Month: May 2020

Instax Gratification – Mini 90

I have been craving a film fix. Yeah, I can go out with a film camera loaded with film – but nowhere nearby is currently processing film! I’ve determined the next Big Project is to master black and white processing at home – really getting it down – and then perhaps some color. Maybe even slide. So, to fill that craving, I dug out my box of Instax cameras (Mini 90 and Wide 300). The Mini was loaded, so I took a few using it.

Just outside the door to the Dog Free Zone – wine red dahlias and some bulb I cannot remember …

Shadows of the picnic table in the late afternoon.

Vining petunias in a lovely pink.

And finally, as the daylight fades, the banana and lemons on the granite countertop.

Oh, yeah!

The Palo Verde Tree

Our local botanical gardens is open again! I took one of the dogs, Smudge, my X100V, and off we went, following the trails up and down. We have missed a lot of the early spring blooms, such as the narcissus and daffodils, but the trees are beginning to blossom. At the top of the hill is the cactus garden, filled with a variety of desert plants. There are barrel cactus, crowns of thorns, cholla, saguaro. Other drought-tolerant plants are there, too. The best of the day, though, was the Palo Verde tree, fully dressed in its light yellow-green leaves.

The Palo Verde Tree

The local botanical garden is open at last!  It has been closed since Ventura County closed trails, stores, and such, as well as issued a shelter-in-place order to keep the spread of the coronavirus at a minimum.  Some places are beginning to open up, though the shelter-in-place order is on until the end of May.

It was such a treat – a real slice of heaven – to be able to walk around the garden again.  Many of the spring flowers have gone, like the poppies, but many of the flowering trees are in bloom.  The palo verde tree at the top of the hill has leafed out in all its delicate bright yellow-green glory.  It is so graceful and lovely in spring that it could not be overlooked – here it is for today’s painting.