Shirley Baker captured life in northern England in the 60s and 70s when there was still a lot of the post-war grimness around at, but reconstruction was starting. Her photos are marvellous. Some of her photos are shown on this BBC page and in this Guardian article.

We had a little weekend away in Carmel, California. It was Sakura’s first trip and we had a really great time exploring dog-friendly restaurants. Here’s one photo taken on Carmel River State Beach at sunset last night. As you can see it was beautiful, and with a 1 second exposure enabled with a neutral density filter, I could get those pounding waves to look silky smooth.

Kaori and I went to the mall this afternoon with Sakura in her Halloween costume. We met Naoki, Eri, and Kimiko for coffee and as I had my camera it resulted in some photos.

Eri had come special one-on-one time with Sakura.

After the mall, it was time for some Italian food at a favorite, local pasta restaurant with seating outside for people with dogs.

I had lunch with Rosalie after dropping her off and picking her up from her GRE exam. To repay my kind services she had to suffer through a photograph 🙂

I drove Rosalie to Santa Cruz and then went to the pier to take a few photos. Here are a couple that of the same subject but with different compositions.

I normally prefer photos in landscape orientation as they work better online, but in this case I prefer the portrait version. The portrait version is also a little different because it has one f-stop less depth of field and the light changed a little in between photos.