Category: Photography

Last Night

Last Night

Several weeks ago the fierce, hot east winds (aka Santanas, Santa Anas) came through and the neighborhood over the hill went up in flames with over 320 structures lost. Now we expect the same situation for the next few days – dry, windy, low humidity. I used to love the wind, but now I fear it.

For days we have had sunshine and no rain, few if any clouds in the sky. Day and night are clear with a gentle breeze. Last night, though, the fog came in. Not a pea-souper fog, but enough to leave water droplets on Inky’s fur after her evening walk, and chill enough this morning to feel the damp in my bones. I always like how fog and mist distort and blur the world around me, so last night I decided to take out the little Canon G7X camera to see what I could get.

We have a cinder block wall surrounding our house, and as we sit on a corner, we really have rather nice views up and down the streets in the neighborhood. The top of the wall is flat and stable, so I used it to hold the camera in place, focus in and out for composition, and then pushed down the exposure button and held it there to keep the camera steady. I got a few shots, but this one is my favorite.

Seasonal Leftovers

I am winding down the spring and summer container garden, weeding out dead plants, dumping pots of dirt, and deciding what to carry over for the spring season. There are still plants to enjoy, some permanent, others transitory. Trees stay around all the time, and as the season changes, so do they. Other plants, like succulents, flower but continue to stay fat and succulent into the coming colder months. Others straggle along, like the milkweed, and just seem to grow no matter what you do to them! Let’s take a look.

One of my favorite bits of the yard – the Brown Turkey fig tree. It needs to be pruned, but I had to wait for the gardener to work his magic and fill my clippings bin. I also need to sort out first year / second year growth to get a good crop next year, and begin at the top – it is way too tall for me to reach up!

Another favorite tree is the Crepe Myrtle. It is a deciduous tree – something of a rarity around here. At present, its leaves are deep red and dropping. Against the late afternoon sun their brilliance is beautiful, especially against a blue sky. Once bare the delicate branches are lovely and graceful. Spring sees swelling leaf buds and soon clusters of deep red-pink flowers. And then the cycle continues after the flowers drop, and then the leaves.

Succulents annoy and fascinate me. They don’t need much work and they are really hard to kill – perfect for people with purple thumbs. This one is in a pot with a number of others just like it, and as I wandered around to find something to photograph, the light on the – leaves? – branches? – was quite lovely.

Milkweed for the Monarchs! This year my flowers were few and I did not set out to raise a bunch of milkweed, but despite that, the plant is stubborn and continues to show up in some of the strangest places. I have a number to be found in my container garden – mixed in with lilies, peppers, tomatoes, lavender, oregano, mint, succulents, and who knows what else!! I like the yellow ones the best, but have also had them in reds and oranges. Even if I forget to water things – or just don’t because of hot winds and cold weather – these plants just chug along.

The last few sunflowers of the summer are hanging on – but these are not big and tall, but short and runty. Nonetheless, their brilliant colors cannot but add to your day!

It’s windy this afternoon, but this little spider’s web caught my eye. It is strung up between a couple of small branches of the orange tree, dancing in the breeze. As a photo, it was hard to capture, but the twinkle of the light on the strands, however imperfect a photo, reminds us of the fragility and strength all around us in the natural world.

And now, indoors it is! Cold wind, 60F, and the cleaners are here and it is time to watch some Hamish McBeth and kick back a bit.

Structures

Structures

I was rummaging through some LR photos this morning while the gardener weed whacked and mowed away. I came across this one, taken from the car as we drove to or from Tucson, AZ, to get our Global Entry cards verified. When I saw this, I was thinking about “my photographic style” – something I never really think about. I did realize I prefer rather stark things, or bits of something, seldom people unless it is street. I also know I have a lot of fun making a photograph into more than a photograph – something which appeals to me artistically. Heading out next week, I will be bringing a small camera with me as where we will be and where we will be going has a lot of stuff to look at.