Seen on a walk in California’s Muir Woods:
OK, so fungus likely isn’t what most folks look for in nature photographs — but I thought this line of them with their distinct colors made for an interesting composition.
The fungus among us…
Category Archives: Nature
Ready to bloom
A bit of spring color for you from the Filoli Gardens south of San Francisco:
No great scene of social importance, just a wonderful selection of complementary colors by the gardens’ designers…
Landmark
It’s tough coming up with a “different” way of photographing a landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge. Making life more challenging for me was the fact that on our recent trip to the bay area, it was overcast and wet most of the time.
But as luck would have it, we were headed north from San Francisco during one brief window of time in which we had actual blue skies and sunshine. I’d found some roads on the north end of the bridge via Google Earth, so wound up at an old artillery site called “Battery Spencer” in the Marin headlands. It was windy as can be, but I managed to hold my gear still for long enough to get off a few good shots like this one.
There are other spots further west along the road that will give you good views of the bridge, but Battery Spencer is the best one I could find to capture both the bridge and the city in one frame.
Just waiting for breakfast to arrive
I spotted this little scene up in a tree at the Green Gulch Farm, near San Francisco, California:
The spider didn’t seem to mind the soggy weather a bit. Should you find yourself in the San Francisco area (in particular, in Marin county), we’d highly recommend a stop at Green Gulch Farm. The people there are friendly, and it’s a wonderful quiet place for a stroll (even on a wet day)…
Night snow
So a few months back, we got a late afternoon dusting of very sticky wet snow — the immediate result was an odd vertical ridge of snow on top of all our trees’ branches. So lit only by our porch light, I had to grab a shot of this unusual scene:
It took a little help from Topaz Adjust to bring out the contrast in what’s admittedly a very abstract image…
Tulúm shoreline
Looking north along the shoreline at the ancient Maya ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
Tulúm may not have the best architecture compared to other Maya sites, but you’ve got to admit that its location can’t be beat for photography! And if you’re lucky enough to show up at low tide, the beach in this picture is open to swimmers and sunbathers.
On the beach
At the ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
You can’t actually walk on this beach (it’s reserved for nesting sea turtles), but a trail through the site runs right past it — and it makes a great foreground for shots like this! The only real problem is that trash tends to wash up after storms, so you need to clone it out of your shot (since, obviously, you can’t walk out and get it off the beach).
Bloomin’
A little bit of autumn color to brighten up a wintery day:
This was on opportunistic shot I took on a lunchtime photowalk some months back.
Blue kaboom
An oldie but goodie from Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington:
Hope everybody had a fun and festive holiday break! It’s almost hard for me to believe now that I took this with my first DSLR nearly four years ago…
Treekeh
A little seasonal bokeh from our front yard:
Sorry about the thin posting schedule lately, writing photo guidebooks has been absorbing my every waking moment — but the end’s in sight!