Thankful For Rain
Friday, November 9th, the Woosley fire already began moving through the mountains above Malibu. The massive black smoke cloud was visible from Redondo Beach, the offshore Santa Ana winds were pushing the plume out over the ocean. Meanwhile, the Camp fire up north was tearing through towns and causing poor air quality because the smoke was blanketing the entire Bay Area. Over the next week, the Bay Area air got worse and the fires turned deadly. The photos below are from Friday night, I was at the Redondo breakwall using the 300mm lens on a tripod. Long exposures capture the flight paths of airplanes and helicopters, but also the crazy walls of fire moving towards the coast and taking out homes on the way. Malibu was evacuated, but some people were able to get back in the very next day and stayed to protect their property. By Monday, I donated some items in need to Dive N Surf up the street, because they planned to stock up the Body Glove boats in the harbor and ferry supplies up to a cove and to the people who were staying in Pt Dume. A few posts ago I had pictures of our friend, Molly, her birthday party in Malibu. Her brother was one of the people who got back in and they used their house as a make-shift base camp during the coming week. Really crazy stuff and really sad destruction.
Everyone was relying on time to basically bring changing weather and eventually rain. A week after the fires began our friend group met up in Big Bear for Friendsgiving - a weekend of relaxing - much needed for a few of our friends whose family homes are in Malibu. Two days later, a small rain system finally arrived, as I arrived up in Antioch for thanksgiving. Within 1 day it went from lung-burning, smoke-filled skies to crisp and clear air thanks to the rain and cold wind. I was lucky I got to see my family and spend a few days up there. Took a hike with Dante at Black Diamond Mines park, it was just after hours of rain so we were walking on a fire trail with about 10lbs of mud stuck to our shoes. It’s fun though because he's a photographer, too, so we took opportunities for pictures and I was trying to get creative and moody (photos below).
