Five species of ducks alone (it is winter, after all) — not just the more common mallards, but shovelers, teals, wigeons, and one I hadn’t heard of before called redheads (for obvious reasons). […]
- Today’s Bird: Black Phoebe
A Black Phoebe spotted on my walk to lunch a few days ago, near an office building. It perched there, maybe 10 feet away from me, and actually stayed put while I walked around looking for different angles. Then it flew up into a tree.
- Clouds Flowing Over the Snowy San Gabriels (Dec 2019)
Clouds flow over the snow-covered San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles this morning. We’ve had a decent amount of rain this December, and snow in the mountains, leading to hopes for a wet winter and enough water to store for next summer. Oh, and skiing for those who are into that sort of thing 😁
- Glass Sundog
A bright sundog next to a glass-sided building. The sun is off to the left out of frame. The sundog had a bit more color and more of the spectrum in it as seen through my polarized sunglasses, so I kind of wish I’d taken a shot through one of the lenses, but at least […]
- Halo and a Dark Cloud
A 22° sun halo.
- Social Squirrel
I swear I’m not trying to turn this into a squirrel-themed blog, but here’s another encounter that I thought was worth sharing. Most of the squirrels I see are really skittish around people. This one, in a city park, walked up to me and posed. I’m not sure what it was doing in the first […]
- Squirrel Guard
I saw this squirrel running across the grass, then got my camera out and caught the first photo as it ran up the side of a tree and paused, looking at me as if assessing whether I was a threat or not. Then it ran the rest of the way up to look at a […]
- Moonshots
Saturday night’s crescent moon. One shot for the daylit crescent, the other for the night side lit by earthshine (with some clouds as a bonus). J. helped with focusing the telephoto lens. The second shot is a lot noisier than I’d like since I was adjusting levels on the JPEG, but I have the raw […]
- Double Rainbow Cloud
Two fragments of a circumhorizon arc seen on my way back from lunch today. I took some shots with my phone, because that’s what I had, then remembered that I had the good camera with me (I usually don’t) and grabbed it from the office. The clouds had shifted, but not far enough to destroy […]
- Feral Tomatoes Doing Well
This feral tomato plant was growing out of a crack in the pavement next to the driveway of a grocery store. I imagine someone must have dropped a tomato with viable seeds on the way out and it took hold.
- The Walnut Burglar
This squirrel bounded along a wall carrying a walnut in its mouth as I walked down the sidewalk. It stopped and looked at me as if it had been caught in the act of walnut burglary. I had enough time to snap a couple of pictures with my phone and pull out my camera for […]
- Summer Halo
A short rainbow-like arc in the sky, backed by wispy clouds and appearing above the silhouette of a palm tree.
- Damn You, Autofocus!
Gotta love it when the camera’s autofocus insists gives you this wonderfully clear image of…the grass in front of the skittish animal you’re trying to get a picture of before it scampers away. I did manage to get one shot of it before moving on, and then I was able to spot a clearer view […]
- Compass in the Sky
Two views of a 22-degree circular halo around the sun that I saw on a walk this afternoon. Halos are a lot more common than I used to think. Then I started actually looking for them. Even on a warm day like today, there can still be ice crystals higher in the atmosphere of the […]
- The Adventures of the Flickr Panda
Flickr has spent the last day offline, moving the rest of their services out of Yahoo’s datacenters. But to keep people involved, they’re holding a Good Panda Photo Contest where you print out the panda from the “Down For Maintenance” page and take a photo of it off having some adventure. I went a little […]
- No, those aren’t brush strokes. It’s just digital zoom.
After several days not being able to see any of the birds I could hear when I went for a walk on break from work, I saw a whole bunch of them hanging out on a lawn, eating seeds or bugs or whatever it is that these particular birds eat. Of course since I’d been […]
- Dreariest Circumhorizon Arc Ever
I could barely see any colors in the cloud at all without my polarized sunglasses, and when I took a photo through them, I still had to bump up the saturation. I’ve seen several of these over the years. The brightest one was nine years ago, while the longest was just last year. It’s a […]
- When did I start using Flickr?
I’ve been going through old scenic photos that either never made it online or I only posted low-res versions on my blog and uploading the ones I still think are decent (or at least interesting) to Flickr. Which has got me wondering: When did I start using it? Other social networks are easy. I signed […]
- Going Mirrorless: WonderCon 2019 Cosplay Photography
Last fall, I conceded that phones have caught up to casual cameras and I’d have to get a nicer one to get better image quality. Well, I finally bought a mirrorless camera. The kiddo found my old SLR, and we’ve split a few rolls of film (re)discovering how to shoot with it. Then he started […]
- Waxing and Waning Moon
Tonight’s waxing crescent moon, taken with the really long telephoto lens. It’s passing in front of the Hyades star cluster right now, which I’d love to get a photo of, but the moon is just waaay too bright to capture the background stars! Plus I’m still getting used to the controls on this camera. And […]
- Supercameratelephotolensisoutoffocus
Super camera telephoto lens is out of focus. Even though the tripod’s set, the blur is really bogus…
- Halo!
Not as exciting as some of the less common halos I’ve seen over the last few weeks, but it’s a very complete 22-degree halo.
- Snow Above Los Angeles (Feb 2019)
The winter storm of the past few days is over, leaving a thick coat of snow on the higher parts of the San Gabriel Mountains and a thin dusting on the lower parts, even the mountains behind the Hollywood Hills, still lingering though mid-morning. By mid-afternoon, most of the snow in the second photo appeared […]
- Smiling Sky
The last few weeks have been really good for halos. The first tangent arc I’ve seen, a clear circumscribed halo, the more common sundogs and 22° halos, and now a circumzenith arc, looking like an upside-down rainbow high above the sun, wrapping around the top of the sky. I think this is the second Iâve […]
- Lunar Eclipse, January 2019
The evening was hectic, and I almost forgot. I had literally just put my son to bed when I remembered, “The eclipse!” We went out to see if the sky was clear. Clouds were rushing across the sky, but for the most part, it was clear, and we had a perfect view of the moon […]
- Tangent in the Sky
When I first started paying attention to solar ice halos, I read about tangent arcs. But this is the first time I’m sure I’ve seen one. The tangent arcs appear above and below the sun, branching out from the 22° circular halo (which you can see here, very faintly), and change shape depending on how […]
- Pumpkin Pie Moon
I suggest that a deep orange moon right before Christmas be called a Pumpkin Pie Moon.
- Depth of Field: Real and Simulated
Four versions of the same photo. One taken with my phone, which has a deep depth of field. One automatically “enhanced” by Google from that phone photo. One taken with my phone in portrait mode, which simulates a shallow depth of field. One taken with my ancient film SLR camera, with a low F-stop to […]
- First Try With The Old Film Camera
We got the negatives and scans back from the two rolls of film we shot with the old manual film camera. Despite the damage to the case, it seems to still be light-proof, as the second roll of film came out about as well as the first. It was an interesting experiment. We mostly took […]
- High-Rise Night: Trying out “Night Sight” on the Pixel 2 Camera
Google has a new camera mode on its Pixel phones called Night Sight, for handling low-light conditions. The short version is that instead of taking a long exposure, it takes a series of short exposures and stacks them to avoid motion blur from hand movements (plus a lot of additional processing). The long version is […]
- The Old Camera
The 7YO was looking through the closet the other day and found my old camera bag. Inside it: the old film SLR camera that my grandfather gave me when I was around 12. It’s older than I am, a Sears camera that appears to be a rebranded Ricoh Singlex TLS from 1967. It’s completely manual […]
- Catching up on photos
Somehow this year has just gotten away from me as far as posting general photos. Oh, I made sure to post albums from events like comic conventions and hiking trips. But the random one-offs and two-fers? I’ve been tossing them up on Instagram, Pixelfed, and/or Mastodon, but I haven’t been maintaining my Flickr gallery. Part […]
- Afternoon to Golden Hour: What a Difference 90 Minutes Makes
The air has finally cleared up enough to see Downtown Los Angeles and the mountains. After several weeks of smoggy days, wildfire smoke, and occasional gloom, it’s nice to be able to see something other than a gray blur in the distance! Also interesting: seeing how much the view changes from late afternoon to really […]
- A quick note on cameras and cons
I brought my point-and-shoot Canon Powershot to Long Beach Comic Con on Saturday, using it for most of the indoor shots, without the flash. This may have been a mistake, as those photos were all blurrier than the ones I took with my phone. So on Sunday I brought the bigger FujiFilm camera…and had the […]
- Bird, Bird, Bird
They were everywhere. But at least most of them were out of the way.
- County Fair-Pocalypse
On Thursday I took the day off from work and we went to the Orange County Fair. It was a particularly bizarre visit because Costa Mesa was beneath the smoke plume from the Holy Fire (so named because it started in Holy Jim Canyon) burning in the Santa Ana mountains. The sky, except for clear […]
- Eye(s) of the Tiger
The tiger was a lot closer to the fence than I expected, watching us tourists with a disdainful look as it lounged in the afternoon heat. The fence mostly blurred out of view, but I didnât notice a dry leaf in front of its face to the left of its mouth, leaving a brown splotch […]
- Double Solar Halo
Two solar ice halos spotted at lunch today. The 22° halo around the sun is really bright and clear, and not that uncommon even in Los Angeles. I’ve seen so many that I still take photos, but I often forget to post them unless there’s something unusual about the view. The circumhorizon arc below it, […]
- Wispy Sundog Fragment
Wispy sundog fragment (colors enhanced). The colors were really easy to see through my polarized sunglasses, but just faded into the glare without them. My phone barely caught it, but the info was there once I stretched the saturation.
- Venus and Mercury Again
They’re not as close as they were two nights ago, but I managed to frame them with a more interesting foreground.
- Venus and Mercury Spotted!
Venus and Mercury close together after last night’s sunset. I lucked out in that… I remembered they were going to be visible when I got to the store on the way home. The parking lot was both wide and slightly uphill from the western side of the street, giving me a clear view. The sky […]
- Late Start
From yesterday: the first significant snow in the mountains above Los Angeles this winter, courtesy of last week’s storm. Unfortunately, it’s almost spring. The weather has already warmed up again. Last week I was wearing sweaters and a medium jacket. Today I’m back to short sleeves, and I had to put the jacket away on […]
- Ball of Rainbow
A sundog looking like a ball of rainbow, and winter trees. The sun is out of frame to the right.
- New paint: They made this pattern look *interesting*!
They’re in the process of adding another building to this office complex in Torrance. Meanwhile, they’ve cleaned up the existing buildings a bit, replacing the traditional stripe pattern of windows and narrow strips of wall with this broken-line pattern that actually looks interesting. Originally posted on Instagram. When I imported it here, I decided to […]
- A Minecraft Halloween
Homemade spider jockey costume (a composite Minecraft monster consisting of a skeleton archer riding a giant spider). Kid-sized, built by Katie (I assisted, mainly with painting, but the design, planning, and most of the construction was her). Mostly cardboard, covered with paper to smooth it out and provide a painting surface. Heavy fabric and dowels […]
- Smoke rises from Mt. Wilson
Smoke rises from Mt. Wilson above Los Angeles on Tuesday around noon. The wildfire has threatened the observatory and critical communications towers. Today it’s too hazy to see anything but the barest suggestion of the downtown skyline, much less the mountains behind it. Not that it looked quite this clear even on Tuesday – I […]
- Achievement Unlocked: Total Solar Eclipse!
I’ve always wanted to see a total solar eclipse, but until now I never had the opportunity. I’ve caught a number of partial solar eclipses over the years, and quite a few lunar eclipses. This year’s “Great American Eclipse” was perfect: it passed close to Portland, where we have family, and we could visit friends […]
- Sun Halo and Street Lamp
Sun halo, the day before the solar eclipse. Seems like good timing.
- Rediscover THIS Day, But Maybe Not THAT One!
Google Photos has been sending me its usual “Rediscover this day!” collages from Comic-Con 2013. On Tuesday it sent me a collage built from July 18, and on Thursday it sent me a collage built from July 20, marking Thursday and Saturday of the event. Wait, what about Friday? Well, here’s the interesting thing: Friday […]
- Wildflower Superbloom in the California Desert – Anza-Borrego Spring 2017 Photos
The kiddo had a day off from school in mid-March, so I took a vacation day and we all drove out to the desert to see the spring wildflowers. After the endless suburbia of Los Angeles, northern Orange County, and Corona, we drove past hills green from the winter rains, then into the similarly-endless suburbs […]
- Latte Art in the Sky
A hole-punch cloud, also known as a fall-streak hole, seen from Redondo Beach, looking toward LAX airport. These form when an airplane passes through a thin cloud layer, disrupting the cloud.
- AAAAAA!
😱 Artist Nathan Sawaya recreates Edvard Munch’s The Scream in LEGO, on exhibit in The Art of the Brick. Perhaps it’s a cliche, but I’ve rather liked The Scream since I first saw a print of it somewhere. (Well, one version of it, anyway, as the artist created four of them.) Maybe it was in […]
- Spectrum at the top of the Sky
The colored wisp of cloud is too high in the sky to be a rainbow or a circumhorizon arc, and the spectrum is too ordered to be an iridescent cloud. I looked up ice halos that might produce this effect near vertical just before sunset. It turns out a circumzenithal arc is a perfect match: […]
- Spooky Tree / Halloween
For Halloween, enjoy this spooky tree at Madrona Marsh. Our neighborhood saw a lot more trick-or-treaters tonight than we have in years. By 8:00 kids were walking back to the sidewalk from our door shouting to their friends, “Hey, they still have candy!” It was pure chance that I bought extra this afternoon, and I’m […]
- Wyland Mural: Sharks and Orcas
At the Long Beach Convention Center
- Teal Pumpkins Go Retail
Cool: Michael’s is selling plastic teal pumpkins for people who plan on offering non-food treats for allergic trick or treaters as part of the Teal Pumpkin Project. You can still paint a pumpkin teal, of course, but this simplifies the setup. (Are we really that close to Halloween already?)
- Moon Moon: Phone vs. Camera Revisted
I spotted this view of the moon and Jupiter bordered by flowers while at the Orange County Fair last week. While I love the look of the shot, it’s terribly grainy and full of compression artifacts. My phone isn’t great at things like zoom or low light conditions. I’ve been using it as my main […]
- Tree Blood
I’ve described sap as “tree blood” before, but this seems a little too apt. There are a bunch of tipuana trees mixed in with the jacarandas and palms around the area where I work. (One fewer now.) They look a lot like jacarandas with yellow flowers instead of purple, though the leaves are a little […]
- Sand Fire Smoke – From a Distance
A few views of the smoke plume from the Sand Fire burning near Santa Clarita (in the mountains north of Los Angeles), seen from a distance. The fire broke out on Friday, just a few days after the smoke from the recent fires on the San Gabriels finally cleared out and I was able to […]
- Sun Halos: Always Look Up
Have you ever seen a ring around the sun? Or a pair of bright spots flanking it? Or a rainbow-colored cloud? Just as sunlight reflecting and refracting inside raindrops can create a rainbow, sunlight reflecting off of ice crystals can form fascinating and beautiful halos. It doesn’t even have to be cold at ground level: […]
- Similarity
- City Park Going Brown to Go Green
As near as I can tell they’ve stopped watering the grass in the back half of this park, but you can really see where the runoff collects.
- Halo and Hawthorn
I think the tree is an Indian Hawthorn. It’s got the same leaves, bark and flowers as the bushes that are all over the place in this area, and Wikipedia says they can be pruned into trees.
- Spring! Sundogs! Silhouettes!
For once it wasn’t the ocean view, but the *sky* that was the most impressive sight from Del Cerro Park up in the Palos Verdes hills.
- Bright Lines at Sunset
The bright line above the sun is just a contrail, high enough to catch the light without being tinted orange. The one off to the right is a sundog, ice crystals reflecting the sunlight. When I saw it I thought it was too far away to be an ordinary sundog, and might be part of […]
- Snow and smog above LA
Last week’s storms actually dropped snow in the San Gabriel Mountains that lasted more than a few hours! Clouds have hid them from view for the last few days, but this morning I could see snow behind the distant LA skyline, before the smog layer thickened too much to be able to tell.
- Coastal View: Before and After the First Sunset of the Year
Del Cerro Park sits atop a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean and, in the distance, Catalina Island off the coast of California. Suburbs surround it on the inland side, but the hills rolling down to the sea remain mostly open space (though to be fair that’s in part because the land isn’t stable enough to […]
- Winter and a Drought-Friendly Fountain
It’s been a relief to have (relatively) cold weather this winter. Last year I think I wore a sweater once. While the rest of the country was caught in the frozen grip of a meandering polar vortex, California was so warm people were going to the beach to cool off. Not that December heat waves […]
- Gloom ahead, blue sky behind
I went for a walk around the block a few afternoons back. From the office window it looked nice and sunny. That was on one side of the building. I walked out into gloom and wind. But the glass covered buildings ahead reflected the blue sky behind me. The rain started on my way back.
- Phone vs Camera
Over the past year I’ve found myself using my camera less and less, and my phone more and more. There are good reasons for it, but something’s missing.
- Seasons of Madrona Marsh
I went back to the Madrona Marsh Preserve for the third time this year, and combined a Spring/Summer/Fall photo of one of the seasonal pools.
- Locked Out at the Boundary
Behind this gate, a path leads up a narrow access way to a railroad bridge.  Clearly people do get in there from time to time based on the trash – or maybe they just throw it over the fence from the sidewalk. Once I saw two people up on the bridge doing a photo shoot. They […]
- Seasonal Wetlands: Before and After the Summer
Before-and-after view of the seasonal pools at Madrona Marsh, full of water in spring and grasslands in summer.
- Storm water pond: Now with added storm water!
The new detention pond finally got a chance to collect some stormwater for a day. It actually looks pretty nice when filled and viewed in sunlight.
- Back to the Marsh (what’s left of it)
I returned to Madrona Marsh at the end of summer to see how much it had dried out since hiking there last spring.
- Rainbow Cloud
A brilliant circumhorizon arc fragment seen above Los Angeles. I went to lunch at exactly the right time, and judging by Instagram, a lot of people saw it.
- Enjoy Your Park!…Just Don’t Touch Anything
Absolutely no swimming, wading, fishing, biking, dogs, barbecues…actually it’s probably best if you don’t do anything at all.
- Venus and Jupiter Conjunction: Three Views
On June 30 2015, Venus and Jupiter lined up more closely than the edges of the moon. Here’s what they looked like that night, 2 nights later, and 10 before.
- Top of the Hill
Del Cerro Park, at the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, on a super windy evening. I saw two tumbleweeds roll by, and kept worrying I’d drop my phone while taking pictures. I need to get out here (and other scenic spots) more often. Even though it’s not that far (one of the great things […]
- Glass, Steel, Rails and Wildflowers: A Walk in Manhattan Beach
Lately whenever I take my car in for maintenance, I end up taking the car-free morning away from home as an excuse to walk down to the Manhattan Beach Pier. The last time was right after a Halloween storm, which was gorgeous, but this time it was a gloomy morning, and I took the opportunity […]
- Constructed Wilderness: A Tale of Two Parks
Madrona Marsh Preserve and Hopkins Wilderness Park take opposite approaches to being islands of nature in the middle of the city.
- Rain in the Office Pool
An unusual late-spring rainstorm gave me the chance to see the neighboring building’s stormwater pool with some actual water in it.
- Palm Tree and Halo
There was enough glare that I couldn’t see anything on the screen to frame the shot, but it worked out just fine.
- Starbucks Meta Art
A bit meta, since both the art and the logo depict a two tailed mermaid with a crown, and the two circular light sources in the piece resemble the circular light in the room and the logo itself.
- Contrail / Launch
Photo: the kind of contrail view that starts rumors about imaginary missile launches.
- Not sure how this landscaping is supposed to work
A new hotel has put in a large, shallow pit filled sparsely with coarse grass and drain outlets in what once was the front lawn.
- Halo achievement unlocked: Spotted a parhelic circle.
I happened to look up in the opposite direction of the sun and saw a smooth, white upturned arc in the clouds.
- Fallen Tree
A tree in a city park, knocked down during a heavy storm. What struck me most about the view from this side was the patch of sod hanging off of the exposed roots. You can see where the first tree knocked over another tree. Yes, one tree fell on another and knocked it down too. […]
- Venus and Mars are all right tonight
There’s nothing like a conjunction to remind you just how much brighter Venus is than, well anything else in the night sky except the moon.
- Ring around the Target
Ring around the Target. I found the perfect spot to block the sun and view this ice #halo.
- Venus and Mercury, Sitting in a Tree
I’ve been watching Venus and Mercury move toward and away from each other. Tonight I caught them framed by the almost-bare branches of a tree. (Photo)
- Venus and Mercury Above the Trees (UPDATED 2x)
I walked out of the office and stopped: there, framed by the trees and the next building over, were Venus and Mercury, right in front of me.
- Reflecting into Shadow
Late afternoon sun reflecting off a decorated window into the shadow of an umbrella.
- Saddleback Snow, New Year’s Eve
I was expecting to see more snow on the San Gabriel mountains after yesterday’s storm, but was kind of disappointed…until it became clear that the bulk of the snow was on another mountain range. Saddleback was bright white, visible shining as far away as Carson as we made our way toward Orange County. Snow not […]
- Contrast: Whales at the Power Plant
Yes, that’s a Wyland whale mural on the side of a power plant. This plant in Redondo Beach, California is set to be decommissioned when new environmental protections go into effect, and the city and plant owner have been debating* the future of the site. *To put it mildly! Originally posted on Instagram with a […]
- Flashback: Happy Holidays & Season’s Greetings
I found this old Mervyn’s box from the 80s in with the Christmas ornaments when we set up our tree.
- Look up in the sky!
You may never seen a halo around the sun or a sundog next to it, but they’re actually quite common. You just have to look up. (Just don’t stare at the sun!) I usually keep an eye out for sun halos whenever there’s a thin cloud layer, since there usually aren’t ice crystals near the […]
- Restaurant Crossover
Two Guns Espresso in Manhattan Beach makes a mean flat white and the perfect mocha. This month they’ve also been hosting pop-up dinners by Doma Kitchen.
- Sundog, Saddleback, Clouds and Dust
Seen from near LAX through an office window. The Santa Ana winds have cleared away the smog, making the view unusually clear (until the dust takes its place). The sundog near the top of the frame was definitely in the sky and not on the window, and was visible no matter where I moved — […]
- Hanging around the beach after a Halloween storm
A few scenic photos from the aftermath of the season’s first rainstorm…and the aftermath of Halloween.
- A Teal Pumpkin for Halloween
The idea behind the Teal Pumpkin Project is to offer alternate Halloween treats that aren’t candy, so that kids with severe food allergies can still go Trick-or-Treating. It started last year in Tennessee, and FARE picked it up and promoted it nationwide this year. When I was a child, I always had to either decline […]
- Grinning Jack-O-Lantern
A photo from last year’s Halloween.
- Backlit Tree in Fog (Photo)
A spooky backlit tree in fog. One of those rare instances when Kelvin makes a photo better.
- Working Around a Solar Eclipse (Oct 2014)
I couldn’t go anywhere special for this partial eclipse, but I did check in on a grove of trees near the office for a few minutes here and there.
- Exploring the Creek (Two Photos)
My 3-year-old son wanted to go exploring during a picnic, so I followed along. I wasn’t expecting to find a stream with water in it during a heat wave.
- Radiant Sunsets
I was stunned by the sunset rays stretching high into the sky. Another time, I captured the distorted sun setting behind palm trees and an orange sky.
- After the Crunch: Rubble and…Ewoks?
I’ve been watching the Century/Aviation bridge demolition with some interest. The southern rise is down to a single wall, with some interesting graffiti.
- Purple Sunset
A magenta sunset in the distance, below the cloud cover, reflected in a bike path wet from a rare summer storm. (Update: I located the original photo on my hard drive and replaced the square Instagram crop with the full version, which I also uploaded to Flickr.)
- Aftermath: Century Crunch
The intersection looks oddly open, and brighter. The most interesting thing is the tunnel-like remnant of the southern ramp leading up to the old bridge.
- Slated for Destruction
Next weekend, construction crews will tear out this old railroad bridge across Century Blvd near LAX to make way for a Metro station on the future Crenshaw Line. They’ve dubbed the road closure the Century Crunch. As of Thursday, they were already breaking down the parts of the bridge that don’t cross the street. I […]
- Sundog above juniper trees.
This stood out starkly when viewed through my polarized sunglasses late Friday afternoon, but disappeared completely into the glare without them. I had to put my sunglasses in front of my phone to get this, and even then I enhanced the color saturation before posting. The sun is off to the left.
- Supermoon Rising Through Clouds
Last night’s supermoon rising through light clouds. Spotted, oddly enough, while walking past a Supercuts.
- Giant’s Chess Set
Photo: This chess set at a local coffee shop (actually only about 2x normal size) draws my attention whenever I go there.
- Braca says: Go Kings Go!
The first time we saw the mural of Johnny Cash on the outside wall of the Gasser Lounge, Katie and I agreed he looked like Lt. Braca from Farscape.
- Yellow-Green Grass Gradient
The office building next door to work is being converted into a hotel, and the lawn has become a staging area for the renovation work. They’ve turned off the sprinklers, leaving the lawn around the building dried into very short straw and producing an interesting gradient in the transition from watered to unwatered. I kind […]
- The Slowly Emptying Mall: Anaheim Garden Walk
You’d never guess from the busy restaurants out front, but there’s not much else in the rest of this mall. It never quite filled in after it opened.
- Sun Halo Behind a Plant Frame
Photo: I spotted this great circular halo while we were out shopping for our garden. A frame was perfect to block the sun and keep the halo visible.
- Lunar Eclipse = Front-Yard Astronomy (Photos)
One of the nice things about lunar eclipses is how easy they are to watch. No special equipment needed, just a clear view, even from the city.
- Split Sky – Distant Smoke from the Colby Fire
Two photos showing the contrast between smoke from the fire near Los Angeles, and the unusually clear skies around it.
- Lamppost Forest
Urban Light at LACMA is a large square filled with over 200 lamp posts that the artist collected from various locations over several years, spaced wide enough to walk through comfortably. It’s like being in a forest of lamp posts — perfect for this week’s challenge. The funny thing is, I wasn’t even planning on […]
- Not Exactly Bifrost
Is that a rainbow bridge between two buildings? No, it’s part of a sun halo, formed not by water droplets but by ice crystals reflecting sunlight.
- Light and Shadow in LA: What a Difference a Day Makes
I went out for a brief walk Thursday afternoon (sometimes you just need fresh air). It had been raining, but had stopped, and the sun had broken through the clouds. Something made me go up to the top of the nearby parking structure where I could see downtown Los Angeles. It turned out to still […]
- A Walk Outside
I’ve found my lunchtime patterns fossilizing. Mostly, there aren’t a whole lot of places to eat within walking distance that aren’t hotel restaurants and therefore expensive, and parking is such a chore that it’s not worth driving anywhere. So I end up going to two fast food places and two cafes, over and over again. […]
- Layers by the Sea
The Palos Verdes peninsula sits at the southwest corner of Los Angeles. Parts of it are built up in old, grid-style suburbs. Other parts are of the more modern, winding type. And still other parts remain open space, due in part to the unstable geology of the area. Parts of Portuguese Bend are sliding toward […]
- Feeling Sheepish
So, um, I can’t really think of anything to write about today, not anything I can do justice to in the free time I have before midnight. So, please enjoy this artistic shot of a toy sheep that was sitting on the table. (His name is, of course, Shaun.)
- Ghosts in the Cave
A long exposure shot in Thurston Lava Tube on Hawaii. If I’d known it would look this much better in black and white, I would have converted it ages ago.
- Crimson Saucers in the Sky
In a case of perfect timing, I caught this view of lenticular clouds over the San Gabriel Mountains last night, lit up red from the side by the sunset.
- Tilted Ocean and Sideways City
Tilted ocean, and a little more city in the in this alternate entry. Originally posted on Instagram as part of the #WHPSidewaysCity photo challenge. The theme: tilt the image so that the horizontal aligns with a diagonal.
- Death Star Window
Partway down the central escalator at the San Diego Convention center, you can look down the long cylindrical skylight that makes up the roof of the lobby, rings forming the appearance of concentric circles. Years ago, a friend of mine referred to it as the Death Star Cannon shot, and it’s a popular one to […]
- Supermoon and Lamppost
Most of the “supermoon” effect is illusion and expectation, but it’s a great reminder to get out and look at — or photograph — the full moon.
- Curves of Morro Bay
Morro Bay lies along the central California Coast near San Luis Obispo, and is known for two major landmarks: Morro Rock, a large volcanic dome right near the shoreline, and a power plant with three very tall smokestacks. Some miles north, Highway 46 cuts through the coastal mountains from Cambria to Paso Robles, revealing cattle […]
- To the Lighthouse
Point Fermin Lighthouse in San Pedro, California, at the southern tip of Los Angeles. The Victorian lighthouse is surrounded by a city park, and the park is lined with a walkway along the top of the cliffs by the sea. Off to one end is the infamous sunken city, a suburban development that was abandoned […]
- Planetary Triangle
Last night I had a clear view of the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter conjunction, but no camera. Power lines crossed my view tonight, but at least I got a photo.
- Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
Photos: Not long after graduating with my drama degree, I found myself in London for a few days. I had to visit the reconstructed Globe Theatre.
- St Patrick’s Day Moon and Jupiter
I almost missed this near-approach, but fortunately I had to make an early-evening grocery run and looked up at the sky.
- Photos: Comet Watch LA
An evening watching the sun set above the clouds, a crescent moon pop into existence, Jupiter through a telescope, a red moonset, and of course a comet!
- Moon and Jupiter Conjunction
Two views of the moon/Jupiter conjunction of January 21, 2013, one taken with a phone and the other with a somewhat better camera.
- Visiting Endeavour on its Final Journey
Spotting the space shuttle from a mile away, then walking out to see it up close while it sat in a Los Angeles parking lot.
- Fire Dragon
Photo of clouds lit up by the setting sun, resembling a dragon or a giant phoenix.
- Watching Endeavour’s Final Flight Through LA
Half of the people at my office turned out to watch the space shuttle’s final flight around Los Angeles.
- Vertical (Or Rather, Foreshortened) Contrail
Remember how people freaked out over a “missile launch” that turned out to be a contrail seen roughly end-on? Here’s another “vertical” contrail photo.
- 1984 Olympic Torch Runner
In 1984, the Olympic torch relay for the Los Angeles games ran down my street. I took this photo at age 8, the first time I tracked a subject’s movement.
- Distant Fireworks
This year for Independence Day we just went to a hillside to see what we could see. It turned out we could see a lot of fireworks, all around Los Angeles.
- Photos: Solar Eclipse from Los Angeles (May 2012)
I went up into the hills to view the eclipse and ran into dozens of other people with the same idea…and got to look through their telescopes, welding helmets and more.
- WonderCon 2012 in Anaheim – A Great Weekend Comic-Con
Even more fun than in San Francisco, this year’s con had everything I’ve come to expect at a WonderCon, with more space, so the crowds never got unbearable.
- Moon Photo & New Camera
I wanted to run out and try it out with scenic photos on a beautiful March afternoon, but had to charge the batteries first. I got a great shot of the moon that evening.
- Lunar Eclipse and Sunrise (With Photos)
I woke up early this morning to catch the lunar eclipse. I watched it move into totality from home, then drove down to the beach to watch it set, and stayed out to watch the sun rise.
- New Moon and Venus
- Post-Storm Beach Sunset (Photos)
I drove down to the nearest beach after work to catch the sunset and clouds. I also got to see rain over Santa Monica and clouds above Catalina.
- Ocean Sunsets: Beach and Bluffs
A twilight photo of a lifeguard tower on a deserted beach, and a trip to the top of Palos Verdes to watch the sun set over the ocean below.
- Orange Sunset & Double Rainbow Over LA (Photos)
Weââ¬â¢ve had a couple of storms run through Los Angeles over the past week. Last Friday, I went up to the top of a parking structure after work to look at the clouds, and stayed to watch a double rainbow and the play of light at sunset.
- Watching the Space Shuttle Land in 1988
When I was 12, I went to see the Space Shuttle land at Edwards Air Force Base. I took an SLR and telephoto lens. With the shuttle program ending, I’ve scanned the photos.
- The Late Train
I haven’t really kept up with the photoblog since moving a few months ago. I’ll try to get back on track with a new post each week. This is Aviation Station along the Los Angeles Metro Green Line, the closest station to LAX. (It doesn’t actually stop at the airport, but you can take a […]
- Rays from the Anti-Sun!
Photo: Yes, you can see sun rays when looking *away* from the sun.
- Return of Saddleback & San Gabriel Snow
The rain on Friday dropped the annual light dusting of snow on Saddleback. I caught glimpses of it while out walking with J on Saturday, but the peaks were still shrouded in clouds. Sunday, however, the sky was almost completely clear. I kind of wish that sign wasn’t in the middle there, but my Photoshop […]
- Turning Los Angeles Orange
Last Wednesday night I rode the Green Line home at sunset. When it wasn’t blocked by trees or houses, I had a great view of Downtown Los Angeles reflecting the orange sunlight. After a few minutes, the train hit exactly the right angle to catch the setting sun itself reflected in all the downtown buildings! […]
- Beware Mountain Lion (Peters Canyon Hike)
A couple of weeks ago I just had to get out of the house for an afternoon and found myself at the entrance to Peters Canyon Park. The last time I’d been there, the park was closed due to recent rains. This time, it was open. Several trails run from the entrance around the edge […]
- Elongated Sundog and Contrail
I got off the freeway to catch the train out to the office last Tuesday morning, and saw this incredibly bright sundog off to the east. I couldn’t get a parking space, so I had to drive the rest of the way, but I did get a couple of photos. The sun is off-frame to […]
- Old Town Irvine After the Storm
Well, technically, during a lull in the storm. The clouds were moving very fast, with light and shadow moving over the empty fields and office parks, and I waited several minutes for the sun to play over this scene. I particularly liked the contrast of the dead brown tumbleweeds scattered around the bright green meadow. […]
- Snowy Mountains Through the Cloud Window
On my drive to work this morning, a gap in the clouds left this amazing view of the San Gabriels covered in snow from the last week’s worth of storms, lit up by the rising sun. By the time I made it up to Los Angeles, clouds had blocked the view, and I didn’t see […]
- Mental Photo of the Day
I watched an airplane fly past the barely crescent moon on approach to landing, at a distance such that they looked the same size.
- Sunday Afternoon
An incredible photo recreation of Georges Seurat’s painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette. The photo was staged back in 2006, but I hadn’t seen it until it popped up on Reddit a few days ago. I find it amusing that people have been posting lyric fragments from Sondheim’s Sunday in […]
- Long Beach Comic Con 2010 — Saturday Con Report
LBCC is shaping up to be a very artist- and writer-focused convention, definitely worth a visit from Southern California comic book fans.