Wandering through the walled hilltop villages in Provence is akin to visual catnip! I could do this for days and days. This was shot in Tourettes-sur-Loup, not far from Grasse and Canne and Nice.

This is one of my favorite places in DTLA! Yahoo Kusama's infinity installations are mind-blowingly cool. Only problem is that you get a mere 45 seconds by yourself inside the room. I could stay there all day!

Paris, bien sur! Even though Paris at the holidays can be cold, gray, windy and rainy, it is still Paris! It sparkles and beckons with a beguiling enchantment that is uniquely its own. And for me, that enchantment is my catnip, photographically speaking. Everywhere I look I see amazing imagery. In this instance, Debbie, some friends of ours and I had been walking all afternoon through the Latin Quarter and then, as darkness fell, we found ourselves on charming Ile Ste-Louis. This scene — taken about 500 yards east of Notre-Dame, was the result of a happy confluence of elements: a tour-guide's old Citroen Duck parked in front of two classic-style bistros, some vintage street lamps, twinkle lights in the bare trees, a white-aproned waiter, dinner patrons and a lit bedroom window. But it was missing something. After 15 minutes of shooting I heard a soft repeated clickety-clunk over my shoulder and I knew that the empty cobblestone patch was about to be filled. As the bicyclist rolled through, all the players fell into perfect position. Voila! Magically it was a 1962 evening in Paris!

What's it been, maybe 8 months since I posted on my Photos du jour blog page? A lot of good things have happened in those eight months and a few of the winner photos from our Paris/Marbella winter holidays trip are posted in the galleries elsewhere on the site. Back home, I've been taking the opportunity to do a little more exploration in DTLA as well as the 'hood around home here ate the beach.

This image I recently captured during a wonderful all-day Saturday wander through Venice Beach that Debbie and I took. There's an amazing exhibition of David Hockney's marvelous iPad/iPhone creations at the LALouver Gallery on North Venice Blvd at Speedway. Brilliant works! If you're in our hood, stop in to see them!