Saturday, December 03, 2016

Immortal Within

"Money lives in New York.
Power sits in Washington.
Freedom sips cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe in San Francisco."

~Joe Flower 

Last Friday, was the day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday if you are so inclined to shop, but to Alan and I it is our official San Francisco Day. There have only been a few years when we didn't make it over the bridge to the city, last year we were fresh off an emotionally draining move to Stockton. I was simply too tired. It haunted me though. We didn't keep our date with my favorite city in the world, and the holidays seemed a little less special. This year we got a later start than usual, but we made it to Berkeley first, and then we still made it into the city! And it was beautiful! All decked out for the holidays! San Francisco is beautiful whenever I see it, but, she seemed especially gorgeous this year!

The view from the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Bridge

Christmastime In The City


And one last look back, from Treasure Island


Truly, the love of my photographic life!

"San Francisco is itself art. Every block is a short story. Every hill a novel. Every home a poem, Every dweller within immortal.

~William Saroyan

Leaf Of The Day
December 3rd 2016


Mood: Quiet/Okay

~Me


Friday, December 02, 2016

A Perspective... Revisited

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."

~Douglas Adams
The Salmon Of Doubt: Hitchhiking The Galaxy One Last Time

I first posted the photo above, in early September, 2014. This garbage can is in my favorite park in the East Bay, and I pass it often while out photographing flowers and autumn leaves. Well, at least I did at the time, I have since moved, but I still visit there when I can. Cull Canyon Park, in Castro Valley, always inspires me, and its one of the nicest parks in the East Bay to just stop for a moment and have lunch or catch one's breath. 

Anyway, while photographing some pre-season autumn leaves, I looked at the lid of the can, and for whatever reason I saw a crow in the paint erosion. Alan saw a bear. And I do see a bear, but the crow is my first thought. I guess it's one of those perspective things! But, like I said, I originally posted the photo a couple years ago, and since then I haven't thought about it much. Why would I? Right? Then one day last month, while I was doing the exact same action as the first time I noticed it, I saw two more creatures I hadn't noticed before. This time, at the base of the can. A cat and a mouse. Do you see them? Or is it just me?


 
Now I know I tend to see shapes, and sometimes faces in things, I especially like to find that kind of stuff in nature! I have built a whole series around it. But I don't often stop and consider shapes quite like this. It has to have occurred through erosion, because who would take the time to create animal shapes on a random trash can? Not too many people I suppose, and yet I can't see anything but those three creatures. 

A crow bending over eating.
A cat with a big thick tail.
And a little mouse just to the right side of the cat.

How about you? What do you see?
 What's Your Perspective?

"Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, 'What else could this mean?'" 

~Shannon L. Adler

 Leaf Of The Day
December 2nd 2016

 

 

Thursday, December 01, 2016

December Is In Autumn Too!

"It's December, and no one asked if I was ready."

~Sarah Kay

It's December. It's cold. It began snowing in the Sierras just before Halloween, so even the Central Valley is keenly aware, it's cold! But at least it's not hot! I dislike HOT more than COLD because I can't think straight in hot weather. Cold weather tends to leave me in a great deal of pain, but at least I can think again. This year... well... I wish I wasn't thinking straight, or as clearly. I am grieving the election, and I have almost NO patience for stupidity. But let's not dwell. How about we do something different and focus on Christmas. Ornaments. Holiday lights and the fact that while it is December, it's still autumn. So leaves! Isn't it funny that more of December is in autumn than winter, yet winter seems to claim it!

 Lies... lies I tell you!
But I digress!

"How did it get so late, so soon?" 
~Dr. Seuss

Leaf Of The Day
December 1st, 2016




Mood: Quiet

~Me


 

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Uncanny Witchery

'November... with uncanny witchery in it's changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes... days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines.Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when a exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew."

~L. M. Montgomery

November Trees... As Autumn Grows Old


 
Leaf Of The Day
November 30th 2016
Mood: Quiet

~Me


 

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Creative Light And Dark

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved."

~Ansel Adams

One thing I love about working with new cameras is discovering all the new things it's capable of. I haven't had a really serious camera like this new Nikon in a long time. My Samsung, which is attached to my phone does okay... I mean really okay... for a phone with a camera. In fact, it's a better camera then it is a phone, so I know I will continue to use it for as long as it works, but I just needed something a camera that was a little more sophisticated, and I found that with this new one. So far I am very happy with the night and low light shots. My next test for it will be a full moon, which comes up on December 13th, if the sky is cloud free of course! It's something positive to look forward to as I fight this depression I am in. If you have fought depression like I have, you know the drill, set small, attainable goals, and work toward them.
 Okay. I'll Try.

Funny thing about that quote by Ansel Adams, you bring all those things to your depression too. Maybe that's why so many really creative people have spent their life fighting depression like I have.

Leaf Of The Day
November 29th, 2016



Mood: Quiet
~Me  



Monday, November 28, 2016

Wouldn't It Be Nice If This Was A Real Thing?

"It doesn't matter who hurt you, or broke you down. 
What matters is who made you smile again."

~Unknown

Wouldn't it be nice if this was a thing? A bear gets up, gets dressed in her best dress and heads out for a walk in late autumn. She knows it will be one of her last afternoon walks because winter is coming, a season just as treacherous as summer, but for different reasons, and she knows she should get all the air and exercise she can, before it's no longer feasible. But alas... it's not. We all know it's a nice person, probably, inside a bear costume, making the public want to eat at the Black Bear Diner in Auburn. Which is nice and all, but I have to ask just once more, wouldn't it be nice if it was just a bear, out for a walk?

I like that world much better than the one I am living in now.
 It would make more sense too!


Miss Bear did make me smile, so maybe sometime, when I am traveling through Auburn again, I will stop in at the Black Bear diner and stop for a bite. I know I will always think of Miss Bear when I am in Auburn from now on, so, why not? This was a smile worth remembering!

Leaf Of The Day
November 28th 2016

 Mood: Quiet

~Me 

Black Bear Diner
13378 Lincoln Highway
Auburn, Ca  



Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Pyrotechnics Of A New Autumn

"The multicolored leaves were softly glowing against the black sky, creating an untimely nocturnal rainbow which scattered its spectral tints everywhere and dyed the night with a harvest of hues: peach, gold, and pumpkin orange, honey yellow and winy amber, apple red and plum violet. Luminous within their leafy shapes the colors cast themselves across the darkness and were splattered upon our streets and our fields and our faces. everything was resplendent with pyrotechnics of a new autumn."

~Thomas Ligotti
The Nightmare Factory 

The new autumn of 2016 is beginning to fade. Reminding me that if I don't go out with the camera, even on the bone chilling days of late November and December, I will miss it, and it is a very long time before it will be here again! I don't even know if I will be alive in a year. I hope I will, but life is full of surprises. Some you see coming from 18 months away... like an election season... some you only see coming from 18 minutes away... and some... you don't see at all. 

That's Life.

 Like being on an out of control roller-coaster, with not guard-bar or straps to keep you safe. Up and down. Up and down. 


Autumn Makes Me Feel All Those Things
 The Rest Of The Year Distracts Me From

Autumn Makes Me Feel Loved.

Leaf Of The Day
November 28th, 2016




Mood: Quiet

~Me