February Flowers

In honor of Leap Year 2016, I’m sharing some of the amazing flowers I’ve been seeing around my neighborhood this month. Since this is the first time in my life I’ve started paying much attention to flowers, I had to do quite a bit of internet research, trying to ID each one.  Thanks to Google and the awesome Wildflower Identification Guide, I think I’ve […]

Read More →

WPC: State of Mind

The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge for the week of February 26, 2016: “This week, let your inner world and the outside one converge in a photo.” I was seriously doubting I would be able to complete this week’s challenge; this may be a lesson to me to pay much more attention to what’s going on inside myself while I’m looking through the camera lens! But then I remembered a solo hike I took a few weeks ago, near the end of January. I walked from my house and across the bridge to Old Folsom (about 3 miles one way).  It was a cool, cloudy day; it had been raining the previous day, and as I crossed the bridge the rain began pouring down again.  I was wearing my new rain jacket which reached only just below my hips, so my trousers and boots were soon soaked. The rain abated by the time I reached Sutter Street — where I was pleased to discover a farmer’s market I never knew about, and managed to dry out a little. And as I started on my way back across the bridge in the direction of home, it was obvious I wasn’t the only one braving the elements to get some exercise.   Still, as the cold rain returned and continued beating down, I found myself trudging along a deserted bike trail.  I was cold and wet, and even though I’d walked this path countless times before, the warmth […]

Read More →

Eye in the Sky

I was very lucky on my walk yesterday to notice a Red-shouldered Hawk keeping an eye on proceedings from above the bike trail. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by my presence. As much as I love my pocket-sized Fujifilm Finepix AX, it would have been nice to have a more powerful zoom in shooting this guy.  Still, I can’t complain too much! These pictures brought to you by 16 megapixels and some image-editing software. 😀

Read More →

Golden Gate: Six Aspects

Back in the mid 1980s I took this picture of San Francisco’s beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s still one of my favorites, but this week I decided to play around with a couple of different photo-editing programs and see if I could improve the shot. Original: Black and white (Aviary)   San Carmen (Aviary)   High saturation (Aviary)   Cloud effects/Daguerreotype frame (PicMonkey)   Sepia […]

Read More →

Things That Are Smooth

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge for this week is Things That Are Smooth: “Anything that your hand and touch and it feels smooth is allowed in this week’s challenge.” Birch trees at Caples Lake. Velveteen rabbit — smooth coat and liquid eyes. Pure silk in pink and purple (Artyarns Regal Silk).    

Read More →