First sunset of 2010

From my balcony here's how the setting sun looked on the first day after the calendar changed.

1 Jan 10

The Canyon: Gimmick or ingenuity?

During our Palm Springs getaway last week, my fiancée took a couple hours in the late afternoon to go to one of the spas and get a massage. However, because that's not the sort of activity that does much for me, I instead relaxed in the hotel room for a while. Then about 5:30 I realized that the sun would be setting soon (Palm Springs is built to the west of a mountain, so in downtown the sun disappears earlier than areas on the other side of the mountain) and on a whim decided to grab my camera and see if I could drive the couple miles south to Indian Canyons (which I'd seen on the map) before losing the sun.

I didn't make it. Heck, I didn't even get to the car in time. Nonetheless, I still trekked down to see what there was to see down at the canyon, if for no other reason than I was already in the car.

The road was not exactly parking-friendly, so I decided to invent a new activity: Ph-auto-graphy. (Still working on the name.) It's taking pictures without getting out of the car. It increases the challenge by limiting the available shots to what one can get out the driver's window, only from spots where one can safely pull over momentarily.

In that (shall we say) impressionistic spirit of the shooting, the photos have not be cropped or enhanced in any way; these are exactly what I got (well, the better ones of what I got).

You decide whether it worked.

Mountains to the west in shadow.

Mountains to the east still in sun.

Indian Canyons was already closed, but down by the gate it was quite windy.

For this last one, I'd driven out of the valley and down Palm Canyon Drive. This is the back of those mountains that were to the east of the canyon in the shots above. From a parking lot. Hooray, nature!

Egad, this was self-indulgent. Sorry.

Down by the fields

A tree silhouette.

Celery Lake (near Arroyo Grande, in San Luis Obispo County), at the cusp of evening.

6/28/08

Sunset in Huasna

East of Huasna, with the sun setting over the hills.
6/28/08

Orange

Yesterday's sunset, with the sun's corona blocked out by the clouds.

Sunset over the docks

Port Long Beach from the downtown side of the river.

Oil derrick with Palos Verdes peninsula in the background.

Bridge to Terminal Island.

Giant cranes for lifting containers off cargo ships.

Jet stream in the sky overhead.

3/8/08

Take off

During a visit to Durham, North Carolina, I took these shots of the jetstream of a plane taking off from the airport.

We start with the plane actively climbing into the sky, leaving the thin cloud running in a straight diagonal across the sky.


We look down to this pond and see that reflected on the water.


We back up a bit and see the dissipating jetstream in the sky and reflected in the pond.


And then we get closer to the trees and see the jetstream getting less distinct as the winds in the atmosphere blow it apart. (The lower left of the frame is where it's lower in the sky, getting higher as it moves to upper right.)


And finally we see as it has drifted overhead and is now in the western sky, along with earlier jetstreams that have ended up there.

Branches

Bare shrubs with the sun setting over the Hollywood hills in the background. Taken along Canyon Lake Drive, near Lake Hollywood.

Gone

Varying degrees of saturation as the sun sets over the Hollywood hills.

Made by Mulholland

The Lake Hollywood Reservoir, in the hills above Hollywood, from many angles:

Blaze

Setting sun below the clouds. In the shot on the left, there's Hollywood in the foreground.

Mount

Broken

Setting sun reflected off the wings of one of the decorated statues from A Community of Angels (this one is near the 7th & Fig shopping center in downtown L.A.).

Its wings are covered in pieces of broken glass.

'nother sunset

(The last one is as it was reflected off a tarp.)