Old makes way for the new. With the.new eastern span of the Bay Bridge that connects the Easy Bay to San Francisco city in full fledged use since 2013, the old eastern span of the bridge is being taken apart piece by piece. 

Just returned from trip to Hong Kong where I took a late night trip out to 'The Peak' the high point for a birds eye view of Victoria Harbour.  

Hong Kong ranks at the top for number of stacked structures. It houses over seven million people within a 1000 km/400+ sq miles of island exposed directly to the South China Sea. 

I captured this picture to juxtapose Hong Kong's man made peaks against the backdrop of the natural peaks on the islands.  The lights reflect the density of "modern" life in Hong Kong.

Had a busy week in Seattle but managed to sneak a ferry ride out to West Seattle to shoot some sunset and beyond photos and also a short time-lapse: Say hello to Seattle with this one hour sunset to dusk view of downtown Seattle in under 25 seconds.

This week's Friday The 13th, 2014 was unique for one trivia. It was also a full moon day and the next time this happens is in 2049. 

Superstition and related horrors are not one of my core competencies so I will leave it to superstitious / religious folks on what they think this means to who.  

For me it was just another day to build my treasure chest of memories with yet another memorable visual.  That of the setting full moon against a beloved landscape . 

Photographing moon rise and set with landscape in the foreground to a large extent depends on the cloud coverage at the right time.  Around full moon, the moon set and sun rise occur close to each other which meant I had to be ready and in place for those few pre-dawn minutes  when the moon is low enough to be set in the backdrop of a visible landscape and before the rising sun washed away the finer details on the moon . And I had to keep my fingers crossed hoping that the moon will not be hidden by the clouds.  I got lucky with just a few shots before the moon disappeared behind the clouds and then the rising sunlight covered the sky with a white  blanket.

An interesting moon trivia is that the moon always looks the same from the earth. This is because  the moon rotates once about every 27 days, and revolves once about every 27 days. So every time the moon goes around the Earth it turns around one time and we see the same side always. - This was one of those 'mayas'  that disappeared at the dawn of knowledge thanks to reading up after serendipitous observations during photography:-)

This past Sunday I spent four priceless hours atop Marine Headlands in San Francisco Bay mesmerized by the hues in the twilight sky fading into a star studded clear night sky over the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco.  Until I started packing up close to midnight, I had no plans of being back at that spot anytime soon.

The clear night sky though had washed my brain. It was three days to new moon and the waning 8% crescent moon was expected to rise around 2 hours before sunrise on Memorial day, Monday May 26th.  Watching the moon and sun rise within hours of each other was too tempting.

Few hours later into the night I was back on my way hiking up the incline with the occasional deer along the trail wondering why I was there disturbing the few hours of summer night that they get for themselves.  As I reached the hilltop again around 4 am in the morning, the rapid changes in skylight across the Bay over the next few hours made the early rising well worth it.

Given the light pollution from San Fransisco, I was pleasantly surprised to spot the Milky Way where I was hoping it would be - south west of the city.  Turning east, the rising  crescent moon over the East Bay seemed to be waiting for the sun to wake up.  And the sun was too happy to open its sleepy eyes pretty soon.

Sunset, twilight hues, milky way, rising moon, predawn hues and the rising sun over the breathtaking landscape of the San Fransisco Bay. That was sufficient accumulated wealth for one night. Memorial Day memorabilia.

Last Monday of May each year commemorates all those who died in military service for the United States.

Took this one just around sunset on the jogging/biking trails along the hillsides not too far from home. Had to stop for a look at that tree.