10 Years - Dusk At Shoreline Park Marina Alameda California January 2011 - IMRAN™

10 Years - Dusk At Shoreline Park Marina Alameda California January 2011 - IMRAN™

How quickly a decade can fly by. The iPhone 4 video was recorded during my stay in Oakland, California, literally 10 years ago prior to my writing these lines. 

It was mid-January, 2011. It was a complicated time in my life, as for many others.  I was recovering from the craziness that was the George W. Bush inflicted near-depression economic meltdown of 2008-2009.  But I was hard at work exploring new ideas, new opportunities, and yet experiencing life to the fullest. Today, I am writing this hoping that the country can recover from the Donald Trump inflicted economic suffering, and a near-destruction of democracy in America in the four years leading up to the elections in 2020. As I was a decade ago, I am hopeful.  

That chilly California evening I had met my friend and old Columbia MBA classmate Larry Landman, who had left the USA for Denmark back in 1991 or so but was visiting California at the same time as me. We walked around this beautiful marina in Alameda catching up while catching the sunset and dusk over the Shoreline Park marina. 

The fleet of sailboats, many with blue colors prominent, were lined up against the pink sky and the terrain in the background. I wonder if the scene there has changed much 10 years later. 

Without being presumptuous of even a day of life ahead, I also wonder what life holds in store in the next 10 years. Only the best, God Willing. 

© 2011-2021 IMRAN™

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New Moon At Golden Dusk Over Golden Gate Bridge(s) Day & Night - IMRAN™

There are so many different vantage points and so many different lighting conditions to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. I have always only managed to catch a quick shot now and then during usually hurried short trips there for the last 26 years. This one was a particular stunning sight as the golden pink dusk settled in over the dark silhouette of the mountains and the new moon was sharply visible in the sky as bright as the headlights of drivers making their way across the bridge. As the monumental structures bridged the cities across the bay, the moon and dusk bridged the ending day and coming night.

© 2015 IMRAN
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Less Weight More Smile Wait Less Waitress California - IMRAN™

Less Weight More Smile Wait Less Waitress California - IMRAN™, a photo by ImranAnwar on Flickr.

SOOC Image Straight Out Of Camera!! NO editing, tweaking, cropping, of ANY, ANY kind. Only framed in Photoshop & saved image as 5.5MB JPG.

My first trip to San Francisco had been after I moved to the USA in 1989. I flew there to meet my brother who had flown in from Pakistan via Tokyo. Our plan was to meet there, and then make a trip to Los Angeles with my old Lahore neighbor, friend, partner in my Internet business and co-founder of the .PK Internet email system, Ashar Nisar who had moved to the Silicon Valley area the same year.

During that trip we drove to LA but took the fastest highway routes. Over the years I also flew the SFO-LAX route a few times. But, going down the famed California Pacific Coast Highway was something it took me 22 years to getting around to doing.

Making it a 2-day trip, I had a beautiful trip. {See the Big Sur photo previously posted here. }

One stop was at Stearns Wharf, in Santa Barbara, to get a late lunch.

This naturally lovely, very sweet, fun, and very service driven young waitress at a place called Longboards Grill was a delight. And in that late afternoon falling sunlight casting a glow around her light hair and face, perfectly lighting up the deck umbrellas in an explosion of colors framing the picture, it became a lovely memory of a gorgeous moment, a beautiful girl, a great trip, and a collection of gorgeous colors.

I will have to dig up the contact info she gave me to tell her this timeless photo of hers is among the very few of non-landscape/nature shots I post here. {See Cat's Eye, for example.}

Slim, slender, fit, happy, smiling, serving food quickly, she was all about being a Less Weight, More Smile, Wait Less, Waitress!

© 2011-2012 IMRAN
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Nikon D300 ISO200 95mm 0EV f/7.1 1/200 sec.

Is Pacific Ocean Big? Sur(e)! - IMRAN™

Is Pacific Ocean Big? Sur(e)! - IMRAN™, a photo by ImranAnwar on Flickr.

About 18 years ago, my friends based in California, and I, had taken a brief trip along the famed Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1), from San Francisco / San Jose to the towns of Carmel and Monterey.

It was a beautiful scenic drive, and a great time with friends, who, like passing time, can move into the memory drawers of life.

This year, after a hectic business trip to Santa Clara and San Jose, I changed my return flight, from San Francisco - Long Island, to a departure from Orange County, near Los Angeles.

My goal was to take a 2 day slow drive along Route 1, and get to visit a dear cousin, who had visited me with her then-brand new husband (LOL) about 12 years ago in NY, and whom I had long promised to visit.

My trip was delayed because unexpected meetings meant I could not depart from Santa Clara til about 3 PM.

That is when I actually started calling around for hotels to have another interesting twist. It was coming up on the last weekend for many families before schools started. So, there were no hotel rooms available anywhere, except for $500 or more per night.

But, I plugged away, sitting in the parking lot doing searches on my iPhone and calling around but in specific areas on the ocean route.

I was also sorely disappointed that the day of this trip was completely overcast weather in California.

I decided to head towards Irvine and Newport Beach (where my cousin and her husband and three daughters I had never met lived). My plan was to stay the night in a scenic place, which I ended up picking Cambria to be. (A lovely place, where I also got a reasonably priced, well under $200 or so compared to $500, for an only remaining room, on the ocean, with breakfast included, so it was quite a bargain at that time).

But, as I made my way down Route 1, I realized that my photography plans were pretty much foiled, both by the weather, the lateness of my departure, and a misbehaving camera.

One primary place to visit on my list had been the Big Sur area, and its rocky structures along the cliffs and hills along the Pacific Coast.

Interestingly, as I got to that area, the sun had started falling, but the clouds were lifting enough for the sun to cast a hot yellow red tinge on the rocks of Big Sur. At the same time, a contrasting fog was rolling in from the ocean just a mile or two further away.

The scene was surreal… the green trees and sandy, muddy, rocky mountainside was appearing saturated in yellow, the rocks jutting out from a darkening blue were almost overexposed looking white, while the hills just a few miles away merged into a hazy blue layer of hazier bluer mists, with the waves rolling onto the sliver of sandy beach were a beautiful combined shade of turquoise and teal.

All in all, it ended up being a unique, once in a lifetime, set of weather conditions, of a small slice of our planet worth seeing in many different lights.

Is the Pacific Ocean Big? Sure. But, at Big Sur it is just a tiny microcosm of what makes our beautiful blue planet the home not just of our living beings, but our souls that feed on the beauty of nature.

I hope you enjoyed this travel experience I am sharing. Thank you.

© 2011 IMRAN
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Build Bridges Of Faith, At Golden Gates

And God Said, Let There Be Light. Build Bridges Of Faith, At Golden Gates To A Bright Interfaith Future - IMRAN™, originally uploaded by ImranAnwar.

As I had walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco, California, at sunset, the falling sun seemed to slide down the support cables.

The scene, as I took this un-cropped photograph, and the image when I look at it today, remind me of the ball dropping at New Year's in Times Square, New York with Christians' Christmas festivities all around at that time.

I am writing these lines at 3AM on September 10, 2010. It is nearly 9 years since that same great city, New York, was attacked, and the world was torn asunder by evil doers killing in the name of religion. While bigoted American right wing politicians use false logic and other fallacies as an excuse to attack Islam, Muslims around the world, in the meantime, are being killed by the same AlQaeda in even greater numbers than American Christians, Muslims and Jews killed on 9/11. But, that is ignored by the bigots.

I am also writing this one day before another hate monger, a so-called pastor in Florida, who looks more like an illiterate inbred retired porn star than a man of God, is planning to fan the flames of bigotry and hatred, by burning the Muslims' Holy Book, the Quran. He is more like an agent of Lucifer and secret brother of Osama Bin Laden than a real Christian or a true American.

I salute the many Christian and Jewish religious leaders who have spoken clearly and boldly against this bigot. President Obama and leaders around the world, US military leaders, and media personalities have been clear in expressing their feelings. I salute even more the everyday Americans, including far more Christians and Jews than even American Muslims, who have been heard on radio and TV, seen on blog posts and in new media outlets, condemning this hate monger. And, that makes me believe again, that a new day may be dawning soon, even as the sun sets and darkness seems to loom.

Today and tomorrow also marks the end of Ramadan and the start of Eid celebration for Muslims around the world. It is also the Jewish New Year. And the imagery of the photo becomes even more poignant.

The brightness of the sun verging on bright, but risking falling into darkness, hanging on the thread of hope for peace, but split like the photo frame, into left and right, upper and lower portions, further split by the railing - like the barriers of intolerance, bigotry, hatred and ignorance that divide the world.

How ironic that this philosophical imagery battle is played out on, what else, but a bridge, which is more of what the world needs. A golden light gate opening.

A bridge between people. A bridge between nations. A bridge between faiths. A bridge between yesterday and tomorrow, appearing today.

May this Today, be a Happy Eid and Rosh Hashanah and may the coming Thanksgiving and Christmas season allow the barriers to break down, for the light of love and peace to spread, for hands and hearts to reach out, across the barrier and over the bridge, in interfaith and internation brotherhood... for love, for peace, forever.

© 2008-2010 IMRAN
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