Bristol Fleck Dahlia

 Bristol Fleck Dahlia

Golden Gate Park Dahlia Garden

San Francisco, Ca

August 18th, 2014

"What a desolate place would be a world without a flower!

It would be a face without a smile, a feast without a welcome.

Are not flowers the stars of the earth, and not stars the flowers of Heaven?"

~A.J. Balfour

Isn't that a beautiful dahlia? It is called Bristol Fleck. It is just one of the many varieties of the flower that has been planted in the Dahlia Garden (Dell) in Golden Gate Park, next to the Conservatory of Flowers! A project that was first planted back in the 1920's.

It's one of our favorite places in the park, and it's where we eat lunch at most often when we are in San Francisco! It's amazingly beautiful, and peaceful. Although, if you are lucky, you might be serenaded by the sound of bongo drums or a wandering musician playing his sax.

I love San Francisco, and Golden Gate Park.

:)

And the Dahlia Garden.

I think this year I will begin an in-depth catalog of the gorgeous dahlias in the garden!

Stay Tuned!

Mood: Quiet But Content

~Me :)

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 140~ A Face In The Crowd

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."

~Frank Herbert

 

Do you see what I see? Do you see that little woman with the red curly hair? When I looked at this lifeless little dahlia, I saw a little old grandma with reddish/brown hair. When I first showed this photo to Alan, he said he saw a Raggedy Ann doll. Alan gets the creeps from any kind of Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy dolls, so the dahlia really gave him the creeps.

I don't get the wiggins from Raggedy Ann or any random little grandmas with red hair, so I am not put off by it, but at the same time it's not like it's not weird that it so closely resembles a doll of some sort. Sometimes you can put such things down to the mind simply filling in details that your eyes can't focus on. And that can be good or bad.

When I was a little girl, a dear friend of my mother's showed up one afternoon with a surprise gift for me. It was a painting by Thomas Lawrence called, "Pinkie." It was a painting of young Sarah Goodin Barrett Moultin. She posed for the painting when she was about 11 years old, but unfortunately died a year or so later. Had she lived, she would have been the aunt of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The painting, and the story behind it makes for interesting reading. But long before I had heard of the details of Sarah's life and demise, I had to admit... I HATED THAT PAINTING WITH A GREAT PASSION! In fact, it scared the SHIT out of me. I was pleasant to the lady who gave it to me, but I would have nothing of it actually hanging in my room. KICKING AND SCREAMING as I recall. My mother finally gave in and put it my parents bedroom, but it didn't work out there either.

 One night, about two weeks or so after my mother hung the painting in their bedroom, my dad got up in the middle of the night, took the painting off the wall, and hung it in the spare bedroom where my brother stayed when he was commuting between San Francisco and Sacramento. It didn't work out well in that room. A few nights later. my brother, again in the middle of the night, got up and took the painting off the wall, and set it next to the sofa in the living room. No questions were asked. We all knew it was a spooky painting.

Everyone except my mother, who insisted we were all full of beans, and had watched one too many Creature Features movies. She took it upon herself to hang Pinkie in the living room, coincidentally on the wall opposite the large brass mirror. The mirror my dad could see from the desk in his office.

Once again, in the middle of the night, my dad got up, this time from his desk where he had been working, walked to the living room, took the painting off the wall, and turned it around and hung it backwards toward the wall it was hanging on. I just happened to be passing through the room when he did it, and felt a good bit of satisfaction at seeing others feeling uneasy. There is safety in numbers... right?

"Well, it's just that the eyes kinda follow you around" said dad. "Yep." Said I.

The next day the picture was moved to Mom's plant room, where it hung for about 20 years or so. About a month later another coincidence took place... mom stopped watering her plants before bed, and started watering them first thing after breakfast each day. We never talked about it, but I am pretty sure Pinkie had finally gotten to her to, but being the good natured, respectful daughter that I was I never said... I TOLD YOU SO!

:)

Is creepy in the eye of the beholder? Is one man's creepy another man's beautiful? Is creepy subjective? Had we watched too many episodes of Creature Features? Were the eyes in the picture following us around the room? Was it all just our imaginations? Was it all just the power of suggestion? Was it a haunted painting?

I'm thinking... ummm... yes! And we will leave it at that.

Now, tell me, do you see the face in the dahlia? If so, do you find it cute or spooky/creepy?


 

"In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So, in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality."

~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

~Me :)

Today's link comes from JR.

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/09/apadf6-137.html

Your Monday Photo Shoot On Tuesday: Odd Man Out

"It's a very odd thing, as odd as odd can be, that whatever Miss T eats, turns into Miss T."

-Walter de La Mare

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Give us a picture of many things alike - and one thing not. If you're of a certain age (i.e., my age), you'll remember the song from Seasme Street that went "one of these things is not like the others..." This is a picture version of that. Could be as simple as three cups and a dish, or six cars and a bicycle, or a bunch of young kids with an elderly person. You get the idea.

-John Scalzi, of the blog, By The Way

Yep, I do get the idea. When I was visiting the Dahlia garden in Golden Gate Park, this past summer and autumn, there was ample opportunity in front of me to get just such a photo. There is an amazing amount of varieties of dahlias in the garden, and in every color imaginable, so I tried to photograph two different ones together when I could. As I looked through my archives this evening, this photo really popped out at me. I had passed it by for an earlier posting because of how different the colors were, but it fits this entry quite nicely. :) That was the only red dahlia plant, in an otherwise sea of light purple/white dahlias. Pretty, isn't it? :)

-OndineMonet
"Not Like The Others"
Dahlia Garden
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
August 29, 2007
Late Afternoon

Beep Beep :)

"Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office, and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once."

-Isaac Asimov

This was a fun moment last week. It was absolutely gorgeous in Golden Gate Park, the dahlias are really putting on a show, and there were a few winged creatures flying about. Especially the bumble bees. I am still pursuing my goal for the summer, of capturing a perfect photo of a bumble in mid flight. It came close a few times last week, but it was really windy, and that made it almost impossible. I caught a few, but either they were too far away in the photo, or they were out of focus, or I would get just a part of the bee. A leg here, a head shot there. LOL. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work, especially after a particularly rough therapy session with Sarah. Therapy is a lot of work too.

I really didn't mind the work of either though, because they balance each other quite nicely. Both sides of my brain get a workout. LOL My concentration was pretty high that day, and it was an intense moment when I settled in on this flower, with the bumble bee in the center. I had been watching it for about 5 minutes, floating in and out of the other dahlias, and I thought I had my timing down, as to when it would lift off. I steadied myself, leaned in, and just as I thought she might take to flight, I took the photo. LOL. She of course didn't move, but as I went click, a lovely skipper butterfly, zoomed past the bee, the flower, and my lens. Tee Hee. I had to laugh, because it was amazingly fun to capture the skipper in flight, but at the same time, it also felt a bit like I had stepped into a Roadrunner cartoon, and I was the coyote. As the skipper flew by, I could almost hear... "Beep, Beep!" ROFL.

-OndineMonet
"Beep Beep"
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
Aug 1, 2007
Afternoon

My July Bumble Bee

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Golden Gate Park has an amazing Dahlia garden. It is tucked back from the road, and sits next to the Conservatory of Flowers. It comes magically alive in the summer, and it is one of my favorite places on earth. I find it especially inviting on days after I go to therapy. Therapy has healed me, but like with any discipline one learns, it can be very painful as time takes care of what ails you. I usually come out of those appointments exhausted, so sometimes going out with the camera can be difficult, but I know that using the camera to look at the beauty in the world, to focus on something other then how torn up I feel, is the way to process those secret inner feelings we all carry around. I decided a couple years ago, to have a subject, something specific to search for, when I am needing to do that kind of mental processing. This summer, I have chosen the bumble bee.

I think I am getting better with my bee photos. I am learning about light and shadows. I am really learning about timing. LOL. These are happy little critters. The can also be quite a tease. LOL. It was hard to not take this bee's personality quirks personally. LOL. Just as I found a comfortable way to stand, just as I got the setting right and the wind would stop blowing, just as I was about to snap the photo, this bee would happily buzz away to a new blossom. I swear I could almost hear her giggle as she flew by me. LOL. Almost.

I stuck with it, and here you see what I got, but not without a good deal of patience. I still haven't gotten the perfect shot of a bumble in flight. It will come. I am going to visit the Dahlia garden at least once a week this summer, at least until my garden begins to blossom. It will be another four weeks or so, before it's ready, but it should be very colorful when it does. I am putting some dahlia's in the pots this week for a mid-autumn bloom. Purples and oranges. It should be ready, just as my therapy comes to a close. Nice timing I think. :) Yep, I'm a happy camper.

So tell me, when you are out with your camera, do you ever give yourself "assignments?" Do you ever use your photography as a way to process what ails you?

-OndineMonet
"My July Bumble Bee"
Dahlia Garden
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
July 11th, 2007
Afternoon