Continuing with my botanical theme lately, here’s another of the oft featured Nitobe memorial garden at UBC, in the middle of the summer.
Tag: summer
Natural Pool
In the Twainesque memories of childhood in northwestern Connecticut, cannonballing into this naturally formed pool at the foot of a waterfall stands out:
The stone is hard and slippery. The water is transparent and glacially cold. The my feet touch a soft bed of fallen needles at the bottom. And when I finally climb out, the moss is soft and the sunlight warms me.
African Quarry
Atop the hills of South Africa, I was reminded of the composition of one of my favorite pictures (of the Bay Area), and the vast changes that I’ve experienced in the seven months since I took that picture. There I was, on the other side of the planet, looking across a veritable (pardon the cliché) Garden of Eden and the little quarry used to build the lovely structures of the adjacent game lodge.
Grass Harvest: Oregon
Down the road (and an hour later) from here, the grass harvest was continuing into the pastel-hued evening. The particulates kicked up by their work made this sort of localized haze that refracted the last sunlight to these incredible colors.
Nitobe Tree
While I’m on the trend of remembering summers past (and mourning the end of our own summer), I’m also going to reminisce about our trip to the University of British Columbia’s Nitobe Memorial Garden last summer. Look at that lushness. Foliage everywhere. And, as I like to joking call it, the “enormous bonsai tree” framing the soft scene.
Toy Seattle
I recently received a Lensbaby Composer, and while I was in Seattle I decided to try to figure out how to use it. It is definitely harder than it looks, and the live preview (with the ability to zoom) is a life saver when it comes to shooting pictures that are in focus, especially when shooting distant objects (arguable this is not what it was meant for). Getting the “sweet spot” just right can be a challenge in these circumstances. That said, it does allow the photographer to frame their subjects in a very neat way, and in a very authentic way as well.
Falltop Pebbles
Waterfalls don’t necessarily have the same impressive drama from the top, but they present another kind of wonder: the calm, burbling stream that disappears to infinity, replaced by the view of a sylvan landscape beyond. The pebbles and the trees contrast in lengthscale dramatically, but they all “belong” here.
Calm on Mirror Lake
On my way through upstate New York, I paused for a day in Lake Placid. This strange Alpine-style town is the home to the US Winter Olympic training efforts, but also happens to have a gorgeous series of lakes and forested Adirondack mountains nearby. Tiny boathouses and grandiose hotels dot Mirror Lake, but this single, ideal little sailboat (with its appropriately patriotic sail) seemed apart from them all. The photograph shows the effect: the boat is isolated on the mirrored surface of the lake, apart from the summer business on the shore.
Mt. Riga Falls
Here is your intrepid photographer (a.k.a. me), standing at the foot of a lovely waterfall on Mt. Riga. Near the summer solstice, on the perfect warm and breezy day, we paused here just long enough to take a few shots before we dove into the natural pool beneath the falls.
Spring Flowers
The bay area is notable for its gentle climate but this is never more true than during the spring. Even Berkeley is full of color, with flowers everywhere. These flowers were just hanging out on the sidewalk.
Hillside Paddock
Out in rural Vermont, down the road from where I took this photo, is the farm of Vermont Ponies. Though they have a bit of barn space, the majority of the farm is paddocks on grassy hillsides like the one you see here. When a storm is brewing (as it was on this muggy June afternoon) or snow is fall (as it definitely wasn’t), the ponies have run-in sheds like the one on the left side of the picture, where they can find some shelter from the weather. (And of course, some food, too.)
The Homestead
My grandfather’s farm in Sherborn, MA is perhaps the only unchanging place in my life. Since before I can remember, I’ve sat on this screen porch and looked out through the trees and fields. The flora and fauna of the homestead keep growing and multiplying, but it’s all kept in check.
Decaseconds 