In Focus: Staff Photos from June 22 - June 28

A nesting western sea gull is on patrol on Anacapa Island. Get too close to the nest, and the mama gull will protest loudly. Each year, chicks hatch by the thousands on the islands off Southern California.  (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Bishnu Shahani practices eyebrow threading with customer Saira Sayeed, 41, at the Wow Beauty Center in Culver City. Shahani is among four immigrant women from Nepal and India fighting labor battles involving beauty salons.  (Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)

With the sun rising at their backs, two scullers row their way through the smooth, glassy waters of Newport Harbor with a view of Saddleback Mountain.  (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Kori Huckaby, a senior at Calvary Chapel Christian School in Downey, emerges after being baptized at Pirates Cove in Corona del Mar. “I felt like God encouraged me to get closer,” Huckaby said.  (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A worker at the Fishery in Galt, Calif., throws a sturgeon into a live-fish delivery truck. The farm is one of a handful statewide catering to California’s Asian markets.  (Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)

Justyn Angel Vetere, 11, a pediatric rehabilitation patient at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, enjoys a view of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She and other patients from the hospital visited the California Flight Center at Long Beach Airport and then got to try flying Cessnas for a time under the eye of a pilot. Justyn is a survivor of meningococcemia, an acute and potentially life-threatening infection of the bloodstream that commonly leads to inflammation of the blood vessels.  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

George Woodard, 69, standing above the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada, is a fixture on the Pacific Crest Trail, where he hikes much of the year and is known as Billy Goat. He says he has hiked more than 32,000 miles.  (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times)

A person walking on a support of the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles passes by a frequent target of graffiti vandalism. An expert says taggers care more about building a reputation for consistency and style than where they put their mark.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Kejuante Washington, 13, leaps into the 109th Street Swimming Pool in Watts, which reopened amid tighter security after a fracas involving up to 30 young men.  (Benjamin Reed / Los Angeles Times)