Santa Monica Sunsets

One thing I regret now that I am in LA rather than in Santa Monica is the accessibility of seeing the sunsets over the Ocean. Although it takes no time to get there, I am usually in a hurry to return home before the rush hour traffic, which means I miss the sunsets. However, I have made a point of catching them a couple of times recently so feel it is appropriate to end the year with the cliche of the sun going out of sight... at any rate, like most people, I love sunsets!

I will start with some images taken a few weeks ago, first walking towards Palisades Park:


And here in the Park is one of the Pink Melaleucas, framing some palms:



Now, just the palms against the sky and the ocean:




Then I became aware of the New Moon, framed by palms:


And here, just the Moon above the ocean:


Now just the sky and ocean...


Finally, to end the year on an up-beat note, here are a couple of more fragile, optimistic sunsets taken this week:

More Moreton Bay Fig Trees

I have written often about one of my favourite trees- the Moreton Bay Fig. Having today yet again passed through the wondrous avenues of them on La Mesa Drive, I thought I would show some more recent and not-so-recent images of the trees there. The sculptural formations of their organic limbs never cease to astound me:

LA Trees on December Walk

And now it is December...and the acceleration to Christmas is in full swing. However, simultaneously the Fall is taking place here in little pockets among the evergreens. Being in Southern California, one does miss the total dramatic effect of the changing seasons, so one gets very excited by these vignettes...

This morning when I took my granddaughter Violet to the nearby Playground, there was an amazing blue, blue sky and the reds and yellows of the occasional Maple and London Plane trees were exhilarating. It is never that easy to concentrate on taking photos when looking after a baby, so in the late afternoon I went out alone with a camera. By now, of course, there was a totally different light and those particular trees were no longer exciting - but that's the wonderful thing about changing light, you always find that something else now looks exciting, the unexpected...

At the start of my walk, the evening sun's reflected "glow" was burnishing the leaves:






And now it was lighting up the limbs of the trees too:



Next, as I walked down onto the Eastern side of a hill, the glow was no longer on the trees, but was reflected on the Eastern sky, the trees becoming silhouettes:




I then turned South-Westwards, and here was another sky. I have photographed these Palm trees many times against a clear blue sky, so was elated to see them in this evening light:




My next excitement was seeing a tiny slither of upside-down (to us from the UK) new moon, behind the trees:



And then a shaggy, bird-like Palm:


Finally, a completely different visual experience:- side-walk trees turned into magical Christmas Trees: