Monday, November 3, 2008
Santa Barbara Lights

Click the main image for a larger view.

This is the third and last shot from our walk on the breakwater the other evening. (Actually it's 48 shots but who's counting?)

It was an amazingly beautiful evening. And I was happy to get out to the breakwater this late since I have been pondering a shot like this for a while.

If you would like a quick tour of our beautiful home, read on... The water on the left is the inside of the Harbor. The buildings from yesterday's photo of the day and the day before are just on the other side of the harbor at the left. You can see the tall white flood lights of the Santa Barbara City College field. The field of view in this image is 248° so the flags that you see at the left and the very right are acutally (more or less) in a straight line. Straight out the rock breakwater in the middle of the shot is the entrance to the harbor. And, some of the bright lights on the other side of the entrance are along Stearn's Wharf. The large bright white light further to the right is another ball field. The glow going up the mountain is the lights of the city, and you can see our evening fog rolling in especially at the right over the bright white light.

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Carmel Architecture

The clouds in the photo are actually not much further away than the roof of the building. In fact if you look closely you can see that the peak of the roof is actually in the haze. The afternoon fog in Carmel was beautiful and swirling, almost like a time lapse video of clouds. We spent the last few days there and they were all cool and misty, which is a nice change from the heat at home lately.

Carmel is one of the best places I know for an afternoon walk. Of course, you should probably wear your hiking shoes since the main street gets a bit steep at places.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Foggy Gull

This is actually an older shot. I was surprised when I looked and found that I had never used it on the photo of the day. The poles in the background are masts of small catamarans that are on the beach for rent. They were not far from where I was standing to take the picture, that gives you an idea how fast and heavy the evening fog was rolling in.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Carmel Sunset

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I was looking through some images to put a few online and this one seemed appropriate. This was on the next to last day of one of our last trips to Carmel. And I'm feeling like I need a vacation.

Of course, I think I have said that enough times that I could make that a category on the Photo of the Day!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Evening Fog

The thing that looks like a large cloud on the ground between the palm trees and the mountain is our evening fog. It is caused by the marine layer. A warm cushion of air from further out in the Pacific that slides in across the cool coastal waters. The water is cool here because it follows the pacific currents down the coast from cold places in the north.

Given the right conditions, the fog slides in as the sun goes down and will not leave the beach till around ten in the morning. Of course, in June, the fog covers the whole city and only leaves for about ten minutes in the afternoon. We call that "June Gloom".

As long as you can stay back from, or above it, it is actually very beautiful. My office at UCSB used to sit at the perfect point at the limit of the fog. I could watch it swirl outside my window, but it never really got to my office.

Saturday, June 18, 2005
Courthouse Bell

I have a customer that was looking for images of the Courthouse for her father for Father's day. I have a few that I pulled out to make prints for her for this weekend.

But, as I was driving home yesterday evening, the colors of the sunset were particularly golden from the residual "June Gloom" in the air.

So I stopped by the courthouse and got a few nice images of which, this one is my favorite. It is a different angle on a highly recognizable building, and I will be interested to find out how many people realized it even had an exposed bell!

Sunday, May 22, 2005
Butterfly Beach Sunset

The weather around here in June is known as "June Gloom." The fog comes in over the water before dawn and we usually don't see the sun until about 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes the beach is totally covered all day. There can be a wall of fog right by the beach that looks thick enough to touch.

The fog in this image is not quite that crazy. It was an amazing evening. I had to wade pretty far out in the water to get the angle of the sun behind the trees. And, I was not really dressed for swimming at the time.