Shmuel Thaler
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I am the 2016 Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year and have been a staff photographer at the Santa Cruz Sentinel since 1987.
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Articles by Shmuel Thaler
Photo | A packed lot at The Argus Co. car dealer
Cars fill the lot of The Argus Co. at the corner of Water Street, top, and North Branciforte Avenue. Founded in 2000 by Mike Gay, the Argus website says, "Our vehicle selection runs the gamut from affordable transportation to collectible classics." Get one year of unlimited digital access for $159.99
Photo | A packed lot at The Argus Co. car dealer
Cars fill the lot of The Argus Co. at the corner of Water Street, top, and North Branciforte Avenue. Founded in 2000 by Mike Gay, the Argus website says, “Our vehicle selection runs the gamut from affordable transportation to collectible classics.”
Photo | A surfer grabs a wave at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz
A surfer grabs a wave on a recent overcast morning at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz. The Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse sits atop Lighthouse Point where the original Santa Cruz lighthouse was first lit in 1870. That structure, deactivated in 1941, was a wooden square tower attached to a keeper's dwelling. The current lighthouse, built in 1967 on the exact site of the original station, recently received a new beacon and is also the home of the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum.
Photo | A surfer grabs a wave at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A surfer grabs a wave on a recent overcast morning at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz. The Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse sits atop Lighthouse Point where the original Santa Cruz lighthouse was first lit in 1870. That structure, deactivated in 1941, was a wooden square tower attached to a keeper’s dwelling.
Photo | West Cliff Surf Lifesaving Club loads up gear en route to championships
West Cliff Surf Lifesaving Club members pack their boards on Mason Street in Santa Cruz Wednesday as they prepare to head to the U.S. Lifesaving Association's National Lifeguard Championships taking place Aug. 4-7 in Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida. The 4-year-old, 50-member club will be sending 30 athletes to the competition. Twenty of the athletes will compete in the Junior Championships Aug. 4, with 10 competing in the main Lifeguard Championships from Aug. 5-7.
Photos | Life Lab Camp cultivates a love of learning
Audrina Silva, left, and Luna Tischler fill seeding six-packs with potting soil at Life Lab Camp at the UC Santa Cruz Farm Thursday morning before planting dill and cilantro seeds in the dirt. The two were among 24 youngsters at camp this week, concluding the last of six 1-week sessions. Life Lab Camp provides kids an opportunity to explore nature by planting seeds, harvesting vegetables, making farm-fresh snacks, singing songs and doing hands-on environmental crafts.
Photos | Life Lab Camp cultivates a love of learning
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Audrina Silva, left, and Luna Tischler fill seeding six-packs with potting soil at Life Lab Camp at the UC Santa Cruz Farm Thursday morning before planting dill and cilantro seeds in the dirt. The two were among 24 youngsters at camp this week, concluding the last of six 1-week sessions.
Photo | West Cliff Surf Lifesaving Club loads up gear en route to championships
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... West Cliff Surf Lifesaving Club members pack their boards on Mason Street in Santa Cruz Wednesday as they prepare to head to the U.S. Lifesaving Association’s National Lifeguard Championships taking place Aug. 4-7 in Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida. The 4-year-old, 50-member club will be sending 30 athletes to the competition. Twenty of the athletes will compete in the Junior Championships Aug.
Photos | Dreamers envision hope for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Concertmaster Justin Bruns plays with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music orchestra in tuning during an open rehearsal at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium Tuesday. The concertmaster is an orchestra's principal first violinist and serves as the highest-ranking instrumentalist in the orchestra. That player sits in the first chair directly to the left of the conductor. During tuning, the concertmaster signals the oboe to play an "A" pitch while the rest of the orchestra tunes to that note.
Photos | Dreamers envision hope for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Concertmaster Justin Bruns plays with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music orchestra in tuning during an open rehearsal at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium Tuesday. The concertmaster is an orchestra's principal first violinist and serves as the highest-ranking instrumentalist in the orchestra. That player sits in the first chair directly to the left of the conductor.
Photo | Derrick Lee Weeden leads Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s ‘Fences’ by August Wilson
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Actor Derrick Lee Weeden rehearses his role starring as Troy Maxson in Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s staging of “Fences” by August Wilson. The play, which opened Tuesday and runs through Aug. 28, is the first presentation of one of Wilson’s plays in the 45 years of the local Shakespeare festival.
Photo | A walk along the bluffs of West Cliff in Santa Cruz
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A visitor to West Cliff makes their way along the bluff near Swift Street. The bluff along West Cliff is primarily made of two rock formations: Santa Cruz Mudstone and Purisima Formation sandstone. The lower, more resistant layer is the Santa Cruz Mudstone, while the upper, less resistant layer is the Purisima Formation. In terms of definition, a bluff is a type of broad, rounded cliff that typically borders a river, beach or coastal area.
Photo | Worker discs a farm field near Watsonville
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Monterey Bay glistens at top as a worker discs a field farmed by Lakeside Organics along San Andreas Road between La Selva Beach and Watsonville. Discing is the agricultural practice that uses a disk harrow — a heavy farm implement with sharp, rotating circular plates — to till the soil. Its primary purpose is to break up large dirt clods, uproot weeds, and mix previous crop residues into the ground to prepare a smooth seedbed for planting.
Photos | Surfers catch waves at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A surfer slices around Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz Monday morning as he tames a wave at Steamer Lane.
Photos | Surfers wait in the fog for waves at Capitola Beach
Surfers wait in the fog for waves at Capitola Beach. While surfing came to Santa Cruz in 1885 when three Hawaiian princes surfed near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River, Capitola emerged as a popular, sheltered, novice-friendly surf break utilized by local longboarders and families in the mid-20th century.
Photo | Live Oak neighbors watch manufactured home craned into place
Live Oak neighbors watch as a manufactured home is craned above Rodriguez Street Friday morning before being installed as an ADU on Yasmin Cunliffe's property between Jose and Koopmans avenues. The custom 1,000-square-foot-home was designed and provided by Capitola-based Quality Homes and lifted into place in two pieces. The house has a split floorplan and includes two bedrooms, two full baths, a living room, a full kitchen, a separate laundry room and a covered front porch.
Photo | Live Oak neighbors watch manufactured home craned into place Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Live Oak neighbors watch as a manufactured home is craned above Rodriguez Street Friday morning before being installed as an ADU on Yasmin Cunliffe’s property between Jose and Koopmans avenues. The custom 1,000-square-foot-home was designed and provided by Capitola-based Quality Homes and lifted into place in two pieces.
Photos | Rebuild of Kresge College at UC Santa Cruz continues Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Kresge College at UC Santa Cruz is in the middle of a near total rebuilding. The college, which was founded in the early 1970s, was designed, according to a press release from UCSC, with “concepts of collaboration and participatory democracy at the core of its identity.” Kresge is being rebuilt in a two-phase project and the first phase, which included three new residence halls and a new academic center, has already been completed.
Photo | Man walks among the boats in the Santa Cruz Harbor
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... In a “Where’s Waldo” type of scene, a person makes their way along C Dock in the Santa Cruz Harbor. According to the Santa Cruz Port District website, “The Santa Cruz Harbor features over 1,000 boat slips across approximately 20 distinct lettered dock structures.
Photos | Along for the ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Light from the setting sun illuminates riders on the 1,000-foot-long Sky Glider at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The 56-chair Sky Glider ride opened in 1967 at the Boardwalk, California’s oldest surviving amusement park and the last major seaside amusement park on the West Coast. The Boardwalk’s roots go back to 1865, when John Leibrandt opened a public bathhouse near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.
Photo | Construction continues on downtown Santa Cruz library project
A family on Cedar Street passes the construction site of the new downtown library project. The project will include the library along with 124 affordable housing units, a childcare center and a 240-space parking garage. It is expected to be completed in spring 2028, following a two-phase construction timeline with the first phase focusing on the building’s shell, housing, childcare and parking aspects.
Photos | Summer Math Circle Camp delights students with play-based math
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Scott Vorthmann points students to patterns they created while building shapes out of pool noodles. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel) Erikka Thach, fifth grader at Mar Vista Elementary School, stays engaged during the building of the noodle octahedron project. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel) Jessica Serna Castaneda leads a group of campers building a 24-cell octahedron last week at Summer Math Circle Camp at Sequoia High School in Watsonville.
Photo | Nina Gerber prepares for performance at The Landing in Scotts Valley
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Nina Gerber takes a few minutes out of teaching at California Coast Music Camp in Los Gatos last week for a photo session at the Lexington Reservoir. Gerber will be playing in Santa Cruz County with Bill Kirchen at The Landing in Scotts Valley Aug. 28 in a concert being produced by Wildrose Productions. Gerber is a guitarist who first came to attention when she accompanied singer-songwriter Kate Wolf from 1979 until Wolf’s death in 1986.
Photo | Dramatic cloudscape on display above Santa Cruz
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A dramatic cloudscape rises shortly after 7 p.m. on Tuesday above Santa Cruz as seen from the intersection of Moore and Laurent streets. While the unusual formations filled the sky locals scrambled to figure what kind of clouds they were. Popular guesses were altocumulus undulatus and lenticular, but most likely they were stratus undulatus.
Photo | Angler walks along spit of land near beach in Santa Cruz Original
The Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf rises in the background as an angler walks along the spit of land on the east side of Main Beach after fishing. The most common fish caught at nearby Seabright State Beach is barred surfperch.
Photos | Animals blessed at Temple Beth El in Aptos Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Blue, an 8-year-old British shorthair, is held by her human Sharon Hoffman during the Blessing of the Animals led by Rabbi Paula Marcus at Temple Beth El in Aptos Friday. In Judaism the ritual is called Simchat Noach (Joy of Noah) to honor the covenant God made with Noah, recognizing all living creatures. The blessing of animals is most famously observed in Christianity in early October to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.
Aptos’ opening statement | Glimpse of the Action
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Aptos third baseman Grant Candau tags out Soleded’s Ashton Telels during the Section 5 Majors All-Stars Tournament at Aptos Little League on Friday.
Photo | Aptos takes to the streets as part of ‘Good Trouble Lives On’ rally Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A “bridge brigade” protest Friday on the Highway 1 overpass at State Park Drive in Aptos was part of a “Good Trouble Lives On” nationwide weekend of action that included many in Santa Cruz County. The name of the protest is based on the term “good trouble” coined by American politician and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died July 17, 2020. Lewis said good trouble meant, “Speak up, speak out, get in the way.
Photo | Work continues on Murray Street Bridge in Santa Cruz
Work continues on the Murray Street Bridge as it remains closed to traffic in both directions. Over the summer, crews are conducting pile driving and installing new bridge supports to strengthen the bridge’s foundations and improve its seismic resilience. This summer marks the last long-term bridge closure in the three-year project timeline.
Photo | Harvesters collect bounty of strawberries in South County
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Workers bring in the strawberry harvest near the intersection of San Andreas Road and West Beach Street in near Watsonville. According to the 2024 Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner’s Crop Report, the latest one available, “Strawberries are the top agricultural commodity in Santa Cruz County, generating roughly $218.9 million annually across 2,640 acres.
Photo | West Cliff Inn sits perched on a bluff
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A bear welcomes visitors to the West Cliff Inn in Santa Cruz on a recent morning. The inn is housed in the Italianate-style Sedgwick Lynch House which was constructed for Sedgwick and Jane Lynch in 1877. At the time it was the second largest home in Santa Cruz. Designed by architect John Morrow for $12,000, it was the first grand home on the bluff.
Photo | Santa Cruz Shakespeare ready for premiere of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Santa Cruz Shakespeare actors Patty Gallagher, Mike Ryan and Dan Donohue collaborate in a comic scene in William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” which opens on the company’s Audrey Stanley Grove stage in DeLaveaga Park Thursday night. Santa Cruz Shakespeare and its predecessor, Shakespeare Santa Cruz have performed “Much Ado About Nothing” three times prior to this year — in 1987, 2007 and 2015.
Photos | Forest bathing at The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Much of forest bathing involves making physical contact with nature. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel) Alex Pappas uses a singing bowl during a mediation session with clients during a forest bathing walk at Nisene Marks. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel) Alex Pappas leads Melissa Braun and Melissa's mother Wendy Siegel along the Split Stuff Trail at The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Aptos as he exposes the pair to forest bathing.
Photo | UC Santa Cruz COSMOS students head to Cowell Beach
Shmuel Thaler A COSMOS (California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science) residential assistant carries a number “7” to keep track of his group as they head to Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz for a kayaking adventure. COSMOS is a rigorous four-week residential program at UC Santa Cruz that brings together high-achieving high school students and world-class researchers to explore advanced topics in math and science.
Photo | UC Santa Cruz COSMOS students head to Cowell Beach
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A COSMOS (California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science) residential assistant carries a number “7” to keep track of his group as they head to Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz for a kayaking adventure. COSMOS is a rigorous four-week residential program at UC Santa Cruz that brings together high-achieving high school students and world-class researchers to explore advanced topics in math and science.
Photo | Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors return to revamped chambers
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors recently returned to their revamped chambers on the 5th floor of the Santa Cruz County Government Center.
Photo | Morning fog burns off in valleys of Santa Cruz Mountains
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Morning fog lies in valleys in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Monday as drivers, at bottom, head north on the Highway 1 morning commute. While some people in the county experienced morning drizzle on Monday the National Weather Service forecast calls for sunny skies in the coming days in our area. The service has also issued a coastal flood advisory for the Santa Cruz County coastline through early Wednesday morning.
Photo | Just paddling through Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Outrigger Santa Cruz paddlers stroke their vessels past Seabright State Beach during a recent paddle on the Monterey Bay. Outrigger Santa Cruz (OSC) is a local nonprofit organization that works to build cross-cultural understanding and to develop, implement and promote outrigger canoe paddling for all people without regard to age, gender, creed, ethnicity, or physical ability or disability.
Photo | Santa Cruz Shakespeare prepares for debut of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Allie Pratt, front, plays the role of Hero as she and the rest of the cast of Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” take to the stage this week for a dress rehearsal in the Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park.
Photo | Visitors to Seabright State Beach make use of fire rings
Visitors to Seabright State Beach make use of fire rings in the sand as dusk falls on a recent evening. While fires are not allowed on any Santa Cruz city beaches, they are allowed in the fire rings at some local state beaches including Manresa, New Brighton, Platforms, Rio del Mar, Seabright, Sunset and Twin Lakes. The fire rings are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and you can’t have fires outside of the rings.
Photo | Couple shares a kiss at The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... APTOS — Ana Crum and William Garcia steal a kiss, at bottom, while walking along the Split Stuff Trail at The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park not far from the park’s Aptos Creek Road entrance station. The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park spans over 10,000 acres, offering hikers, runners and cyclists 30 miles of trails in rugged semi-wilderness, rising from sea level to steep coastal mountains of more than 2,600 feet.
Photo | Author Angelica Glass speaks at Bookshop Santa Cruz
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Bookshop Santa Cruz was filled to capacity Tuesday night as author Angelica Glass spoke about, and reads from, her memoir “Scavenging Beauty: A Memoir in Walks.” Glass was in conversation with local psychologist Lindsay Steigner on the occasion of the publication of the book. Bookshop staffers said the event was the most heavily attended in-store reading they could remember.
Photos | Cabrillo Stage celebrates 45 years with ‘Sister Act'
APTOS - Cabrillo Stage Music and Vocal Director Daniel Goldsmith conducts in the pit as the actors of the company's 2026 production of "Sister Act" fill the stage. The cast, crew and staff were at the Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College for a sitzprobe. A sitzprobe (pronounced zitz-proh-buh) is a German term literally meaning "seated rehearsal." In musical theater and opera, it refers to the very first rehearsal where the cast sings with the live orchestra.
Photos | Cabrillo Stage celebrates 45 years with ‘Sister Act’
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Sound engineer Jon-Claude Olive gets the levels right on the Crocker Theater sound board. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel) "Sister Act" director Rebecca Haley Clark, top right, watches a rehearsal with crew members at the Crocker Theater, including sound designer Joe Krempetz, top left, and bottom from left, dresser Jaden Looez, assistant stage managers Jacqueline Lopez and Sara Brown and stage manager Angela Lopes.
Photos | Work continues on field, track at Scotts Valley High School
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Work continues at Scotts Valley High School as a $22 million stadium and athletic complex begins to take shape. Crews broke ground on April 3 for the work, which was funded by the 2024 $85 million Measure O. Construction is predicted to last nine to 12 months, meaning the school’s football and soccer teams will play their home games on the road for the 2026-27 season.
Photo | Book Chats group hands out bookmarks at Dominican Oaks
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A participant in a Book Chats group at Dominican Oaks, a Santa Cruz senior living and retirement community, holds a bookmark she was given on Sunday. The bookmarks were created from sections of watercolors painted by Beth Basilius and crafted by Basilius and four friends.
Photo | Woman rides her horse along West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz
Lauren Kennelly rides her 19-year-old quarter horse Gus on West Cliff Drive near Swift Street on a recent afternoon. The horse used to be stabled north of Santa Cruz and the pair were a more common site on West Cliff. Currently Gus is stabled in Aptos.
Photo | Cormorants fly above Monterey Bay near Capitola Beach
A flight of cormorants wing by a surfer waiting for a wave off Capitola Beach as anglers fish in the Monterey Bay with the shuttered power plant in Moss Landing rising in the background.
Photos | Portuguese pride proceeds down Pacific Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Portuguese Queen Gianna Rocha gets a little help with her gown from her grandmother Arlene Andrada, left, and her mother Christine Rocha on Sunday as the Santa Clara contingent makes its way up Pacific Avenue during the 98th Annual Holy Ghost Parade. The procession made its way to Holy Cross Church for morning mass before proceeding to C.P.D.E.S. Portuguese Hall in the Harvey West Park neighborhood for a community meal, bazaar, auction and dancing.
Photo | How much? It’s a yacht Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Possibly oversized for the venue, the 157-foot-long Amore — a superyacht built by Christensen Shipyard in Vancouver, Washington — sits at anchor Saturday morning near the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. Based out of San Diego, and currently for sale for an asking price of nearly $18 million, the vessel has a crew of five. The yacht was built in 2002 and refit in 2022.
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