Picture of the Day: Friday, August 16, 2013

This shot was taken from the Marina Green at sunset.  Shot over the houses in the Marina District, it has one of the best plays of light and color on the clouds that I have done, in my opinion.

Picture of the Day: Thursday, August 15, 2013

This was a fishing shack taken at Sunset in Bodega Bay North of San Francisco.  It may look like a picture that has bled with age, but this was the actual color of the water and surroundings with the light setting as it was.

Picture of the Day: Wednesday, August 14, 2013

March of the Grapevines in Spring. 

 Picture of the Day, Tuesday, August 13, 2013

I am in sort of a spring mode today, and almond blossoms always mean spring to in California.  This picture is interesting to me also because of the white clouds and blue sky that are blurred in the background.  Another shot from the beginning of my camera use in 2011.

Picture of the Day - Monday, August 12, 2013

Today's shot I call Life and Death in the Valley.   It was taken a number of years ago out on Bollinger Canyon Road.  It always amazes me that I live is a VERY populated area, yet you can drive a few minutes and still find hills, fields and farms.  I wonder how long they will last. :(

When I started looking back at old shots that I have taken, I realize how different my style is now than when I first started shooting with my Digital SLR.  There is a lot about this picture that I would change if I were to re-take it, but the basic contrast between the young mustard plants and the old, dead plant in the middle is still striking to me. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

Remaining 2013 Challenge: Picture of the day.

A friend of mine who is an amazing photographer, Jennifer Crooks, has just decided to do a 365 picture challenge.  In this challenge, she will be taking at least one picture a day for the next 365 days and posting the pictures on a Facebook page she has set up for it.  This woman is a professional photographer, doing mostly portrait photography, and, as I said, she is amazing.  She is a constant inspiration to me, and I am more than a little jealous of her talent. You all should really check out her work.  Here are the links to her Facebook pages:
Jennifer Crooks Photography:  https://www.facebook.com/JenniferCrooksPhotography
Crooked Legacies (this is the challenge page):  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crooked-Legacies/419312608188296

 As she often does, she has inspired me to do my own picture a day challenge for the rest of 2013.  I am not anywhere near the photographer that she it, but I do enjoy photography and need to re-energize myself in this regard.

My Challenge:  My challenge will be a little bit different from Jen's.  I really need to edit and organize my photos, so I am going to challenge myself to finalize at least one photo a day and post it here on my blog.  It may be a photo that I have just taken, or it may be a photo that I have had sitting around for a while.  I am really hoping that this will keep me on track with my effort to organize my vast array of photos.

As Jen has said, I know there will be days when it will be really hard to accomplish this, and days when I just do not feel like getting a picture on here, but I am going to keep that in mind as I try to stick with it.

The Beginning - Picture of the Day, August 11, 2013

This shot was taken at sunset (obviously, lol) in the parking lot of a local shopping center.  I wish all of our sunsets were this spectacular.  This one actually reminds me of the sunsets that you get in Hawaii, and makes me wish I was there every time I look at it.  I especially like the play between the sky and the shadows of the parking lot.

Bay Area Still Has Backroads

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1968 at the age of 12.  In those days there was a farm at the end of our street, lots of empty lots, orchards, and country roads galore.  When my mom would give people directions to our house, she would jokingly say, "If you think you have left town....keep going.  We are still two miles out."  Since then a lot has changed.  The area resembles the L A Area in Southern California more than any, now, complete with huge traffic jams, smoggy days, and lots of sprawl.  That is why it always surprises me that you can still drive 5 or 10 minutes from my house and be in a country setting complete with a lot of open space, cows, horses, and barns.

Cow Paths

One thing about living in this area, we have a very short "green" season.  The hills around our area are more often golden (as in brown) than green.  The green usually begins sometime in January or February depending on when the rains start.  The hills then stay green for only a few months.  It is by far my favorite time of year and I always feel a yearning to take advantage of the green-ness.  That is why my husband and I took a drive the other day looking for great pictures while the green was new and fresh. 

We decided to leave late in the afternoon, and the light was great for photographs.  The late afternoon sun gives everything a bit of a golden glow, and the contrast between the shadows and the light was phenomenal.  I couldn't resist incorporating it in a few of the pictures.  

 

Along with my love of country and green hills, I have always been fascinated by barns.  I'm not sure when this started, but I think it was sometime shortly after I got my first SLR camera.  I took a picture of a barn somewhere and liked the result.  I think it is really just an offshoot of my fascination with architecture in general.  I love old buildings, farm houses, Victorians, mansions, all sorts of buildings.  But the barns have really been taking first place lately.  The examples below were all found within a 20 minute drive from my house, down a road that is still filled with farms and ranches. 

The best barns are the ones made of wood.  They have such character.  I love the patterns the wood makes, and the different types of wood used.  And the older the barn the more fascinated I am.  

Another vista that has always fascinated me are the areas where you can tell a house used to be, but is no longer.  These areas are usually marked by trees, plants, or walls that are still in existence, even if the buildings are not.  I often find myself wondering what type of house was there and what the people who planted the trees were like.  What type of lives did they lead.  The pictures below came from just that type of place. 

This one reminded me of Little House on the Prarie

Lot's of Character here. 

A closer look at the cow barn

I couldn't resist the flag flying in the background here.