Friday, May 17, 2013
Vista Point Storm

There is a little turn off from the 101 South about 20 miles north of Santa Barbara. The evning I took this was right after a great storm rolled in. Santa Barbara and Goleta were already socked in. They are somewhere in that deep dark cloud on the horizon. But the storm had such a distinct edge, it seemed like it would be possible to get out from under it so I took off for the Vista Point. A few miles before I got there the clouds started to break up and I got out from under the rain enough to watch it slowly make its way toward me as the sun was going down.

Monday, January 28, 2013
Sandpiper Tempest Panorama

An absolutely breathtaking storm rolling in at Sandpiper Golf Course in Goleta. The sun was still shining brightly around the edges of the storm, but as the rain rolled in that would not last long. The clouds were so close you could almost reach up and touch them.

Sunday, January 6, 2013
Sandpiper Tempest

This winter has been a wonderful one for beautiful weather. This is one of my favorite spots to make a bee line to in Goleta when I see the sky doing something spectacular. Sandpiper golf course offers a variety of amazing views (and some great golf too). This is right by the clubhouse as the rain was rolling in. I was perfectly dry, but that wouldn't have lasted long.

Sunday, April 17, 2011
Agapanthus in the Morning Rain

Friends and family who live in a "less temperate" climate make fun of me when I mention the different seasons here, but I do love the change in our seasons. This is a fun early spring shot. The Agapanthus are just starting to bloom in our yard, and on this day an early morning rainstorm had just subsided to let the sunlight through. This combination of weather and sunlight can capture my attention for hours without even leaving my front yard. I actually had to tiptoe through the wet flowers to frame up the second blossom (or inflorescence), out of focus in the background.

Monday, December 27, 2010
Tendril in the Rain

The excessive ran we've had in California for the last week and a half has caused no end of problems. (Yeah, I know, if you're in the north east under three feet of snow, you probably can't feel much pity.) On the plus side the rain gives many interesting options for beautiful photos.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Mallow in the Rain

Another shot from the back yard. This is our Sea Tree Mallow. Zoe pointed these flowers out to me on an early morning vacation walk in monterey. (She was a good dog!) Once we got home from the trip we found this Mallow, a small tree at the time, at a local nursery and brought a little piece of our vacation home.

Friday, January 4, 2008
Mission Storm

Click on the main image for a bigger version

Another attempt to get to the Nativity Scene at the mission a couple of weeks ago, and still no animals. Probably a good thing for them, it was raining like crazy. But I do so hate to come home empty handed! And, I still have not had a chance to develop the film from this evening. This was from my digital camera, but four feet wide just might not be big enough. :-D

Monday, August 20, 2007
Lily of the Rain

The yard is a completely different place in the rain. Unfortunately for my camera I love the look of the flowers when it's raining. It's not just the drops of water. If it was I could just spray them. The soft lighting from the clouds changes the feel of the photo completely.

Thursday, February 15, 2007
Mallow After the Rain

This was taken right after yesterday's photo of the day. The rain had just stopped and the sun came out beautifully. This shot is looking up at a couple of exceptionally tall branches of our small potted Mallow tree. The drops of water are actually on the other side, the top of the flower. It would probably be a good idea for us to prune it. But it blooms constantly and if we had pruned it I would not have had the opportunity to get this shot.

Saturday, October 7, 2006
Banana in the Rain

A few weeks ago we found two beautiful banana plants at the hardware store that were looking for a good home. They live right out front now. The other day it started to rain just as I was leaving the house and when I saw how the drops of water collected on the leaf I had to run back in and get my camera.

Thursday, June 8, 2006
Agapanthus Buds

Another of my rare morning shots. The light is nice in the morning, and I really try to take advantage of it when I am conscious. But that is a rather rare occurrence in the morning.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Rain Bud

Not usually awake very early in the morning. But once in a while I catch the good morning light!

Monday, May 22, 2006
Agapanthus in the Rain

It rained heavily last night, and this morning we got to see the SUN! It has been gray for so long I did not know how to act!

Yeah I did, I grabbed my camera!

I was up uncharacteristically early waiting for a ride, but as a reward I got to enjoy the morning sunlight in my front yard.

Monday, March 20, 2006
Mallow Drops

Last year after a nice trip to Monterey I posted a beautiful photo of a Sea Tree Mallow. I loved it so much that we went out and found a tree at Home Depot. This is a blossom on that tree during a recent rainstorm.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006
Drops of Passion

Well yesterday was a really gray rainy day. It was starting to bug me. Then I took my camera into the back yard. Rain can be a wonderful thing for a photographer!

Recently, our Passion Flower vines made an incredible come back. We originally got them to attract butterflies and they were almost wiped out by their own success! The resulting caterpillars LOVED them.

This is an extreme close-up of one of the tendrils the vine sends out to climb things. It seems to have an amazing grip!

Monday, March 6, 2006
Twilight Mission

By request!

I had someone leave feed back who was interested in photos of the Mission Santa Barbara. (see August 12, '05)

I am developing a tool that will allow everyone to browse the previous photos of the day by keyword and various other tools to allow easy navigation. I do have the calendar, if you have not seen that, be sure to click on the link on the upper right of the screen. That will allow you to see thumbnails of the photo of the day a month at a time.

Now, on to the Mission. This is the Mission Santa Barbara "Queen of the Missions." It was founded on December 4, 1786 by Father Fermin Lasuen. It was the tenth of 21 Franciscan missions in California. It holds the distinction of being the only one to remain in continuous use since the day it was founded. Named for Saint Barbara, and founded on the day of her annual memorial feast, it continues to operate as home of the Saint Barbara Parish. And it is a place that always makes me happy to be a photographer! Here is a list of my other images of the Mission Santa Barbara and her grounds on the photo of the day.

• September 7, 2005: Mission Sunset
• February 17, 2006: Santa Barbara Mission Twilight
• April 17, 2005: Nighttime at the Mission
• May 1, 2005: Mission Gardens
• May 5, 2005: Mission Storm
• June 13, 2005: Mission Arches
• June 22, 2005: Mission Kitchen
• June 29, 2005: Mission Palms at Night
• July 8, 2005: Mission Doorway
• July 11, 2005: Nighttime Mission
• August 12, 2005: A View from the Mission

Thursday, May 5, 2005
Mission Storm

I actually went out to get a shot of a really nice rainbow. But the scene of the clouds over the mission was the best opportunity of the day. The clouds were bunched around the mountain. As the sun set, it was shining under them through the heavy rain close the mountain. It made for some particularly dramatic lighting. As you can see from the streak of car headlights on the right of the photo, this was not a short exposure.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005
State and Anapamu

A little rain and lights at night make for some nice pictures. This is a great spot on State Street in Santa Barbara. I was right in front of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Diagonally across the street is a great restaurant called the State & 'A'.

Monday, February 7, 2005
Dew Drop Web

One of the things I like about taking my images one at a time and preparing them for this site, is the opportunity it gives me to think a little more about each subject. When I saw this web I took an entire roll of film because of the beauty of the dew, like pearls on a string. Now, while preparing it for the site, I started to think about why the drops of dew stayed there. The water should run down to the lowest point, collect and drip to the ground but the web is covered with it.

I realized that not all of the web was sticky, the spider walks on the radial threads, which are not sticky. The concentric threads are where the sticky part is. (Apparently it is even more complex than that, There are seven different kinds of silk that spiders can spin but that is a little off topic.) The interesting thing about the sticky thread is the fact that the sticky comes from small drops of liquid on the silk. These small drops make an imperfection on the slick silk that the drop of water can hang on. Which also explains my next thought about the water, why is it so regularly spaced? Because the spider places the sticky drops evenly.

Of course, the trouble with that explanation is the fact that there are drops on the radial threads in this photo, albeit not as large and not as many. Perhaps there is some stickiness to all of the strands on this particular type of spider web? Or just other imperfections in the strand? Perhaps specks of dust?