On the Solstice, we went to a lovely party at Beth and Howard Dunaier’s Kenwood home. They asked everybody to bring pictures of summer for a collage. It is a great idea and hard for me  because almost all the pictures represent events or happenings of summer, not  actual summer. I look at a picture of the beach and I think Going to the Beach or Ahh, Southern California, not Summer. I see a picture of a Fourth of July Parade and I think Fourth of July, not Summer.

I see a picture of cars racing and I think of the cars even though Summer is the prime racing season.

I think that, even though I am a photographer, summer is not about images. For me, anyway. Summer is about feeling. It is about feeling the soft afternoon air while walking across a Sierra meadow still slightly green from the summer snow melt.

It is about the feeling of the cooling fog coming in over the Santa Cruz hills after a hot afternoon.

It is about sleeping with the windows open and the smell of dry grass. It is about golden light.