Flower Power

Keep your face

always toward the sunshine

and shadows will

fall behind you!

~ Walt Whitman

the sun also rises

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou

Who gazest ever true and tender

On the sun's revolving splendour.

~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

shoot while they last

been waiting for spring

what took it so long to show

trees bloom so briefly

The Arrangement

Keep love in your heart.

A life without it is like a sunless garden

when all the flowers are dead.

~ Oscar Wilde

Daisy Galore

Daisy Galore was born in the Spring.

She worshiped the sun

and made the birds sing.

Soon

so soon Spring will come 

flowers will begin to bud 

then bloom in the sun

Summer Breeze

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, 
and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  

A few of those days and you can become drunk 

with the belief that all's right with the world.
~ Ada Louise Huxtable 

Go with the flow

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on  dialogues with him 

through the graceful bending of their stems

 and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms.  

Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. 
~ Auguste Rodin

Morning Light

When you arise in the morning,
think of what a precious privilege it is
to be alive
- to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
~ Marcus Aurelius

Amaryllises...

or should I say amaryliii or

...amarylides or

...bloody red flowers!

My new bike meets Lensbaby!

Reverie

It is a good idea to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark 

so that all its shy presence may haunt you 

and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.  

~James Douglas

Sway

                                                      Like a flower bending in the breeze
                                                         Bend with me, sway with ease...

Preview

Good Morning Sushine

Saturday morning in Huntington Beach...forecast upper 70sF and mostly sunny. The windows are all open and I can hear the neighborhood sounds of power tools, kids crying, dogs barking, Ninja motorcycle tuning up and low flying aircraft heading for Long Beach Airport. Ah, that's life in the superbs of southern California.

Looking out the kitchen window I notice the blooms on my Double Delight rose bush getting drenched by the sprinklers. Grabbing my Nikon and turning off the sprinklers, I proceed to shoot several dozen images of the roses, the leaves, and a rather extensive spider web...sans spider. Here are some of the images I made from that shooting.

The spider web was covered by so much water that it is barely recognizable.I like to think one can see whatever their imagination creates.

Summer Flowers in Big Bear

June in Big Bear, California means thirty days of beautiful weather. Plenty of sunshine, temperatures in the 70s and low 80s and frequent spectacular cloud formations. A mountain paradise just 100 miles from Los Angeles. Beautiful flowers can be found in the forest and in many yards of local residents. Here are a few of my favorites. I've been experimenting with applying textures to many of my images. I love the effect...especially with florals.

This gorgeous Columbine was growing in a neighbor's front yard. While walking through the forest, I came across some more growing wild. The wild ones were much smaller and less spectacular in color but the identical flower just the same.

Don't know what these are, but I loved how the sunlight hit them.

This is a wild rose I came across in the forest. Tiny flowers, not much more than an inch across, they are probably the ancestor of all the spectacular beauties we buy in the nurseries today.

I found these Sweet Peas growing on the fence of a cabin that doesn't appear to have been occupied in years.
Despite neglect, they've managed to thrive on their own.

Another Columbine...it makes me think of some exotic sea creature.

These roses can be found in front yards all over the area.

No idea what these are. Their "petals" seem more like beans.

Fancy Poppies catching the sun.

A field of wildflowers overlooking Big Bear Lake. Isn't this a beautiful scene?
Well, truth be told, there is a large shopping mall right behind where I was standing when I took this photo.

I'm Back!

Hi Everyone,
In case any of you have been wondering why I haven't posted in more than two months, I have no specific excuse...just been really busy with other things. I do not consider myself a writer in any way. I feel I can say all I'd like to say with my images. I hope you get my message.

Summer has begun with marvelous weather here in Southern California. Flowers are everywhere and I've been photographing them with a passion. There are Bougainvillea everywhere in our yard and they make very convenient subject matter. Here are a few examples.

This is the Barbara Karst wariety but I prefer to call it Cherry Red. The flowers are
actually the tiny white blooms; the red surrounding them are called bracts.

I call this image Scarlet Hearts.

I love how these bracts catch the morning sunlight so beautifully.

My neighbors gate makes a heart shaped background for this San Diego
variety, so I call this image Hearts and Flowers.

Daily Walks

Since I started this blog a few months ago I have become increasingly addicted to photo blogs. It absolutely amazes and humbles me how many extremely talented, mostly amateur, photographers there are out there...and many of them have blogs of one sort or another. One of my favorites is called Daily Walks by Diane Varner. She lives somewhere on the northern California coast and tells us that she does most of her photographing while walking her dog. All I can say is that she lives in an incredibly beautiful area but she also has a terrific eye for seeing the beauty in all things.

Now I live near the southern California coast which has a very different landscape than our northern neighbors. First of all, SoCal, as it is popularly nicknamed, has a much greater population. As I understand it, the three southernmost coastal counties, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties have a population of about 17,000,000 people. Finding subject matter for creating grand landscapes is a bit of a challenge. Therefore, one must look much more closely to find photo ops. My neighborhood consists of typical middle class homes built during the last 50 years. Lots of stucco, big driveways occupied by too many cars, RVs and boats (the Huntington Harbour marina is only a mile away)...and more often than not, poorly tended landscaping. So, it's a challenge, but I'm determined to find the beautiful things and photograph them. Here are a few of my first attempts...all taken withing one mile of where I live.

I came across this lovely vine in an alley.

These gorgeous roses are growing in the front yard
of a home that's been for sale for well over a year.
Maybe potential buyers just aren't looking for high maintenance yards.

Whether digital or film, I still love black and white.
Golden sepia tones are fun too.

But when a rose is this intensely yellow...only color will do.

Playing around some more with Photoshop,
I applied a vintage wash effect to this flowering tree.

I confess, this wasn't dew. The sprinklers were on in this yard.

Well, as you can see, I've so far only photographed flowers.
Hopefully someday I will find inspiration in other subject matter.