bay area

,

Sunset in Blue and Gold

,

During the dark and dreary winters in the PNW, I often reminisce my time living in California. There were many things I complained about my past life there: the heavy traffic, the car culture, the high cost of living and much more. But being able to get to the blissful Pacific coast in under an hour and capture the vestiges of a summer sunset after a hard day of work more than made up for the hardship of living there.

To make a jaunt to the coast worthwhile, I first scour the webcams pointing to the west to watch the cloud patterns and the inversion layer over the ocean. And once in a while, the conditions become favorable, as it was in this case where I drove to a cliff overlooking the calm waters of the Pacific

Davenport

CA USA

Memories of Spring

Every spring, the gold dry grass gets a fresh coat of lush green, the dull hazy sky turns a vibrant blue with puffy white clouds, and the smoky air is replaced by the heavenly smell of moist earth

Such is the magic of spring of rolling hills that dominate the topography of the East Bay, a transformation I looked forward to eagerly every year while I lived in California.

Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve

CA USA

Sunstars on the Bay

Summers in northern California are dominated bluebird skies with not a speck of white, a balmy sun and glistening waters. The is why the Bay Area has such a sunny disposition. But the occasional winter storm does roll in, and when it does, it peppers the sky with beautiful clouds that, at sunset, is the canvas over which nature paints vibrant yellows, oranges and reds.

This was one such sunset a few years ago at the Alviso Marina in the southern part of the Bay.

Alviso Marina County Park

CA USA

Back to the Bay

Thin wispy clouds arced around the sky as though drawn with a talented paintbrush. And from high above the plains, these masterful strokes of white seemed to stretch forever, hovering over the beautiful golden rolling hills east of the Bay Area of California, highlighting one reason why I was in the Golden State. In the distance I could spy the prominence of Mt Diablo and the other hills of the Diablo Range rising above the buckled terrain formed by the multiple faults cris-crossing the terrain, including the famous Hayward fault that was running just below.

The slanted evening light highlighted the rolling hillscape, bringing into view hidden features in dramatic scales. And even though I stood there and admired the view for a long time, I never got tired of the vast open space stretching in front of me. I can't wait to once again explore the nooks and crannies of the rolling hillscape dotted with vineyards, ranches, and the occasional windmill.

Mission Peak Regional Preserve
CA USA

Portal to Sunset

Summer sunsets in the Bay Area tend to be unremarkable: azure skies slowly fading away to a rusty sunset. Clouds rarely make an appearance in the summer, let alone stay until dusk. And when those moments occur, it can be pure magic. One such moment …

Summer sunsets in the Bay Area tend to be unremarkable: azure skies slowly fading away to a rusty sunset. Clouds rarely make an appearance in the summer, let alone stay until dusk. And when those moments occur, it can be pure magic. One such moment occurred in the middle of the Bay Area's summer, where vestiges of a cloudy day remained till the last light. A sputtering of different layers of high altitude clouds faded from bright yellow to a vibrant orange and onto a saturated pink before the colors eventually melted away.

I bee-lined my way to one of my favorite spots in the southern Bay Area to capture this colorful sunset - the Alviso marina. It's location right by the waters of the bay, combined with the wide open skies all around make it a great place to photograph. Moreover, the walkways and the wooden door-frames formed a great foreground to the last remnants of this memorable sunset.

Alviso Marina County Park
CA USA