Landscape Photos

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth

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This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is earth. At first, I thought I’d skip this photo challenge theme because I couldn’t think of any photos to use. Then I read Cee’s description of earth and I figured, hey I could do that! Earth: Clay, Rock, Dust, Sand, Mud, Crystal, Powder, Shadow, Space, Darkness, Gravity, Bone, Silicon.

Below is my personal take of this theme. Remember you can click on any photo to view a larger image.

Southern California is covered with dirt and rocks, not much green overall. Cactus, succulents and short bushes like California Sage Brush are what grow best here.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Earth - succulents growing in dirt and rocks — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth – succulents growing in dirt and rocks

I enjoy painted rocks and these rocks from the San Diego Botanic Garden are a cute and subtle way to ask people to stay away.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth - painted rocks — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth – painted rocks

Of course San Diego is not all dirt and rocks. It also features beautiful beaches, my favorite being Coronado Beach. It is always listed as one of the Top 10 beaches in the U.S. and it deserves it.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth - San Diego sandy beach — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth – San Diego sandy beach

My last photo is from Idyllwild, California. I call it the face in the rock, and it’s pretty obvious why. This is as if Earth was watching us as we walk by.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth - the face in the rock — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Earth – the face in the rock

Rain clouds crawling over the hills in San Diego

The crawling clouds of a San Diego rainstorm

I gave you a glimpse of what the crawling clouds of a San Diego rainstorm can look like in my previous photo post. If the cloud cover is high during a rainstorm, this meteorological event won’t happen, but if the clouds hang pretty low, it can be an interesting sight.

The San Diego area is very hilly and the clouds most often travel east, coming from over the Pacific Ocean. As the low clouds go over the various hills, they look like they’re crawling over them, sometimes slowly, sometimes pretty fast. After taking a few dozens of photographs, I realize it’s hard to capture the effect of these crawling clouds well on still photographs and a video would be a nice addition to this post. Something to keep in mind for the next rainy day!

In the meantime, here are a few photos of these crawling clouds over the San Diego hills.

Crawling clouds during a San Diego rainstorm

I took this last photo after I put my camera down and realized that the scene closest to me actually looked very interesting. I’ll need to come back when the weather is nicer to see if the area would look different in sunny light. I love how the yellow grass contrasts with the dark brown low bushes and the skinny, naked trees sticking straight up out of them. There’s something quite eerie about this whole scene, don’t you agree?

Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego, California

January 30, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: California Photos, Cloud photos, Landscape Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Sky PhotosTags: California pictures, cloud photos, crawling clouds, low clouds, low hanging clouds, Mission Trails, Mission Trails regional park, photography, photos, photos of clouds, San Diego, San Diego clouds, San Diego rain, San Diego rainstorm 8 Comments

Raindrops hanging from a thuja tree branch

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now!

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is: Now!

My “now” moment is from last Friday, when we got to experience rain falling down the whole day and night, here in San Diego, California. I can’t complain about it much, we really need it. I actually don’t mind when it rains and doesn’t pour, which is mostly what happened. The only thing is, there are few opportunities to take pictures on rainy days. However, I experienced a “now” moment last Friday and managed to grab my camera and snap photos throughout the day to capture the effects of the rain.

I’ll be featuring all of the photos I took in two additional posts later this week, one on clouds and one of raindrops. Here’s a preview of these posts for you. Remember you can click on each image for a larger view.

Rainclouds hang quite low here, and with the high hills surrounding us, you can see the clouds creeping and crawling all over them. It was a challenge to capture them on camera because I believe a video would illustrate the effect better, but I still think the photos came out OK.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now - hills covered with clouds — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now – hills covered with clouds

The next photo features raindrops on the branch of a thuja. I love how the raindrops manage to hang on so well to the tree.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now - raindrops on a thuja tree branch — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now – raindrops on a thuja tree branch

As for the last photo, this is what every kid loves to do when it rains- jumping in the puddles! – especially if wearing rain boots. Kids really know how to enjoy the now!

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now - splashing in the puddles — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now – splashing in the puddles

January 28, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: California Photos, Landscape Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Tree Photos, Water photosTags: California pictures, clouds over hills, let's be wild weekly photo challenge, Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Now, photography, photos, photos of clouds, photos of raindrops, rain drops on trees, raindrop photos, raindrops on trees, San Diego, splashing in puddles, thuja, thuya 11 Comments

Travel theme: Blue sky in San Diego and rising moon

Sunday Post: Focused Attention

Today I’m participating in Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post photo challenge. This week’s theme is Focused Attention.

If there’s one thing you need to have when taking photos of nature, it is focused attention. Paying attention to your surroundings is crucial if you want to spot and capture something that looks good to the eye. Sometimes, timing is important if you’re trying to take photos of animals, or even skies, which can change any minute. Focus is mostly needed when you’re taking photos up close, in macro mode.

I just received my brand new Canon Powershot SX500 IS a couple of days ago (it felt like Christmas all over again!), so I played with it a bit yesterday, trying to focus on the raindrops that are everywhere because of the rain. It was fun comparing the photos I took of raindrops on the same tree with my other camera. I’ll be doing a full post on these raindrops later this week, but here’s a preview of it. Focused attention can get you a nice shot of raindrops on a thuja tree branch.

Remember you can click on each photo so you can see it in a larger size.

Sunday Post: Focused Attention - raindrop on a tree branch — Sunday Post: Focused Attention – raindrop on a tree branch

You also need focused attention when trying to capture a moving body of water on camera. I did that recently and I still have to go through my photos to pick a select few. Here’s one that came out alright, I think. The sun was already over the hill and the whole aread being shaded gave the water a blue tint. A pretty neat effect.

Sunday Post: Focused Attention - stream water — Sunday Post: Focused Attention – stream water

That same day, I could see the moon high up in the sky in the late afternoon. I wanted to take a picture of it, but I knew it wouldn’t be a great photo if I had nothing else in the photo but the moon in broad daylight. So I looked around and found a way to add to the picture and give the moon some perspective. I’m pretty happy with the way the photo turned out. What do you think?

Sunday Post: Focused Attention - moon in bright blue sky — Sunday Post: Focused Attention – moon in bright blue sky

That’s all I have for this theme of focused attention. I hope you enjoyed it!

January 27, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: California Photos, Landscape Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Rock photos, Sky Photos, Tree Photos, Water photosTags: California pictures, moon in blue sky, moon in daylight, photographing moving water, photography, photos, rain drops on tree branch, raindrops on tree branch, running water, San Diego, stream water, Sunday Post, Sunday Post: Focused Attention 7 Comments

A word a week photo challenge: Weather

I’m participating in A Word in Your Ear’s photo challenge. This week’s photo theme is weather. San Diego weather is pretty regular, mostly sunny and warm, but we get rain sometimes (never enough), and even frost in the winter (a lot of frost this winter).

Here are a few photos that represent weather in San Diego, using the WordPress gallery format. You can click on any image to view all of them in a slideshow format. I’ve used these photos in previous posts so I’ve left the original captions. This way, if you’d like to view the original post, just search for the caption text in my website’s Search box.

Do you like the weather where you live?