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| sun-sations |
When blue meets up with orange, that is my idea of visual perfection. I was glad to have my camera as we walked along the Santa Monica Pier and watched the sky become every minute more wildly radiant. Being the best weather in weeks, we were not alone there. I decided to mask the public-ness of this scene the best I could. The glaring lights on the beach are obscured by the palm tree, the parking lot by the fence, and the park benches by the darkness of the foreground. I also needed to time my shots in between the constant stream of passers-by. So even though this is not quite the reality of that bustling moment, it is how I prefer to remember it.
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| through the looking glass |
This next photo is the reflection I caught a few evenings later, as we cruised home along The Strand in Manhattan Beach. The smallest and most humble of the mansions that line the strip cost a mere seven million. With sunsets and views like this, I can understand why. I used the wall of the bike path to stabilize my camera and aimed toward the house. I had my brother and sister-in-law pause and turn their gaze to the side. I was thinking of the black construction paper cut-out hanging in our house growing up of my dad's profile, as a young boy. It always amazed me how easy it was to identify him with the one simple line. Maybe this is more about shape and shadow for me than "the light fantastic," but the sun's last big breath is what drew me to the glass wall of this house in the first place. And anyway, we can't have shadow without light.
