Spotlight.

Fireman, Janet

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All things must pass, change happens, time goes by.

Late in the nineteenth century, near Santa Barbara's Pleasure Pier, Castle Rock was a widely known landmark and popular tourist attraction. People picnicked and danced merrily at the base of the rock, or climbed to the top; others struck a pose for the camera. A century before, in the Spanish period, a castillo--a fortified gun emplacement or battery--had stood watch on the sea from the cliff just above the detached crag later known as Castle Rock.

The rocky outcrop arose, nigh on to the waves at the head of a point jutting westward into the sea. Only an eroded fragment remained after the 1925 earthquake's damage, just visible in the photo here. Not long after this image was made, the beloved sentinel disappeared; Castle Rock was destroyed during harbor construction in 1930.

A dignified dog--History's avatar--guards the scene and balances the composition for a photographer's documentation of Castle Rock's remaining time in the sun.