The Hindu Temple at Malibu Canyon and Las Virgenes in Calabasas, built in 1981, a temple for the Hindu God Venkateswara (or Srinivasa, is the supreme God believed to be a form of the Hindu Deity Lord Vishnu).  It is owned and operated by the Hindu Temple Society of Southern California.

The architect of this temple is Muthiah Sthapathi of India, and the South Indian style temple is one of the largest and most authentic Hindu temples in the Western Hemisphere.

I've been enamored of this temple for years, photographing it numerous times, even filming my student Super 8 film here.

However, one of my fondest memories of this temple was a Balinese gamelan music and dance performance by Cudamani, part of the World Festival of Sacred Music 2002.  We sat directly in front of the pyramidal tower.  The clouds were very tiny, puffy balls, and as the sun set, all of these small clouds turned brilliant orange and pink.  I could not have dreamed a more beautiful or perfect evening.

A subsequent visit was not quite as romantic.  My band Nectarphonic came here for a photo shoot for our band on September 23, 2007.  We looked a little too professional, with our wardrobe hanging from the back of my car and our photographer using a camera with a $4000 lens on a tripod.  They thought we were doing a commercial shoot, and asked us to just take a couple of photos and leave. 

This photo was exhibited at the Downtown Art Center Gallery, Los Angeles in 2009.

Leroi, son of our friends, checks out the deck of his new home, a yurt in the forest in Topanga Canyon, September 2007.

Topanga is one of my favorite places, a small town nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains between the San Fernando Valley and the Pacific Ocean.

And what is a yurt, you ask?  Traditionally, it's a circular tent of felt or skins (or in this case, space-age fabric) on a collapsible framework, used by nomads in Mongolia, Siberia, and Turkey.

A mysterious fog blankets the Sepulveda Wildlife Refuge wetlands, early Halloween morning.  And yes, this photo was actually taken Halloween morning (2007). 

This is south of the Japanese tea garden, between Woodley and the 405 Fwy.

Birds soaring over the wetlands in the Sepulveda Wildlife Refuge near Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley, Halloween morning 2007.

I literally know nothing about birds, so I'm going to let the Essortment website describe what you may see here:

The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve and Japanese Gardens offer the bird-watcher the chance of a lifetime. Here you will find several ponds, some with islands and reeds, and platforms in which to watch the wildlife. Flycatchers, Cassin’s Kingbird, bluebirds, bushtits, warblers, hummingbirds, pelicans, and geese are just a few of the species you will see here.

23 Jan 2010.