Thursday, June 21, 2007 – Solstice

"Thousands of modern-day druids, pagans and partygoers converged on Stonehenge early Thursday to cheer the dawn of the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere – the summer solstice." You can read all about that here if you wish.  Were you in Paris there was music everywhere, with the Fête de la Musique, held each year on the summer solstice.  Our Man in Paris, Ric Erickson, covered last year's here, and it is always is fun. In 1997 the Brazilian music up at Place des Abbesses was quite fine, but three years later, down on Rue St Benoit, around the corner from the Café de Flore, the trash rock band in the street at three in the morning was a tad irritating.  But then, in Western Europe and the UK, the advent of actual summer is a big deal.  One must do something, after all.

Here?  It's kind of always summer here.  As they say, we don't have weather out here, we have nuance.  But as for the day of special astronomical note, here's Venice Beach and Malibu, at noon on the summer solstice – the sun directly overhead, the shadows minimal, and the summer now here.

Venice Beach at noon on the summer solstice, 2007 – for the tourists –

Malibu, much of it inaccessible to the public, what with the rich folks, is a better place to be on the summer solstice, maybe.

Establishing shots – Pacific Coast Highway as you roll in –

Just fishing at the pier –

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the 'fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik