B/W 2024 #1

“The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.”

 
~Vikrmn,

  10 Alone  

 

 I did almost no black and white photography last year, so I think this year I am going to try to do at least one b/w photo a week. This photo was taken last week, at the Stockton Rural Cemetery. I was there because cemeteries are excellent places to look for birds, and it was rainy and foggy and I was wanting to find an owl. I did not find an owl, but it was a perfect day for doing a little moody photography. This cemetery has inspired me many times, but the other day was really stunning. I promise my next black and white photo will be a little more uplifting. I wonder what it will be?

 

 

Sitting Up A Tree

 “You live in your head too much, you curl up and shut shit out and spend so much time doing it, you forget to live your life. You can’t live your life in your head. That isn’t living.” 

 
~Kristen Ashley

  Mystery Man

 

 It's so weird. This is the second Red-shouldered hawk I have seen in the last few days. I went most of last year without seeing one, except for a single one I saw perching on a phone line deep in the valley. Strangely, it was across the street from an Osprey nest sitting high atop a different pole. The Osprey wasn't being particularly combative about it's presence, so I guess it wouldn't be considered too strange, but it intrigued me. This little Red-shouldered hawk is chilling in an old tree at the Stockton Rural Cemetery. I would have loved to have studied him longer, but it was pouring down rain, and even with no wind, it seemed like it was coming at me in all directions. That's what it is like to live in your own brain too much. Information, experiences and events you want to enjoy are sometimes drowned by one single thought or a at times a deluge of unrealistic fear. The "what if's" can burden one to a devastating level. But it's 2024, the year I embrace living in the moment, instead of the fear! Friday, for example, we are heading to Bodega Bay where, hopefully, I will come up with enough birds to reach 75 in this year's bird album. But really, 80 is a nicer number! Hey, it could happen, I reached 54 yesterday!Not bad for 3 days of searching! I can't wait to see what's waiting for me next!