Sky Hawk!

Indian Cove, Joshua Tree National Park. Linking with Skywatch Friday. Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!!

Visiting the Chickens!

My sister over at Lap Dog Knits has three chickens she is raising, so we took my granddaughter over for a visit today. She loves chickens, so she had a lot of fun. And a photo op for me!

Hope you are having a good weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Saturday Sunrise

Last Saturday, about 5:45 AM, 29 Palms, CA. My granddaughter gives us our "wake up" cry. By 6:15 she's had her bottle and happy. Nice desert sunrise outside our window, but I guess I'm spoiled (not to mention tired and cranky from lack of sleep!) because these skies are fairly common out here in the desert. My wife asks if I'm going to take pictures. I grunt "no" (I'm definitely not a morning person), but after she says "Bruce would!" (Bruce Chambers is a Orange County Register photographer who is our Facebook friend and who takes stunning sunrise photos), I changed my mind. What the heck... if Bruce would, I guess I should!

Sorry about the order... they are random. They are all pretty much straight out of the camera, with the exception of this last one. I added Friday night's moon to the Saturday AM sunrise shot just for fun.

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Click on the link to check out great skies from around the world! Have a good weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Paint the Moon!

Last night (1/15/2014) was a nearly full moon, so got out the camera/tripod/telephoto lens and took a few shots. A few days ago I heard about a program Adobe makes called "Pixel Bender" which is a free download. So I combined my moon shot with Pixel Bender's "oil paint" function, and here's what I came up with. Not your average looking moon, that's for sure! If you use your imagination a little, you can see oil brush strokes on this "digital painting"!

Here's the original:

Linking with Skywatch Friday. Click on the link to check out great skies from around the world. Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Gone Fishin'

Concentrate...

Lunge...

Enjoy...

Laguna Lake, Fullerton, CA
Linking with

A Strange Little Cloud

I took this photo a couple weeks ago in north Joshua Tree. If I squint my eyes quite a bit, it looks like a baby chick. Do you see it?

Linking with Skywatch Friday. Click on the link to check out amazing skies from around the world!

Los Angeles River / 4th Street Bridge

I live in northwest Orange County, California, which is really very close to Los Angeles. However, I'm not a fan of traffic and crowds, and LA can present the worst of both. Therefore, I rarely venture into LA, but the photographer in me is drawn to it... and an area that photographs well is the old 4th Street Bridge area that spans the LA River. River is not an accurate description in my opinion. It's solid concrete and has no resemblance to what I see in my mind's eye when I think of a river. The concrete has become a canvas for decades of graffiti taggers and there are old sofas, shopping carts and every other kind of trash imaginable. However, I have to admit the area literally oozes the LA noire vibe. The 4th and 6th Street Bridges that span the river, though clearly in decline, make me think of old Bogart movies and a time when LA was perhaps in its prime. Most of the buildings in the area look neglected and/or abandoned, but look closer and you are likely to see signs and banners that say "Film Site Rental" with a phone number to call. A great example of where keeping buildings in their original condition is actually a money maker! There are a ton of shows filmed in this area.

Here's another old building that faces the "river" and is available for film shoots. I think these look great in b&w! Remind you of an old '50s movie??

I like the photo above because you can see some of the distinctive 4th Street Bridge architecture and old street lamps with the shiny new downtown LA high rises in the background.

The photo above gives you a good view of the 6th Steet Bridge over the LA River (shot from the 4th Street Bridge)

If you walk a little further east on the 4th Street Bridge, this is your view.

I like the detail of the old street lamps on the 4th Street Bridge (above).  Given the proximity to LAX, if you are patient, you can capture a plane in just about any photo of the sky!

There is an unmarked passageway at Santa Fe and 6th Street that takes you into the LA River. Here's what it looks like... you need to bypass the homeless folks who like the shelter of the tunnel, but it's an interesting location.

The race scene from Grease and other movies were shot at this location in the LA River... here's a link to the YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsYC-hVEpQM.  I think the nice blue sky, sun flare and airplane make for a good skywatch shot, so linking with Skywatch Friday. If you would like to see more of my photos from the LA River area, click on this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos. Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!