Solana Beach, California, USA

Defining Main Street: The Pet Groomers. Would you say that pet groomers and their ilk are recent additions to Main Street or old standbys? Their ilk? Pet supplies, doggie day care, vets, pet insurance?[2007]

Ramona, California, USA

Defining Main Street: The Real Estate Office. As we review of the elements of Main Street, let's not ignore the more mundane: establishments like the real estate office. There when you need it, invisible when you don't. [2013]

Covina, California, USA

Defining Main Street: The Jewelry Store. Locally owned and operated jewelry stores seem to survive longer on Main Street than most other operations. Often they have a clock outside. If that box of chocolates didn't quite do the trick yesterday, maybe you should have tried the jewelry store. [2015]
 

Dobbins, California, USA

The Bullards Bar Dam was built in the early 1960s to provide flood control on the Yuba River system. Is it located in Northern California or Southern California? If you don't know, just look at the landscape. [2006]

Santa Monica, California, USA

Shouldn't sea gulls be white? This one is probably a youngling who hasn't molted yet. What a view he must have and what stories he could tell if only he had a voice. Your assignment: Add a caption bubble and give him something wise to say. [2020]

San Diego, California, USA

That looks like a metal sliding board (not plastic). And, it is without curves or bumps (which are meant to slow you down). So retro! Maybe kids can start having fun again. But, that will require wax paper. Also, so retro! Rub the wax paper over the slide again and again to slick it up, so you can go down super fast. [2020]

Half Moon Bay, California, USA

What happened on Good Friday? A dark turn of events that was totally unexpected less than a week before. Jesus, after entering Jerusalem triumphantly on Palm Sunday, was put to death on a hill outside the city walls. Today, we often symbolize death, or eternal sleep, with poppies. [2010]

Santa Rosa, California, USA

Charlie Brown and Snoopy have been planning April Fool's tricks all year, and this is the day they plan to use one on you! Beware! As for this memorial: It's in Charles Shultz' adopted home town, Santa Rosa. Where are Lucy and Linus, you ask. Keep looking. They're lurking around town somewhere. [2005]

Carmel, California, USA

Odds and Evens, Ones and Twos, Singles and Doubles, Which one be You? Here is a loner-artist (aren't they all?) who may be proficient in two different arts: painting (obviously) and photography (judging by the re-purposed tripod). The setting: Carmel-by-the-Sea, home of a flourishing arts colony since 1906. [2010]

San Juan Capistrano, California, USA

"The gasoline that flowed through this collection of antique pumps found in San Juan Capistrano, California, transformed the American urban landscape in this century. No other state exalts the automobile as much as California." That was the caption provided for this photo when it was published in a book in 1993. [1988]

Half Moon Bay, California, USA

What will get rid of this infestation of dinosaurs? (a) They will devour each other. (b) They will be decimated by oxidation. (c) They will be taken home as family pets. (d) They will be wiped out by a 7-mile wide asteroid. If your answer was oxidation, it looks like the dimetrodon will survive. [2010]

San Diego, California, USA

In the post-modern age, everything that is utilitarian should also be aesthetic. That goes for big things like skyscrapers (think: 'glass and steel filing cabinets' from the 1970s) as well as small things like bike racks. Every community is trying to be unique, and any landscape element with plasticity of form makes that possible. [2013] 

San Diego, California, USA

Happy new year, for sure. May the likes of 2020 never be seen again! Now, let's see what the new normal looks like around the country and the world. Let's hope smiles return to streets everywhere. Maybe by the end of 2021, no one will need to wear a smile-hiding mask. [2020]

San Diego, California, USA

♫ These Are a Few of My Favorite Things ♫ ~ Lighthouses: Tourism waves ebb and flow, but lighthouses are always popular. Why are they so psychologically appealing? Why are they so sought after by photographers? Why are they reproduced so much in popular culture? A visit to the Point Loma lighthouse might provide some of the answers. [2020]

Palm Springs, California, USA

Windmills by the thousands provide Palm Springs (and environs) with electicity all year long. They take advantage of the Westerly winds gushing through the San Gordonio Pass. To the north and south, mountain ridges block the winds. Only here are they channeled eastward to create the windiest place in California. [2015]

San Diego, California, USA

Where would you file a photo like this? Maybe in the folder labeled Poetry of Place. It seems so SoCal. Palm tree imprisoned behind a chain-link fence. Interstate highway providing an underpass for the homeless. Abandoned sandals turned into a sculpture. [2020]

Solana Beach, California, USA

Bike sales have soared during coronavirus times. No one wants to be cooped up at home all the time, and no one wants to be exercising in closed spaces with people they don't know. Everybody seems to be looking for outdoor, socially-distanced things to do. Peddling is perfect. [2013]

San Diego, California, USA

San Deigo wants to be a world city of the first order, but right up the road is Los Angeles. How can California's Mexican gateway compete? Maybe a sculpture by Jaume Plensa will do the trick. Meet the Pacific Soul that now sits in the city's downtown. Its armor consists of letters from eight different alphabets. Very international, indeed! [2020]

Half Moon Bay, California, USA

For World Elephant Day, let's consider their proboscidean cousins, mastodons and mammoths, both of which are extinct. Elephants may face the same fate. Their numbers "have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade." That's what World Elephant Day sponsors want you to know. [2010]

Santa Clara, California, USA

What can you carry around with you in a purloined shopping cart? Lots of things recreational. Yet, it seems as if recreation is not his primary objective. If ever a photo deserved a short story, this is it. You've already got the title: The Purloined Shopping Cart. So, start writing and make Poe proud. [2020]