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Bloggin' the Whole Story Thanks to everyone who frequents this website for the photos and blogs. On this blog site there will be a variety of photos and descriptive posts. Some posts involve extensive research, both from talking to locales and supplemented from the internet, while others are posted for the simple photo alone. Please enjoy and don't be afraid to give back your comments, good or bad. Under the Boardwalk
Under the pier I am right down at sea level, watching the waves crash to shore yet covered overhead by the boardwalk. It's peaceful under the pier. Surfers ride the waves along both sides of the pier coming dangerously close to the pilings that are encrusted with kelp, barnacles, shells and even an occasional crab. Under the pier at low tide is where the wet sand shimmers from the sunsets that cast long dark silhouettes of the pilings over the rippling sand. It is where the seagulls come to rest. During sunsets, like this one, the sunlit waves crash to shore while holding on to every last second of glimmering color from the setting sun. On the boardwalk above, tourists crowd together pointing their cameras at the amazing sunset. While under the pier I hear people talking, walking and running above me, catching only a shadow of their movements through the cracks in the planks above. I love sunsets. . . especially from under the pier. Goff Island Sunset
Goff Island defines the edge of Goff Cove below the south Laguna Beach Montage Resort and has more commonly been called Treasure Island. Named after an early Laguna Beach settler, this small but very identifiable land projection into the Pacific Ocean is best known for the location filming of the 1934 movie "Treasure Island" with Jackie Cooper, Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore. This sunset photo was taken standing on the west beach looking south along the beach bulkhead. The deep rich sunset cast a reddish orange glow on the island, sand beach and rocks. Taken on a July evening with a Nikon D8200 Coolpix camera, 35 mm, set at shutter speed 1/200, f/3.3, +1/3EV with compulsory flash and an ISO of 100.
Ol' Man In The Cliff
With sunsets being one of my favorite genres, how fitting that I start with this one, an image I call The Ol' Man in the Cliff. Over the next few weeks I will feature some of my favorite sunsets. Some beg a story be told, while others simply the beauty of the setting sun will be enough. This image was taken on the beach at The Montage Resort in south Laguna Beach, California. What first captured my attention when I took the photo were simply two young people standing on the rocks in the distance enjoying the sunset setting out over the Pacific Ocean. It wasn't until I downloaded the image and took a closer look at the silhouette of the sand cliff to the right that I saw the old man in the cliff. Like a prehistoric troglodyte was this old man in the cliff standing guard over his portion of beach assigned to him. Or perhaps as a sagacious watchman was he with the awesome responsibility of making sure all is as it should be over this stretch of the southern California coastline. Regardless of how your imagination may work with this image, it is quite an enchanting silhouette. Taken in the early summer of 2013 with a Nikon D7000, 28mm lens with a shutter speed of 1/800,aperture set at f/11, ISO 200, no flash and adjusted -1/3EV for exposure compensation due to the bright sun.
Moonlight HarborStavern Harbor - Nestled securely in from the storms of the North Sea, Stavern Harbor is a national maritime attraction that invites Norwegians and tourists alike to participate in rest and relaxation, especially during the summer months. Situated along the southern coast of Norway, the town lies nearby to Fredriksvern, Norway's first and foremost naval base built in 1620 with a shipyard, a military academy and The Citadel, an outlook fort structure on a small strategic island at the mouth of the harbor. The majority of this historic site is now home to a plethora of artist's studios, cultural museums, a grass concert venue and a harbor for fishing and pleasure boaters. The town has several lagoons that invite boaters and just maritime enthusiasts to rest and relax. The photo above is one such lagoon. The buildings to the right, behind the the trees and highlighted in the setting sunset were once the naval base's shipyard dry docks but now are home to artist studios. With the moon rising and glimmering across the glassy water of the lagoon, everything about this town calls for relaxing and enjoying the setting. Despite the hot bed of summertime activity, this serene, little southland town in Norway is one of my favorite destinations. Photo was taken on a July evening in 2013 with a Nikon D800, 21mm lens, 1/20th shutter speed at f/11 ( handheld but steadied on a nearby lamp post ), ISO 1600, with no flash.
AlnesAlnes On the island of Godøya, in the muncipality of Giske in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway, lies the romantically quiet township of Alnes. Established sometime around the 13th century, the town had a population of a mere 203 in 2013 but was once a fishing village thriving on the fish rich sea banks of western Norway on the Atlantic Ocean. A stone church located on an nearby island in Giske has been dated to the year 1207 A.D. Alnes is reached through a 1.5 kilometer long tunnel located under a 1500 ft. high granite mountain that is in essence the island of Godøya. The town lies on a flat land mass projecting westward toward the Atlantic from the base of the mountain. At the western most point of this flat land portion sits the Alnes Lighthouse, built in 1852. This photo was taken standing on the rock breakwater of Alnes harbor which protects fishing boats and private vessels from the winter storms raging in from the Atlantic. Looking east from this breakwater toward the base of the granite mountain, these boat houses lie along the shoreline adjacent to the county road and also serve as vacation rentals. The remainder of the township is to my back in this photo. As is often the case along western Norway, even in the summer, a drizzly fog loomed all around me. Despite the gray overcast, the colorful new boathouses of red, yellow and white stood out as a reminder that Norwegians still find this quiet, almost inaccessible, little town a desirable place to live and vacation.
Quakies
Aspens are not individual stand alone trees but rather spring up from an underground root system referred to as clones. When you see a grove of quaking aspen trees they are merely an above ground symbol of the massive clone root system growing underground. Trees from the same clone are remarkably the same in that the leaves turn colors at the same time and with the same coloring. Like a family, what affects one tree affects the entire clone grove. Their root system can spread as large as 20 plus acres. Underground, the root system is protected from fire, temperature, most diseases, and from humans. Construction excavations have tried to kill groves of quaking aspens with little or no success. The trees eventually reoccur somewhere else along the root system. North of Bryce Canyon National Park at Fishlake National Forest is one of the oldest known aspen clone groves in the world, called Pando. This aspen clone grove is estimated to be nearly 80,000 years old. Quaking aspen groves are abundant in Canada as well. This photo was taken in October 2012 at an elevation of 8800 feet at Bryce Canyon National Park looking east at Agua Canyon viewpoint with a Nikon D800, 16mm lens, 1/20th shutter at f/8 with an ISO of 800 and a flash. |
