Dan Danbom sent me some stunning photographs Saturday that he said I could share with you. And Leslie of Lesliepaints if you like my clouds – you will really love these! All photos by Dan Danbom.
And yesterday’s rain total? .75 inches for a season total of 3.75 inches. Oops, misread the gauge, somehow. Only .50 or 3.50 for the season.
This was our first day in NZ in Auckland. We stayed at the Hyatt, very close to downtown. Our first room offering had a great view, but only one bed. Rose and I are close, but not that close, so we moved to a room with no view, but two beds. Our last night there (after seeing some of the island) combined both the great view AND two beds.
This was the view from the 9th floor. The building behind the trees is the Government House, built in the 1800’s when Auckland became the capital of NZ.
That night, our first, we went to the Orbit restaurant atop the Sky Tower. It is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. For a woman who is challenged by heights, I did well – as long as I looked out, but not directly down. The latter was hard NOT to do, as there was a glass floor in the elevator (oh, mercy!) and in parts of the observation deck. Not only was the view outstanding, the food was incredible!
And this is the sky tower from below.
(to be continued as time allows)
… for another scorching hot day … Monterey Harbor at Harvest Moon photos by Dan Danbom.
For more of Dan’s photography, click here.
From NASA: For the first time in almost 20 years, northern autumn began on the night of a full Moon. The coincidence sets the stage for a “Super Harvest Moon” and a must-see sky show to mark the change of seasons.
The action began at sunset on Sept 22nd, the last day of northern summer. As the sun sank in the west, bringing the season to a close, the full Harvest Moon rose in the east, heralding the start of fall. The two sources of light mixed together to create a kind of 360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions.
The Harvest Moon gets its name from agriculture. In the days before electric lights, farmers depended on bright moonlight to extend the workday beyond sunset. It was the only way they could gather their ripening crops in time for market. The full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox became “the Harvest Moon,” and it was always a welcome sight.
This one would be extra welcome because it is extra “Harvesty.”
Usually, the Harvest Moon arrives a few days to weeks before or after the beginning of fall. It’s close, but not a perfect match. The Harvest Moon of 2010, however, reaches maximum illumination a mere six hours after the equinox. This has led some astronomers to call it the “Harvestest Moon” or a “Super Harvest Moon.” There hasn’t been a comparable coincidence since Sept 23, 1991, when the difference was about 10 hours, and it won’t happen again until the year 2029.
A Super Harvest Moon, a rare twilight glow, a midnight conjunction—rarely does autumn begin with such celestial fanfare.
And by the way, I am interested in publishing a few fall photos from my readers. They must be taken in Big Sur. Send them to me as an attachment to an email only, please, to: kwnovoa@mac.com
Reader Seth Melchert sent me a few photos he took in Big Creek a few years back, and said I could share them with you. I chose these two because of my love of foggy photographs. Thank you Seth for sharing these with me and readers of bigsurkate.
This is the 3d in my series. I have decided to lighten it up a bit again, because as we get closer to the vote on the MCCWPP on the 21st, we need to be reminded of why we are here, and what we can do.
I have another post ready on Protecting Big Sur from Wildfires, which I will post tomorrow, but tonight, enjoy the play of patterns, and textures, and light.
Whenever I get into heavy topics, I like to lighten it up with a few photos. Last night, I was in a hotel waiting for the restaurant to open, and I found an incredible number of photo ops, all on the subject of patterns and light. This is the first one. In many respects, this looks more like a painting than a photo, but this is all in camera. No photoshop, no changing of anything. What I saw and recorded is what you get. There are at least a dozen photos that I want to share from that shoot. I will post as time and news allows.
For this Fall season’s contest for the header photo at the top of the blog, the subject is JADE – rocks, jewelry, sculpture, Jade Festival – wherever your creativity leads you in this direction. Each person should submit no more than 2 photos by midnight PDT on September 13th. These photos need to be in landscape format, and preferably, full sized, rather than cropped. Last contest many photographers submitted photos cropped to fit my header format, but the main vote getters were all full-sized. On or about September 14th, I will post the top ten photos for readers to vote on. The winner will win lunch at Lucia Lodge or if not local, an SD card, courtesy of Ken Harlan of Lucia Lodge.
So, you have 2 weeks to sort through your existing photographs, or to go out and take new ones to submit for this quarterly contest! Find your favorite piece of Jade, put it in the sun to show off that gorgeous color and submit it in the next two weeks!
After days of really hot temps throughout most of California, it was so cold last night, I closed everything down. It is having trouble reaching the 70’s today. The good news is that there was sunshine on the coast, most of the day, although the fog came in and out for a while.
Here is a shot I took earlier.
While there are a number of Big Sur related items I am looking into, including the MCCWPP and the upcoming Health Center benefit, none of them are ready for publication at this time. Pozo is under control, no other items of concern need immediate attention, so I offer you something completely different.
Today, I had lunch in a place that had a salt-water tank. It offered new and unusual photo opportunities, and I offer them here. While this was beautiful to witness, I felt as if these very small fish were still in prison, even though their tank was extremely large.
I was mindful of the documentary, “The Cove.” I urge you to watch this, if you care about dolphins and porpoises. You can order the DVD and find out about the documentary here: The Cove. In the meantime, enjoy something different … fish …
