Misty Golden-Brown Niagara Falls Sunset

As you know, there are wild fires throughout the West Coast. What a sad loss of property and lives. Our hearts go out to those who have been affected by these fires.....  In western New York (WNY), we are seeing a bit of those fires, as the smoke is being blown here across the country as well. 

Stay safe and please stay well!

Angel Island fire - plus the day after

wow!!! I heard my downstairs neighbor talking to someone on the street about some fire... I opened up my bedroom window blinds and took these few pictures through the 40-year old glass, being able to see the flames in the void quite clearly!!! How eerie to have flames seemingly in the middle of nowhere in the night darkness!! Now ten minutes after snapping this first picture, the smell of burning brush is seeping into my room!! yuck!!!

Monday morning: I've slipped outside to get a few snaps of the aftermath. You can actually see a tiny helo dumping water over the smothering mess, then coming down to the surface of the bay to get more water. Respect Nature, respect the environment!

UPDATE: Well, the fire on the island is completely out and they are investigating the cause of the fire. Right now according to new reports, it looks like it started near a campsite ~ over 300 acres of land were torched and over 300 firemen were brought in to fight the flames. However - good news - the 120 historic structures on the island were intact after the blaze; it seems most of the flames were on the City side, which is the southern portion of the island.

MAN, enemy number one of Life, Nature and the environment! grrrrrr

Hot or Not?

The past few days have been forecast to be hot in the City, but while the heat stayed in the high 90s and even surpassed the 100s around the Bay Area, in my City it's breezy and not even in the 80s. Yet, I find it so amazing how one area of the City can have sun while the other half is draped with fog! Just a mystery that I love to explore and even more in viewing!

I had a nice foto shoot in Half Moon Bay during the last weekend, where I met with a Chico teen model and shot with her. It's sad and disappointing to think that in such a populous area as is San Francisco, I can't find a real and serious "model" to work with. The few models there are seem to be immature and even more irresponsible, expressing a fleeting desire to work and saying a quick "hi" then disappearing faster than this fog that rolls in at night. All of the real models I have worked with have all been from outside the City.

In the past few days the winds have yet again shifted, allowing us to be smoked everyday with the gray haze ~ a result of smoke from the 300+ fires all over California. Health advisories have been issued and in a town north of my City near Chico named Paradise (Butte County), it was reported yesterday that the health issue due to the thick smoke was so bad that even the machine used to measure the air particles for these advisories, broke and had to be restarted and the measurements obtained manually!

Here's a picture from my rooftop this morning.... it shows an orange sun rising over the East Bay and Telegraph Hill.