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.

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 Tuesday the camera club had our monthly outing at Birch Aquarium. We didn't find out until we got there that half the aquarium was closed off due to construction. That was a bummer. On the bright side, February is half off admission to all museums in San Diego so we didn't have to pay full price to see only half the aquarium.

Male Ornate Boxfish

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We got a little bit of rain last night and there's heavy mist as I'm writing this, this morning . It's supposed to be partly sunny and mild tomorrow through Monday and then maybe a slight chance of rain for the rest of next week. We shall see. I topped off the car while I was out grocery shopping earlier this morning. The price has been holding steady at $4.29 a gal for the last few weeks. As for groceries, eggs were $13.49 for 1 1/2 doz. $5 for 1 lb of ground beef and $2.50 for a 4oz can of tuna. Hope things are a little more affordable in your neck of the woods.

Some of our favorite friends at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

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.

After a very dry month with very low humidity we finally got a little rain this week on Sunday and Monday. Little being the key word. .21in. total. It wasn't much but it did help get the wildfires in the county under control. If we're lucky we may get a little more rain early next week. It won't be a lot, probably less than what we got this week, but every little bit helps.

A mix of some of the year round residents and winter visitors at Santee Lakes.

Great Blue Heron

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Sunny and mid 70's here today with much needed rain in the forecast for the next four days.

I picked up a couple of mixed flower bundles while I was at the grocery store the other day and played around with off camera flash and a little bit of focus stacking. Images 3 and 6 are both 5 frame stacks. Image 9 is a 50 frame stack. All three were shot with ambient light. The rest of the images are all single frame. For 2 and 8 I used ambient light and a small flash light as a spot light. The rest of the shots I used off camera flash for lighting. All images were shot in a light tent.

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 went to La Jolla Cove last Sunday morning to check out all the usual suspects that hang out there. It's a little early in the breeding season for the Brown Pelicans so their numbers were down and I didn't see any in full breeding colors, but the Brandt's Cormorants breeding season is in full swing with a lot of blue throat patch's on display and nests covering the cliff sides.

Brandt's Cormorant

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The humidity is very low (27%) and the Santa Ana winds are still blowing, but thankfully, unlike LA, so far there are no large wildfires in the county. According to the NWS the Santa Ana should break down later today which will be a big help getting the fires in LA under control. Now ,if they could only get more water.

I went to the Balboa Park rose garden a few days ago with the macro lens hoping to find lots of bugs for tonight's FNP. Unfortunately it wasn't a good bug day in the garden. Fortunately it was a good bird day the last few outings to Lake Murray and Santee Lakes.

Cedar Waxwing