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Hello fellow photographers and those who appreciate photography. It’s time for our latest installment of the Foto Flog – a long-standing Frogpond tradition that went dormant for a while. I think a couple photography enthusiasts still lurk here from time to time, and I hope to incite a few of them (and hopefully some new folks as well) to post some of their photography.

For this month’s installment, I selected a photo I took of the waves at what I still consider my home beach after all these years. I continue to pay that beach a visit each time I travel back to SoCal. I suspect I have some “better” shots in my archives than this photo, but I just liked the way this one felt. After a wonderful afternoon with one of my dear friends and one of my children, the sun was beginning to set, and the lifeguards had announced that they were soon to leave for the day. I felt the need to capture the beauty of the Pacific Ocean one more time before departing. I miss the ocean every time I leave. When I was younger, I took for granted that I would see this mere sliver of paradise again and again. Well into middle age, I know better. End points are inevitable. The moment when I took this photo was bittersweet.

For photo blogging from the earlier series, see this diary by BobX (the last curator of the original Foto Flog series) and work backwards. Please note that with recent (and truly awful) changes at Photobucket, which hosted many of our photos, much of our community’s previous work may well be lost for good. All we can do is move forward and build new memories if we so desire. With that in mind, we need to carefully consider hosts that will allow us to post to third party sites, now that Photobucket is in the hostage taking business. I use Flickr to host my photos. Thus far, it has served me well. I have heard good things about Imgur as well.

One last thing: You don’t need to possess professional quality equipment or be a professional photographer to participate. I’m strictly an amateur hobbyist. I still have my old Canon 35 mm camera, but almost never use that particular camera due to lack of dark room, as well film development costs and whatnot. I use my current Galaxy S6 for photography (at least for the last couple years) – and before that an Android G4. These diaries are intended to be casual and offer a place for fellow photo hobbyists to share their work and converse, in the spirit of the previous series. If you have some work of your own, feel free to share it. Hopefully we can get to a point where themed foto flogs make some sense to pursue. In the meantime, just the usual potpourri of photos.

I’ll be back next month with another installment.