Wednesday, October 24, 2007 – Fire's End

The afternoon the Santa Ana winds finally tapered off and the great Southern California firestorm of 2007 seemed to slow, the gulls on the beach in Santa Monica formed the victory sign.

Smoke on the water – Malibu, across the bay where it all started, is finally quiet.  The Santa Ana winds blow off the high desert, over the mountains, compress and accelerate as the roar through the passes and canyons down to the coast where we all live, and then blow out to sea – so with fires raging from the Mexican border to the north end of Los Angeles Country, with the mountains on fire in the distance, all the smoke finally just floats out over the cold Pacific and sits quietly.

Calm waters at the pier –

Things will get back to normal.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik