Saturday, March 21, 2009

Haze

I took a picture of the haze.

Thursday it was thicker than I've seen it in years - not just in Pasadena but in Glendale and Hollywood, too. It was bayad. Fun for photo experiments, though. I expect the Hound of the Baskervilles to appear on that path at any moment.

18 comments:

Dina said...

Oh, so otherworldly!

Laurie Allee said...

I've had some sunset fun with it, myself. Everything looks like it was shot through a soft-focus lens.

I get uneasy when the mountains completely disappear into the haze. It just feels weird.

Lvoe this shot!

Virginia said...

That's gorgeous. I assume it's not from fires around there. I can't remember when you have those. This is a keeper P1
V

Petrea Burchard said...

It's not from fires, Virginia. Air pollution mixed with misty weather. An early form of "June gloom," I'd guess. That's why Laurie's uneasy. Me, too. Air shouldn't look like this, even if it makes nice pictures.

When I moved to so-Cal in 1988 the air looked like this almost every day. Our strict air pollution laws have changed that and this is now a relatively rare sight.

HearkenCreative said...

But you have to admit, the picture is absolutely beautiful. Nicely done, Petrea.

Glad that the runners for the marathon will be running early in the morning, and maybe with a little rain on Sunday. Not in this haze.

Anonymous said...

Sure it wasn't just haze from moisture and heat? that's what I told myself.

Petrea Burchard said...

Ooh, I didn't think of that, Hearken. It wouldn't be good to have to cancel again. It seems like good breathin'.

Moisture yes, Karin (see, I said "mist weather," jeez louise). But heat? Maybe to a Norski.

Susan C said...

Haze sure photographs beautifully.

Petrea, I had the same experience when I came to LA in '76. I lived in South Gate for six weeks before realizing there was a nearby mountain range.

Petrea Burchard said...

Me too, Susan. I had a little apartment in North Hollywood, with a north facing window in the bedroom. It was two weeks before I discovered I had a view of the mountains. Thank the law that's unusual now!

Keith said...

"Air shouldn't look like this"

So true, air shouldn't look like anything. Like Susan C, it reminds me of the 70's.

~mona~ said...

I know it probably had more smoke and pollution in it than I wanted to think, but I just loved the idea of fog. It was so cool driving from Los Feliz to Pasadena on the 134 on Friday morning. The whole valley where Eagle Rock is was completely shrouded. I so enjoy the Los Angeles area winter sky.

Ms M said...

The B&W is really cool with this...it is ghostly. I haven't thought about The Hound of the Baskervilles for years.

It's good pollution laws are in place now. We have bad air days here in Boise, too where it gets like this. Unfortunately, some groups are still fighting emission testing and we don't have good mass transit yet.

marley said...

Great photo. Useful to have fog capturing the sun.

PJ said...

Whatever the reason for the haze the effect is quite beautiful. I looked at the enlargement and it has wonderful detail, especially the way the sun presses down at the top. Really nice, Petrea.

Katie said...

Amazing photo -- looks like a still from a weird sci-fi movie, with a bright flying saucer breaking through the clouds. As much as I like the artistic potential with skies like this, I hope the haze clears soon and you don't get too many days like this in the future.

John Sandel said...

Linguistics lesson: "Smog," originally meaning "smoke + fog," is a portmanteau—a word cobbled together from others. This is as distinct from an acronym, like SMERSH, which Mr. Bond worried about, because it was translated from the Russian СМЕРШ, meaning "Death To Spies."

And you thought weather was boring. Not with pictures like this!

Petrea Burchard said...

Thanks, all. I usually like color, but I was tooling around with my little effects program and this just made me sit up and say howdy.

Not out loud, of course.

There has to be fog involved. It's not all pollution. If it were, we'd all have suffocated by now.

Julie said...

This could quite easily be a landscape painted by an Australian, Lloyd Rees, as his eyesight faded into his 90s.

See the top one here
http://www.holmesacourtgallery.com.au/exhibitions/current.cfm?exhibition_id=28