I wasn't thinking about the wildfires raging away in north Los Angeles county, 100 miles away, when I drove down to the Port of Los Angeles to take photographs. But the wildfires were there in the light, in every picture I made. Smoke has a way of being ugly and beautiful at the same time. Call it jolie laide, but for landscapes instead of people. The smoke makes palpable in every picture the extreme summer heat we're having. Here are two examples.