Photo By Request... "Signs"

Golden Gate Bridge

Westbound Gate

Marin County

August 24th 2019

"When you are near the middle of your life, often God will do outrageous things to knock you back on course."

~Francesca Lia Block

Wasteland

Today's #PhotoByRequest challenge is "Signs". I absolutely love the topic because so much can be done with it! You can photograph a literal sign that is interesting in some way, or you can reach for the metaphorical, which would require explanation, at least as far as to oneself. I guess it's a matter of ones comfort zone. As luck would have it, when Alan and I visited the Golden Gate a couple weeks ago, I came across more than one sign. Most are self explanatory. I also had quite a few archived photos I want to share as well. I enjoy looking for signs in the universe, for some reason no matter how cryptic, or how long I have to ponder their meaning, I always seem to come away better off for having noticed what the unseen was trying to tell me.

That's just one more reason I am happy to always have my camera in my hand. My camera helps me learn more about myself, and see a part of life I would have otherwise missed. My camera helps me stay in the moment, as opposed to dwelling in the past. As for the quote I chose for this post, well, I have found that sentiment to be absolutely true. Like in 2015, when we were forced to move to the Central Valley. Lordy, I wouldn't have moved here by choice, but here I am. Probably forever. God, and the whole universe, decided to throw a shit storm and suck me up into it, and Stockton just happened to be where I landed. Never, ever, say NEVER when God is within earshot!

 Signs... (New)

Emotional Signs

Golden Gate Bridge

Westbound Marin County Side

Archived Signs

Bodega Bay, California

We'll Miss You Robin

Tribute to Robin Williams

The Punch Line

San Francisco, California

 Robin Williams Tunnel

Marin County, California

August 24th 2019

I miss Robin so much, but I always smile when I see this sign. We in the Bay Area will never forget that man. He was special.

Fisherman's Wharf

San Francisco

You can't visit San Francisco without seeing this sign!

New York Hotel

Stockton, California

Can you believe those prices?

Dublin, California

Self Explanatory

 "Live To Serve Man"

 A Public Art prank by the Billboard Liberation Front

Read all about this sign/public art piece

 by clicking the title above.

 Pier 14

One of the most beautiful spots along the Embarcadero

 Cal Berkeley Campus

Berkeley California

Autumn 2007

 Reno, Nevada

Autumn 2006

Zanesville, Ohio

October 1992

How often do you get to chose

 whether or not you venture down the road to HELL!

Do you see signs, or just signs? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment thread. I would love to hear from you!

~Mood: Happy
~Me  :)

Fleur-de-Lis

"It looks like fallen petals and it looks like rain.

 It looks like the sounds the birds make at dawn. 

It looks like the aisle of grocery stores when a song I love suddenly begins to play overhead and I cannot help but dance a little dance. It looks like a sigh

 a kiss, an unmade bed.

 It looks like Cheerios in a white bowl

 with a bit of silence on the side.

 It looks like a plain vanilla cupcake in white paper, a dance on the wind, pink toenails, warm socks. 

It looks like a fire against the cold of winter, and a deep lake cool against a summer sky. It looks like chick flicks, books that make you cry, and all the candles blown out on the first try."

~D. Smith Kaich Jones

It was a perfect Fleur-de-Lis!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

~Albert Einstein

One day, about a 10 days ago, I was in a grove of beautiful trees, searching for as many lovely leaves as I could find, for my autumn leaf project, when I saw a particularly lovely one, separate from it's tiny gray branch, and dance slowly to the earth. It gave me chills, because it had an interesting shape to it, and it's color was striking! But I knew I was experiencing a moment of magic, when I realized the leaf's shape  was a perfect example of the symbol of a Fleur-de-Lis. I couldn't believe it! 

I looked up in the branches of the tree that it had come from, but there wasn't any other leaf that had as perfect a form as this one did. There were some that came close, but there just was no rival. It was a magical little leaf, and it will always make me smile when I look back on it. I knew that I had to make it the final autumn photograph, for autumn 2018! Not the final, Leaf Of The Day, mind you, but the final photograph of my favorite season, autumn!

I will miss you magical Autumn!

"We should consider every day lost

 on which we have not danced at least once." 

~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Here is our one last leaf...

 #91 Leaf Of The Day

December 21st 2018

Photographed December 15th 2018

Stockton, California

Samsung

~Mood: Quiet

~Me

 

Characters In An Ethereal Sky... A Seahorse

"Not only are they magnificent creatures, but seahorses represent a conversion of the world's most pressing conservation issues. The recovery of seahorses will indicate that our seas are becoming healthier."

~Amanda Vincent

What Do You See?

We all do it... right? Look up in the sky and see a shape and think of something specific. We all start that as children, and some of us get over it, but some of us, like me, continue to see the wispy, ethereal, seahorse in the sky. Well, sometimes I see other things. One day I saw the letter lowercase (i) as if it had been typed on an old fashioned typewriter. On another occasion I saw the number (3). Or maybe it was a (M) or perhaps it could have been a (W) depending on your perspective... to me it as a (3) definitely a (3). And last autumn I saw a whole sky of jellyfish, well, cloud shaped jellyfish anyway.

What does it mean?

I don't know exactly.

Any thoughts?

For now I will just keep collecting the ethereal sky characters and maybe one day when I put them all together they will tell the full story. Or give me the full message. Or somehow come together in such a way as to make it all... it all being life... make sense.

Do you know what I mean?

A Jellyfish Sky... 


The #3...
 

The Lowercase (i) As Typed On An Old Fashioned Typewriter...


"When seahorses find a mate, they wrap their tails around each other so the tide doesn't drift them apart. They have that one mate for the rest of their lives. When the mate dies, they do too."

~Unknown

Symbolic Meaning Of Seahorses

Mood: Quiet

~Me :)