It’s May in Southern California. The usual sunshine has given way to the annual display of overcast skies that linger for days on end. Some say the clouds show off the jacarandas in all their purple glory. I’m not so sure about that, I think they sparkle in the sunshine. But the change in atmosphere creates photographic opportunities.

Southern California can be a bit barren. Many of the trees in the greater area were planted by Angelinos to make the landscape more appealing. Like so many other things in the land of Hollywood and the perspective of the person behind the camera, May Gray provides opportunities to create an illusion, a portal to another place.

Today’s photos are at Lake Matthews, a storage reservoir for the many houses and businesses in this semi arid landscape. The lake has two earthen dams making it obvious that the small canyon the waters have flooded could not possibly be a natural body of water. It has a fence around it to block access and stop the public from contaminating its waters. Being fenced off there are no facilities, boats, or beaches that might make it look like a developed space, a fiction all by itself. Over the course of this unusually vibrant spring bloom I have watched the lake go from a bright yellow, green, and orange wildflower carpet to the golden brown that characterizes California throughout the late spring, summer, and fall seasons.

The muted colors from the low clouds of May that block the typical cloudless blue or brownish skies opened my eyes to a landscape from another world. In place of the skies and brown hills behind the lake, the cloud cover created a scene reminiscent of the lochs and fjords of Norway or Canada, or maybe the brief mating season David Attenborough shows me in the artic tundra on Nature, my favorite Wednesday TV show.

I haven’t left the climate of Southern California, didn’t buy a plane ticket or drive many miles, but my camera has allowed me to take a vacation to a foreign and distant place, even if it’s only in my imagination.