Stormy Skies, California style

Winter has arrived!... And I've got the skies to prove it!
But first, from the whatever catches my eye file....
The Medium - NY Times
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: October 29, 2010
Funeral for a Friend
Mourning the analog (old fashioned!) phone call
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31fob-medium-t.html?ref=magazine
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12 Bizarre Sea Creatures
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2010/08/06/hearstmaggreen649629.DTL&o=0
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Remarkable Creatures - Translating the Stories of Life Forms Etched in Stone
PUZZLE- Many of the creatures found in the fossil record from the time immediately preceding the Cambrian are so unlike modern forms that deciphering what they are and how they lived continues to challenge paleontologists.
By SEAN B. CARROLL
Published: July 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/science/27creatures.html?hpw
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Deep Sea Treasures: Amazing Pictures from the Census for Marine Life

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/slideshow/sea-census-5832218

This is where all the news sites are gathering their info, Check out the real deal:

http://www.coml.org/
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Deep-sea images reveal colorful life off Indonesia
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_sc/as_indonesia_us_ocean_explorers_3

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The Scales Fall
Is there any hope for our overfished oceans?
by Elizabeth Kolbert

This reviews and expands upon several recent books about the topic:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/08/02/100802crbo_books_kolbert
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OK, now on to skies, and a bit of photography. Winter has arrived in Northern California....
No doubt about it when the sky looks like this!:



For more:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2010/StormyOctober/index.html
I have accentuated all of these a bit in Photoshop, with 'levels' adjustments, but that's all - I could no more create these knarly, angry, twisted cloud-scapes than I could fly to the moon!
'Mother nature' is a bitch sometimes... but she's always creative about it - it's never the same sky twice.

Fog

October 3 - Took a day trip to the Marin Headlands, not only in hopes of 'fog' (and the many curious things it can do) but also just to get out of my apt., and away from this blasted computer screen. I don't do it often enough. My hunch, for some good fog, paid off. It was well worth the 12$ bus fare!
Fog is definitely a very curious and inscrutable thing, here's a start, if you want to learn more...

The thesaurus that comes w/ my Mac OSX defines 'fog' as:
"A thick cloud of tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth's surface that obscures or restricts visibility"
"an opaque mass of something in the atmosphere"
It continues, to cover the more figurative uses of the word:
Phrases - 'in a fog' - in a state of perplexity, unable to think clearly or understand anything.
That kind of fog is well beyond anything I can comment on! - if you are experiencing it? you need to consult someone much more professional than me, a photographer!
How 'bout 'webmd.com'... or if there is such a thing: 'web-shrink.com'.

(Of course they would have to mention photographic fog, but we won't have any of that will we??
I sure hope not!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog

"Fog can form suddenly, and can dissipate just as rapidly, depending what side of the dew point the temperature is on. This phenomenon is known as flash fog."
It's no surprise to me that a number of the photos on this wiki page are of San Francisco, or California.
I have seen fog form in less than a minute - you can go from miles of visibility.. to zero... and vice versa, in no time flat. (And if you ever have to drive in CA's central valley when there is tule fog? Can you please drive at less than 80 mph??)

So I did little google searchin'....

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wfog.htm
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/jkl/?n=fog_types
(http://starryskies.com/try_this/fog.html)
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_is_fog_formed
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/clouds/fog.html
http://www.aviationweather.ws/067_Fog.php

And that's just an edited selection from the first 4 pages.. after which *I* was feeling a bit foggy.
So here's a bit of my 'foggy day' in small size.





For larger images, and a bit more commentary, as usual, a page on my website:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/LscapeDigital/MH_Sept10/index.html
'Heads up' if you are on a slow connection - It's a long page of full size images.

Other/Older fog pages:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/LscapeDigital/BLOG_MH_9_07.html
www.bobbennettphoto.net/LscapeDigital/05_07MH_Fog/index.html
www.bobbennettphoto.net/lscape6_2006/index.html
www.bobbennettphoto.net/LscapeDigital/7_09_06_MH_FOG/index.html

A few days ago I noticed an article in the LA Times - the linked image to the article was a *sweet* picture of Yosemite valley... with some fog drifting through:

Yosemite: My special place, a photographer's journal
By Mark Boster Los Angeles Times staff photographer
October 17, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/travel/destinations/yosemite/la-tr-yosemite-boster-20101017,0,7226286.story

And there's this one, just recently, probably more important than ALL the above:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/widespread-impact-from-an-afghan-mine/?hp

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Last but not least, a musical suggestion (or three) :-)

Jethro Tull - 'Nothing's easy' - 1969
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoSOuYNNXjU
Nothing's easy in 2010 either...
The more things change? the more they stay the same!
Thank you, Ian Anderson!
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'Come rain or come shine'
Ray Charles :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVMYs3enTF8&feature=related
Billie Holiday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqECFy_qzkM&feature=related