Noral Feddal and her friend braved the weekend's heavy rain and hail to shoot photos of the storm clouds.

But instead of just pointing her camera toward the sky, Feddal took her camera up in the sky. Feddal's friend flew a plane from Santa Monica Airport to downtown L.A. while Feddal shot photos through the newly cleaned windows.

"Although it was not easy to get the plane at a certain angle over downtown, I was really happy with the reflections of the buildings on the wings thanks to a really good job at waxing the plane!" Feddal said.

During the hourlong flight, the pair heard the radio control tower report extreme weather. To avoid the hail, they had to fly toward Malibu to wait out the storm before landing in Santa Monica.

"It was weird to see Malibu totally clear. LAX was visible on the other side, but SMO had heavy rain," she said.

They landed safely at SMO with the photos to show for it.

Feddal made the image with a Canon 6D.

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Each week, we're...

While most of the country was buried in snow in February, SoCal enjoyed clear skies and moderate temperatures, with some days even climbing into the 80s. Naturally, our readers spent this month at the beach. 

In our first photo of the set, Amparo Rios took a day trip to Ventura County and captured what she describes as a "typical Southern California winter" -- paddle boarders and surfers catching the winter waves. 

Farther south on the coast, in Santa Monica, Theresa Solis enjoyed a walk on the pier with her daughter. While there, she was set on finding the perfect spot to photograph a seashell as part of an Instagram project, eventually choosing a deep blue wall that contrasted with the shell's colors. Nearby in Venice, history buff John Boylan paid homage to The Doors by photographing a girl inspecting the lines of a poem by the band's lead vocalist, Jim Morrison.

Even farther south, off the coast of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Wendy Miller captured a gray whale in the midst of an...

Sometimes beach weather gets old.

During the holidays, John Luna and his family made for the nearby mountains, where fresh snow called. At the summit of the Mountain High Ski Resort, Luna snapped this photo looking south during an afternoon ski run.

"I liked that you can see the contrast of the recent white snow on the vegetation with the mountain range stretching into the distance," Luna said. "The sun flare in the photo coming from the south-western sky also added a SoCal feel, I thought."

Luna made the image with an iPhone 5.

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Each week, we're featuring photos of Southern California and California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or tag your photos with #socalmoments or #californiamoments on Instagram and Twitter. Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more.

A giant metal octopus looms over the entrance to the Santa Monica Pier's Pacific Park.

At night, the octopus changes colors under different lights, making it a delight for photographers such as Eric Lassiter.

"Standing above the main entrance to the rides on the pier is this giant octopus, with its graceful giant tentacles," Lassiter said. "Come back at Christmas and the octopus sports a Christmas cap and beard."

Lassiter made the image with a Sony Nex-6.

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Each week, we're featuring photos of Southern California and California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or tag your photos with #socalmoments or #californiamoments on Instagram and Twitter. Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more.

By Southern California standards, this weekend saw a huge downpour.

The generally crowded pier at King Harbor in Redondo Beach was left empty. But for Lenny Lloyd da Silva, the unusually dramatic weather and big cloud formations are just an invitation to go out and shoot photos.

Da Silva captured a moment of calm during a break in the storm. The reflection in the slick concrete blends together pier, ocean and sky, and the line of jellyfish etchings seem to swim out to sea.

"I wanted to catch the pier somewhat empty and with the reflections," Da Silva said. "It was close to sunset, the light was so moody and the ocean was so calm, where a few minutes ago, it was such a mess. Just a very cool scene."

Da Silva used a Nikon D3100 to make the image.

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Each week, we're featuring photos of Southern California and California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or tag your photos with #socalmoments or #californiamoments on Instagram and Twitter...

Last December, Tony Scott and a couple of friends were out and about in downtown Los Angeles, when they took a moment to pose by what Scott calls a “favorite and iconic street scene for photographers,” near Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“I wanted to capture the perfect jump shot while also capturing their shadows,” the photographer said. “This underground location coupled with the light shining through from the overpass makes for a great photo opportunity."

Scott took the image with his iPhone 6.

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Each week, we're featuring photos of Southern California and California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or tag your photos with #socalmoments or #californiamoments on Instagram and Twitter. Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more on this photo series.