Topaz Lake, California

Traveling from Sonoma County to the Eastern Sierras I will often stay overnight in Topaz Lake to break up the long drive and give myself a little more time to explore along the way. Topaz is an unincorporated community located on highway 395 just south of the Carson Valley. The California-Nevada border goes right through the middle of the lake. It is a quiet, mostly residential area with a couple of motels, a gas station and a casino. Waking up before sunrise is a real treat as the community has not yet begun to stir and it is such a serene scene.

To the south of town there are a number of side roads to explore that run across the valley to the east, along with a road that runs on the east side of the valley, roughly parallel to 395 for a stretch. The picture above is a morning shot from the east side of the valley.

This is an image of the valley south of Topaz, looking north at sunset. At about this time of day the coyotes begin calling to one another. The smell of sage, a cool gentle breeze, coyotes howling and the sun setting. Couldn't ask for more.

The community of Topaz and Topaz Lake are situated right next to highway 395. I wanted to get a shot of the Milky Way over the lake and found a pull off where I could walk down to the shore. I was up very early in the morning and shooting to the southeast. Because my Milky Way shots were 25 seconds long I had to time the shooting carefully as the lights from the passing trucks lit up the trees, ruining the shots. I eventually got some undisturbed frames and came away satisfied.

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Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

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The Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024

This last May, my wife, Jan, and I were on vacation in the San Juan Islands, WA. We were there for a week staying at the Trumpeter Inn, a B&B on San Juan Island. Mid way through our stay we heard there was to be a Northern Lights display and that we would likely be able to see it since we were at a latitude just north of Victoria, BC. The excitement was immediate. The conditions were just right as the sky was cloudless and the moon was in its crescent phase and would be low on the horizon (and therefore not overly bright) during the expected good viewing time between 10 pm and 2 am. The image above was taken that night and is what I was expecting to see, a green Aurora. Little did we know what was to come! Early on the was the first hint that something special was about to happen as color in addition to green began to show. I found this very exciting as I had seen green auroras before but never one with the purple/blue colors an...

Notes To My Mother

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