South African penguins

The California Academy of Sciences has a truly awesome aquarium on the lower level, but the South African penguins live at the far end of the African Hall — which is otherwise filled with non-living specimens (antelope, lions, etc). I arrived just as the keeper finished cleaning the enclosure and joined a small crowd of people watching these adorable little […]

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On the rocks

On our coastal trips back in the “old days,” the Big Guy used to fish exclusively on sandy beaches for ocean perch; but at some point he made the transition to fishing from rocky cliffs and points, where he mostly catches rockfish and cabezon. And while he’s busy with his rod and reel, I’m usually off wandering with my camera […]

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The magic of bees

I became fascinated by honey bees at a very young age, but there is still quite a lot that I don’t know about them. Now that we’ve reached the end of September and our weather has begun to turn cooler, I noticed there are still plenty of worker bees hovering around all sorts of flowers. It turns out fall is […]

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Saved by Zero

Much of Mineo Mizuno’s work centers around water, ranging from color-saturated teardrops to oval forms representing water drops, such as this one. Decorated with the Japanese character for zero, the calligraphy dissolves into a sublime surface pattern. For the artist, repeatedly painting the character is a meditative experience and connected to Zen principles — Crocker Art Museum information card Look […]

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Wire and shadow

I first saw the work of Ruth Asawa at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco; studying one of her hanging wire sculptures, I found the shadows it cast just as beautiful as the piece itself. Some of her work is also on display at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, including the one shown above. Born in rural California, Asawa […]

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