When we stayed in Ferndale in northern California in late September the town was already going mad for Halloween. As we walked along the one main street decorators were out adorning shop fronts with orange bunting, placing numerous skeletons on all the buildings, and chatting to business owners about their own additions to the town’s displays. Of course it was all in fun, not to scare!
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Mono Lake is a graphic reminder of the consequences of human activity for the natural world. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) began diverting water from Mono Lake's tributary streams, sending it 350 miles south to meet the growing water demands of Los Angeles. The impact on the lake was dramatic.
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Halloween today is largely a commercial festival, and a bit of fun for children, but it has dark origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain. At that time, people believed, the barrier between the living and the spirit world was thinnest. Maybe that’s why we choose as fun decorations at this time of year things that would terrify us at any other time.
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After a day with lots of rain in Paris, followed by one with none at all, today’s forecast was for sunshine and showers. We decided on another walk, with the possibility of a couple of small museums for shelter if the rain became too much.
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This weekend in Europe the clocks are being turned back. The already dark evenings will be darker as days are starting to shorten and nights lengthen. Finding light where we can becomes ever more precious.
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What we in the UK call autumn is known for the most part as fall in the US. On our recent California trip we made sure to comment on the ‘fall colours’! But why the difference?
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We enjoyed our first visit to San Francisco back in 1991 so on this California trip included a day there at the start. After some early morning fog we enjoyed a beautifully sunny day, although the clouds descended again briefly in the afternoon, just in time for us to get some atmospheric shots from the viewing area on the north side of the bridge, near Sausalito.
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They say we should never go back. And yes, sometimes when we visit old half-remembered haunts we can be disappointed. They may have changed, and we almost certainly have done so. How pleasing when instead of disappointment we find delight!
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One thing photography teaches us is that there are opportunities for images in the most unlikely places. Carrying a camera we see things differently, noticing not just the most obvious and beautiful scenes but also the potential in the less obvious.
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We finished our recent California road trip with a couple of nights in Las Vegas, a city which like New York can claim to ‘never sleep'. I was reminded of this song because we stayed in the New York New York hotel and casino.
