Tag: photography

The past few weekends have made me feel so cramped and crazy, mostly because the puppies are growing, and needing a lot of attention.  Sometimes it makes me wonder if I was nuts to get two, but when they are all cute and cuddly, the answer is always a loud “Yes!”  Luckily, the other half is superlative at caring for them, but he abandoned me for the Super Bowl.  As the puppies are crate trained, I made good my escape for a couple of hours to the local botanical garden.

Where I live, endless blue skies are endlessly blue and cloudless.  We are in the middle of a drought.  The state does not plan to release reservoirs, and I don’t blame them.  Weather is weird, extremes showing up which seem abnormal.  Global warming?  I think so, but this is not a political / ecological foray, so we will leave it at that.  Back to the skies:  we had rain clouds!  And some light rain!  I went out to shoot landscapes with a long lens, 70-300mm, but could not produce any I liked – I expect my view-point was wrong.

Instead, tripod in hand, I also focused on flowers.  Always, flowers.  Leaves, rocks, trees, branches.  I love the shapes of nature, and ultimately these seem to be the ones I love the most.  Long lenses are great for blurring the background, and with flowers it is no exception.  On this trip, I took my time, crawled around, and looked through the camera to frame my shot.  At times, I used live view because I was down so low (luckily, no mud), and my battery was draining faster than normal.

Small patches of bright color are always welcome on a dreary day.  The smell of sage and earth and decaying leaves are wonderful.  I took my time to enjoy the garden, and even though it started to rain – and my camera gear was sadly unprotected – it was such a pleasure to be outdoors (sans puppies pulling on a leash) to enjoy the beauties of nature.