See it here: https://flic.kr/p/SjukBu
See it here: https://flic.kr/p/PsiYPc
The Crystal Pier – Pacific Beach California
by Jack Foster Mancilla
The small LensLord™ gallery on Flickr
The Full LensLord™ Gallery
Everything that exists is its own complete universe. …
I stand by the sea, clicking away with my shutter release, grabbing the moments of a local sunset. Grabbing the fleeting moments as the sun hides behind the limb of the earth.
I stand with Gypsy, my dog who also enjoys the last few rays of this day. This day, when the sun, and the earth, and Gypsy, and I, all exists simultaneously.
This little moment, a few eye blinks between the Big Bang, and the final collapse of this universe, we share, almost entirely, the entirety of everything.
…
Everyone is the center of their own universe. … We are all equidistant from our centers, in all directions, at the speed of expansion, our individual observable universes, as they recede in an ever growing bubble of space time. Because we are all in different locations, and the speed of light is finite, all our observable universes are slightly out of sync.
Our universes overlap in every point except at the edges of the universe. Our edges are either, slightly closer or slightly farther away, from each of us, depending which edge we are closer to, by the distance that light takes to travle between us.
Hollywood Hills from Los Angeles
by Jack Foster Mancilla
The small LensLord™ gallery on Flickr
The Full LensLord™ Gallery
This is a multi-image panorama of the entirety of the Hollywood hills, Los Angeles Hills. In its full size, this image is 30 inches tall by approximately 140 inches wide. … It is a very large panorama.
It was a very clear day, and everything is crystal clear. … Please look at a larger version of the image.
This is the cross on Mount Soledad, just after sunset.
The cross has been talked about, outlawed, saved by lawyers, re-outlawed, and now it is in limbo, saved by lawyers, and still in threat of removal.
The fight between those that want the cross removed, and those that wish to keep the cross, has caused the cross to become more than it was some years ago. Now, it has become a memorial. Below the circular brick steps, encircling the cross along the black wall at the bottom of the image, are numbers of plaques honoring the dead of the U.S. military.
I remember when I was released from the Marine Corps, although the cross was there, the location was mostly a big dirt parking lot. We used to go up there, look at the city, and make out. … I suppose some of that still goes on there, but in my many visits, I no longer see any making out. … The world has changed.
Fireworks, a set on Flickr.
I just want to remind everyone that the Fourth of July is coming up in the United States.
For my American friends, that means, Hot Dogs, Friends, Beer, and Fireworks. I am planing on having a great location for this fourth, and I am just reminding my friends that that is coming up.
One other thing, all these image can be purchased, if you wish. They can be used for advertisements, on giant billboards, if we negotiate a deal. … 🙂
The flicker gallery is all in reverse order, so you see tha last image first. … It might be kind of cool if you go to this first image , …
And, then step through the images with your left arrow key. That way you can see the Big Bay Boom Bust, just as it happened last July the Fourth!
The purchasable images are in this -> Fireworks Gallery
The desert is an amazing place when it is still. When it is still, you can peer through the mists of time.
This is a very specific example of time travel. Here, at these very rocks, for millennia congregated Native Americans. In ancient times, it was the place to be. People sat here, and talked, smoked, exchanged goods, maybe they even made political alinements, weddings. … We can never be really sure what happened here generally.
But, we can be one hundred percent positive that man gathered here, and they wrote on the rocks.
Our archeologists, and scientists, have analyzed the symbols, and decided that they stand for many things. … But, what those symbols really stood for in the minds of the people who spent their time at the rocks, etching the symbols that have stood in this desert for a very long time, That we have no way of knowing.
One other thing we can know. … We can know the majesty of a sunset at these rocks, especially when you share that time with friends.
Let us speak of sunsets and the time just after the sun has gone. Here is one of those images. …
Usually, I like clouds to grab the light from the sun as it slips over the horizon and out of my view, but it lights the remaining, high altitude, clouds very nicely. … On this evening, there were no clouds. I was a little disappointed for the nonce, because I always think about what I am planning to shoot before I head out to shoot. … The weather chose to ignore my planing, and the sky remained cloudless. …
Still, I looked at the sky, and what was there, and I thought it beautiful.
What a day we had today! It was a great day to go for a walk. Make sure you check out the LEFT, Middle, and Right links for a better view.
This image is very large. It is made from 17 vertical images, and the full resolution is 42 thousand pixels wide, and 5,200 pixels tall. … It is so large that it cannot be easily displayed. … So I cut it into three pieces, and I have linked to those three parts to give you a better idea of what can be seen.
… LEFT … Middle … RIGHT
In the left piece, you can easily see Mount Laguna with yesterdays snow upon its flanks.
In the middle piece, you can see Iron Mountain in the left of the frame, and in the right of this frame, you can see the rocky face of El Capitan.
And, in the right piece, you can see Cowels Mountain.
In all three frames, you can see the kind of day we had today.
Today was just beautiful.
This is The Valencia Hotel in La Jolla. Since it is in a town that I have known for most of my life, it has never seemed very special. Boy was I wrong. I have come to realize that this is one destination hotel that many people know about. Mostly people with a generous income. 😉
It is a beautiful Hotel. Inside and out. This is just the street side. It has a wonderful garden courtyard, pool area that seems like it is in a tropical land. 😉
There was a Moon
[by Jack Foster Mancilla]
Purchase this image.
Or view on Flickr.
These two images were taken exactly seven minutes apart, on the same day, December 10, 2011, in Ocean Beach California.
It was my intent to wait until the moon got as low as it could, so that I could capture the Moon, the Pier, and the Surf, with maybe a little sand. Alas, it did not come to pass. We are all limited by external forces. 😉
I got there early, and used my compass and “The Photographers Ephemeris” on my iPhone to plot where the moon would actually set. The Moon would eventually set just right of center in these two images, if it could be seen.
That was the problem. I had forgotten to consider that the eclipsed moon is very dark, in contrast to the dawning sky. … So, as the sky lightened, the moon faded away. It faded away long before it even got to the fog bank that you can easily see in the second image.
I find it very interesting to open both these images in two separate tabs of my web browser then use my arrow keys to jump quickly from one image to the other to compare the height of the moon, and the lightness of the sky.
Sunsets have always grabbed my attention. Many people see them as signaling the end of the day. For me, they are the bringers of the night, but more important, they open my eyes.
Sounds a little silly, but, the night is full of many amazing things to see and hear. There are sounds, stars, the moon, lights, living things, almost all of which, can only seen at night.
The night sky opens our minds to the immensity of the Universe. As the sunset colors fade through twilight, and afterglow, the distances of the Universe open the consciousness for those that gaze upon the deeps. The very closest thing we can see at night in the sky, is the 238,857 miles away moon, and we can see way beyond that. The most distant object visible to the naked eye is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is about 2 million light-years distance.
In between those two objects is a huge space filled with untold, and unimaginable, objects. That huge space is only a minuscule portion of the Universe.
How can looking at such things not open our minds?
Some days require keeping your nose to the grindstone, working your bottom off, and a couple pots of coffee to keep the pups primed.
This is the opposite of that kind of day. The kids are in school, most of the tourists are between here and there. It is a day of reflection, listening to the birds by the bay, the gentle lapping of the wavelets against the pilings. … Tomorrow is another day, but today, I am comfortable.
This was a wonderful evening. These boys had spent the evening dancing across the surface of the sea with the wind and the surf. They had sat on their boards, watching the horizon, looking for any wave that caught their eyes. It did not have to be the perfect wave, the moment was perfect sitting on the gently rolling swells, only occasionally speaking with each other.
Even now, as they leave the sea, walking beside each other, they spoke not a word. The rhythm of the surf breaking against the pilings of the pier, and the call of the gulls, was all that could be heard. The boys of the sun were on their way forward, leaving their love behind, to rejoin common man.
Wandering around in the valley, I came across this culvert with its walls covered in colorful graffiti. The colors of the paint contrasting with the luminescent green algae, and the urban location of this image are some of the things that keep bringing me back to this image.
I wonder about the people that painted these walls. Was it practice? Who did they think they were painting this for? It can only be for themselves. Like the walls of caves, long time deserted, this art will stand through time. Here is the heart of man.
Perseid Meteors 20100812-EarlyAM on Vimeo.
Perseid Meteors 20100812-EarlyAM
[by Jack Foster Mancilla]
I did mention this was coming. This is a time lapse video created from 1100 still images that were taken on August 12th between sometime between 01:30 in the morning and 03:30 in the morning. If you really want to know the time, ask me and I can give you a specific time for each frame.
The exposures were five seconds long. I shot wide open as fast I could, trying to get the brightest image I could have, of the meteors, in relation to the stars. … The stars were exposed for five seconds, but the meteors ran through the frame very fast, not even close to a full second, so they had to be very bright to be seen.
If you look very carefully at individual frames, you will see many small meteors, but about 36 seconds into the video, you will see one humongous meteor. And, if you look really hard, you will see a cloud of glowing gas slowly expand for the next few seconds of the video. That expansion took place over three full minutes. Amazing!
Just a reminder, this evening, and tomorrow evening, will be the peak of this years edition of the Persied visitors from space. The Perseid meteor showers will light the nighttime skies of the Northern Hemisphere of this blue ball with streaks of fiery delight. … If we are lucky.
A friend and I will be going out this evening, and spending the night in the mountains. … I have not decided yet, how I will shoot them. … I think I will make a time lapse movie of full resolution still images. … That is, if it does not get to cold, or to boring just listening to the camera tick. …
A few of my friends, and our dog partners, visited Fiesta Island. 😉 All of us had a very nice time in a beautiful section of San Diego.
My dog, Gypsy, and I go there quite often. We have a wonderful time there.
This is a link to a few more Gypsy images
I wanted to invite all of my friends that could make it, down to fiesta island with their dogs so we could do a giant dog shoot. (I will set a date for that soon)
But, June 26, I will be shooting pets for Citibank customers at …
Citibank
2240 Otay Lakes Road
Chula Vista, CA 91915-1003
Phone: 619-216-1251
You might want to check out those kinds of images as well. …
Furry Un-Dogs
Dogs … Really, dogs. 😉
Scales, Feathers, Amphibians, Other Pets
Pets and People, together 🙂
Come on down! 😉
I really like the contrasts of smooth waters and clear skys with their gently colored hues, against the manmade power lines, cooling towers, all the hard equipment of the Vulcan Geothermal Power Plant, and all its hard colors.
This is the second image of the Vulcan Geothermal Plant that I have published on my blog. Earlier in the day, I also shot a close up view of the right side of this plant. <-Link
I really like this image. I also like the vertical version. … I think they should be hanging side by side on some wall somewhere.
High places are wonderful! … I think I might start a project, shooting from all the buildings I can. Does anyone have any connections to other penthouse owners?
That sounds like a good thing to do. 😉
I have a fun time with my niece when she chooses to go with me to the canyon to walk with my dog, Gypsy. We have a wonderful time down there. Gypsy chases lizards, never catches them, but she has fun. Lena runs ahead, then lags behind, continually looking, laughing, chattering away, having a great time. …
Me, I have a great time always. … But, I get to capture some images of the really good times.
One time, when this tree was maintained, it lived, and was beautiful.
As time goes, the humans that tended this tree died, moved on, found other interests, and so the tree was left in the desert where it had been placed by men. It was left to die. And so it died.
One weekday, I had a hair to drive to Gila Bend and see an old motel. I found this tree, and reveled in its continued beauty. But, it is, indeed, a shadow of itself.
As I was driving down the east grade of Palomar Mountain with a couple friends and we saw this pink and yellow tinge way across the lake. Where is this? This sentence is linked to a map of the location.
I was so excited to see this place that I neglected to secure the car keys. … We looked around all over this set of hills, every location that I had laid down in the grass to shoot something. We looked for over and hour. I was about to call San Diego and have someone drive up the second set of keys. … Luckily, Jeffrey found the keys on the ground, right next to the driver’s door.
So, you should also take an eagle-eyed-friend along.
In this image, we are way east in California, a long way from the mountains. The sun has set in the valley where we are shooting from. The dark line, towards the horizon, is the place where the air below is in shadow, and the air above is still in sunlight. If you look at the larger image, you can see streaks of the mountains shadows in the air.
Definitely a nice place to watch the sun go down. … And looook at all the cotton.
Jenivive and I went around and shot some images. There were so many images I enjoy out of the day.
I really love all the images we shot while clambering around on the huge stack of bailed hay. The color of her hair just takes my breath away.
I really look forward to our next chance to do something like this again.
