Out for a walk the other day, camera in hand, and at the local park, I noticed this mother and her kids rock hopping in the creek. I saw her husband and tried to keep him out of the photo since he was taking pictures, too. Little did I notice his shadow, camera in hand, until I took a look at my photos! I think this is pretty funny, and I certainly doubt I would have ever succeeded if I had tried!
With the esposo off to Disneyland with a few old co-workers of yore, I am home alone, unsupervised, and bored. With that said, what else is there to do except get out with the camera, no dogs, and go for a brisk walk in fine, cool, clear winter weather?
I stayed fairly close to home and thought it would be fun to look for things that are part of my daily life and try to see them a bit differently than I might if I was just out for a casual stroll. Looking and seeing, taking time on the small bits of my environment, always give me a lot of pleasure. And this is one of the things I “found” – a bit of our neighbor’s yard. The light was gorgeous – later afternoon, but not quite evening – and by cropping to a square and enhancing the image a bit, I really liked what happened.
Taking time to look and not having a leash or two pulling me along, much less pulling me off my feet, was fun. Suburbia is quite boring at times, but other times it produces a lot of great visual gifts. I got a few today, and that makes me rather happy.
We should get rain for several days because of an atmospheric river traveling through the vicinity, unless it decides to go someplace else. In our drought-ridden county, that is a blessing. Little spots like this are harder and harder to find, and are a real pleasure when you do.
Happy New Year 2023!
This is from a summer or two ago. We drove along Hwy 49 in the central coastal area of California. It is a lovely drive – quite unpopulated in many ways. The hills and valleys spread out on either side of the road, with trees dotting the grassy slopes. Grapes are grown here, and the Paso Robles area is known for its wines. If you take some of the side roads off the highway, which is a nicely paved two-lane roadway, you can find yourself under the canopy of old oak trees, deep in the gloom of shade on a bright summer’s day.
Zeiss Ikon Ikonta, Tri-X 400 by Kodak. Scanned and processed with Epson V600, VueScan, and Negative Lab Pro.
In 2021 we headed out on what was to be a 3 week long road trip. The first part was up the Eastern Sierra along Hwy. 395, stopping and staying in Independence, CA. One of the most notable places to see along this route was Manzanar National Historic Site – a not very nice part of US history. It is a Japanese internment camp which was built for imprisoning Japanese Americans, natives of this country, and therefore citizens, as well as immigrants.
I took along a digital camera, and a folding camera, the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 521/16. Only now am I scanning the film – it took quite some time to finishing up the roll! I used Kodak TriX 400 and got twelve 6×6 images out of the roll, which is 120 film. To process the film, I took it to a local lab and then scanned it myself using the Epson V600 and Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom.
However, the trip ended when we got breakthrough Covid. We headed back home, sadly, but better safe than sorry, eh?
