Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Early last month I went to the Balboa Park rose garden with the macro lens looking for bugs but didn't have a lot of success. One of the nice things about the 105mm macro lens is it also makes a good portrait lens and while I didn't find a lot of bugs I did find a lot of beautiful roses. While editing, on some of the blossoms that I liked the shape, texture, and placement of the petals I cropped in close to better illustrate said shape, texture and petal placement. And just for something different I converted some from color to black and white and some to sepia. The second four images are the color versions of the first four images.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Earlier this month the camera club went to Miramar Reservoir located in the north-east area of the city. There's a 5 mile paved road and a dirt trail closer to the shoreline that runs around the reservoir. All but the first 2 photos were taken while I was walking on the dirt trail. It was a beautiful morning with blue skies and temps in the high 70s when we arrived and low 80s when we left a few hours later.
Oh for those days of cooler temps. It's been a week of three digit temps with a high of 105 Wed. The power grid got over stress that evening and the power went out for about an hour from 8:45 to 9:45 PM. It's bad enough I don't have A/C, now I didn't even have fans. Thankfully the temps had dropped to a mere 90° by the time the power went out and it was restored in a little less than an hour and I got my fans back and got some air circulating and was able to cool off.

Mallard Mania

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

The San Diego Natural History Museum is currently running an exhibit of art created from trash pulled out of the worlds oceans. It's really sad seeing how bad we treat the world we depend on for our very survival. As a species we're not very bright. Even a dog knows not to shit where it sleeps. Humans, not so much. But hey, the DOW is up.
While we're on the subject of the ocean, ocean temps are heating up causing what climate scientist predict will be a super El NIño this winter. Here's a link with weather predictions for the country this fall and winter.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/6041581-noaa-releases-fall...

Fish Bite Fish

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Last month the camera club went to the Torrey Pines Gliderport located along the cliffs of La Jolla. Last time I was there was ten years ago and hang gliders were the big thing. Now it's paragliders. It looks like fun but I don't know if I could run off the edge of a cliff to get airborne.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Tonight we come to the conclusion of the county fair series with all the leftovers that did not fall into any of the categories from the previous 5 weeks. I hope you all enjoyed your visit to the San Diego county fair as much as I did.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. Turned another year older today. Seems like the birthdays are coming around faster every year. On the plus side of the ledger, they're still coming around. On the minus side of the ledger , I'm feeling every one of those years more and more every day.
Did my civic duty and donated blood today. I have a rare form of O+ that the blood bank really likes. Per FDA regulation you can only donate whole blood once every 8 weeks. The blood bank likes my blood so much they call and text me every 8 weeks on the dot to let me know I'm eligible to donate. I'm 2 pints shy of 21 gal. total lifetime donations.

No trip to the fair is complete without going to the fun zone.

Eyes wide shut

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The summer heat finally arrived. Temps have been in the mid 90s all week. The forecast is for more of the same all next week. During the MOU euphoria the price of gas dropped from $5.79 down to $5.19. Now that the MOU is dead prices have started to climb again. So far only 10¢ but I expect it to go much higher.

One of the regular features of the fair is the garden railroad. Every year the layout of the track and theme changes. This years theme was fairytale and cartoon characters.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

While not quite as popular as the pig races, The Flying Royals trapeze act draws it's far share people to their performances. According to troop leader, April, all the members (other than the 2 young boys) are collage graduates. I wonder what type of degree you need to become a member of a trapeze act? I also want to know what these guys eat, cuz I don't see a spare ounce of fat on any of them.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

In part 2 of the county fair series we'll explore the art of woodworking, something I was never any good at. When it comes to woodworking my only skill was taking a perfectly good piece of wood and turning it into a pile of sawdust.

Best in show for the woodworking contest.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Two weeks ago myself along with three other members of the camera club I'm in along with members of ten other clubs were at the county fairs photo contest/exhibition representing our clubs. The contest is one of the largest in the country. This year over 4700 photos were submitted across 34 different categories of which about 1400 were selected . You can submit up to twenty photos. There is a $20 entree fee for every photo you submit. There are cash prizes for 1st-4th place for every category plus best in show. The contest is multi tiered. For tier 1 you submit a jpeg file that is judged by three judges. If your image or images are excepted you have two weeks to print, mount and mat your photos for tier 2 judging. Those that pass tier 2 muster are then hung in the exhibition hall for the length of the fair. This year the fair opened on June 10th and runs through July 5th. I'd love to show some of the outstanding photos in the contest, but photography is not allowed in the photo exhibit.
So tonight and the next few Fridays I will be posting scenes from the fair.
Tonight's focus is on animals at the fair. Some are there to entertain and some are there to be judged.

"And they're off" By far the most popular attraction are the pig races.