Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

The Balboa Park rose garden is in full bloom right now so yesterday I grabbed the macro lens and spent about 3 hours hunting for bugs. Unfortunately the pickings were pretty slim. Lots of bees and flies but not much of anything else. I ended up taking more shots of roses than bugs. Oh well. Some days you bite the bear and some days the bear bites you. Hopefully next time I get to bite the bear.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

On the first weekend of this month I went to the Goodguys hot rod and custom car show at the Del Mar fairgrounds. This was the 24th year for the event and my 6th or 7th time attending. This year there was a noticeable drop in the number of cars and spectators. I don't know if the ailing economy had anything to do with it or if it was just an off year. Whatever the reason, there was still a large variety of beautiful cars and works of auto art. In tonight's FNP I highlight the Lowriders.
(NOTE: do to the decrease in the number of cars, some of these images are from 2022)

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

The week got off to a rocking start Monday morning with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered between Ramona and Julian which is about 30 miles northeast of where I live. I was out with the bird watching group for our monthly bird walk when it happened. It was kinda funny hearing everybody's cell phones all start chiming with an emergency alert messages right after it hit. A moment's pause while everybody acknowledged the message on their phone then right back to bird watching. Oh look! A Common Yellowthroat.

Our bird walk this month was at Santee Lakes. It's breeding season for the Wood Ducks and they were in abundance.

Great Horned Owl. I hear them all the time at night. This is the first time Ive seen one during the day out in nature and not in captivity.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

It's spring. That means it's time for the annual butterfly exhibit at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I stopped by the park on Monday to check it out. The variety and total number of butterflies and the length of time the exhibit runs varies from year to year. This year the variety and total number were the smallest and the length of run is the shortest I've seen in the dozen years I've been a zoo member. I hope the low numbers this year were an anomaly and not a sign of things to come.

Blue Morpho

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Springtime in SoCal. Monday it was sunny and 85. It's slowly regressed through the week and today it's 60° and drizzling. I guess that's better than the heavy rain JtC is dealing with on his weekend getaway.

Got a mixed bag of images tonight. I entered the first two images in the camera club's monthly photo challenge. The subject was close-up/macro. The B&W got 1st place and the watch face tied for 2nd. That helped brighten an otherwise dull day.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Some more from my visit to the San Diego Museum of Art and the Mingei Museum last month.

"Jaguar Head" Unknown artist. Wood, beeswax and glass beads.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Happy pie day 3.14Good news, bad news. The good news. We got some much needed rain this week. The bad news. The rain clouds blocked the view of the lunar eclipse last night. Since we really need the rain it was a worthwhile tradeoff.

This month the bird watching group decided to change things up and instead of looking at local domestic birds we went to the zoo to look at the foreign imports. More good news. So far the president has not imposed any tariffs on these imports.

Toco Toucan-South America

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

I didn't get out with the camera this week so I dug into my archives for tonight's FNP.
In winters when we get a lot of rain the desert will come alive this time of year with wildflowers. It's referred to as a super bloom. Unfortunately we haven't had much rain this winter and the wildflower bloom at Anza-Borrego has been sparse, so tonight's photos are from the 2019 super bloom.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Orlbucfan often comments about how the photos everybody posts on FNP look like paintings so I thought I'd post some actual paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art and the Timken Museum of Art, both located in Balboa Park.

Emanuel De Witte (Dutch 1617-1692)
Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, 1657

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

The Navy's flight demonstration team the Blue Angels spend the winter months based at NAF El Centro in the Imperial valley. Most mornings they have an hour long practice session so yesterday morning I got up early and made the 1-1/2 hour drive to El Centro to shoot their practice. The best part about going to one of their practice sessions is there are no crowds. There was maybe 100 people there. When they perform at an airshow there will be upwards of 100,000 people that come to watch them fly.