photography – Page 18

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Walking down the trail

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Walks, paths and trails

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This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is indoor and outdoors walks – anything designed for walking. All my photos are of the outdoors because that’s where I like to be best.

Once you take a trail at the back of Dos Picos County Park and pass the enchanted stone steps I showcased last week, you find yourself walking on a path bordered with many Ramona lilacs. If you hike in the spring, when the lilacs are in bloom, this is what you get to see as you follow the trail:

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Trail in Dos Picos County Park — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Trail in Dos Picos County Park

And it only gets better as you walk along. Here’s a blast of green, purple and bright blue! I know, I still owe you a few close-ups of the Ramona lilacs, but at least you can see what the lilac trees look like full size. Aren’t they pretty?

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Trail bordered by Ramona lilacs — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Trail bordered by Ramona lilacs

Another favorite spot where we enjoy hiking in Louis Stelzer County Park. On the day I took the photos below, the sky was completely gray but everything on the ground looked very green. In a couple of months, most of it will turn to yellow or brown, and the green probably won’t return until next January.

Here’s the trail that follows the side of the hill. This trail is fun to walk on a cloudy day, but I avoid it like the plague in the heat of summer since there’s no shade.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Trail at Louis Stelzer County Park — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Trail at Louis Stelzer County Park

Fortunately, this park offers a lot of wooded areas by the small creek. This is a great trail to walk on any day of the year. This is as green as it gets in San Diego.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Green trail at Louis Stelzer County Park — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Green trail at Louis Stelzer County Park

Like many parks in San Diego County, this park is full of coast live oak trees, which tend to feature many thick, often contorted branches. Look how this large tree branch curves over the trail to create an arch.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Trail with coast live oak trees — Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Trail with coast live oak trees

To me, there’s nothing more pleasant than walking down a shaded trail to make me feel in unison with nature. What about you?

April 24, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: California Photos, Landscape Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Plant Photos, Tree PhotosTags: blooms, California pictures, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, coast live oak tree, Dos Picos County Park, hiking trails San Diego, lilac blooms, Louis Stelzer County Park, nature photography, photography, photos, photos of blooms, ramona lilac, walking trails San Diego 10 Comments

My very first orange dragonfly

I know I promised you some photos of the beautiful Ramona lilacs I spotted a couple of weeks ago during a hike and I’m still working on these photos. But today I’d like to share something quite special because this is a first for me: my first photo of an orange dragonfly. Remember you can click on the photos below for a larger view.

Last year I posted my first (and only) photo of a blue dragonfly. I felt it was beginner’s luck and now I know it really was. Have you ever watched dragonflies? They never stop flying, literally. They only stop for a minute at a time, and that’s for a total of a few hours a day. So if you see one stop by next to you, enjoy it while it lasts.

Dragonflies are different from damselflies, which are a lot smaller. We had one of them enter our home last week and it landed on the window blinds, longing to go back out. I helped it find its freedom back. Phew!

These damselflies are everywhere right now, and they’re quite people friendly. Dragonflies are harder to spot. So when I saw a large orange dragonfly fly over my head while walking through the San Diego Botanic Garden, I had my fingers crossed. After circling a few times, the dragonfly landed on a brush twig and it didn’t take me long to realize what it was doing. It was surveying its next lunch, a bunch of bees snacking on the nectar of a bush in bloom.

I had to figure out how to take a picture of a fleeting dragonfly while being surrounded by busy bees. And guess what? I got my one shot. And guess what else? It was my only shot, because the dragonfly didn’t like me ruining its cover and it flew away.

Lucky me, the shot was perfectly in focus. This is what I got:

Now I’m thinking of cropping this photo a bit but I’m not sure which way will look best so I’m asking for your honest opinion.

Here’s crop option #1, with a similar composition as the first photo, but zoomed in. The dragonfly is in the bottom right corner.

Here’s crop option #2, where the dragonfly is more in the top right corner. I tend to favor this one shot.

Here’s crop option #3, where the dragonfly is centered in the middle of the photo, towards the top.

And here’s crop option #4, in a vertical format, making the stick stand out more. This is more zoomed in on the dragonfly so you can see its details better but of course the photo files ends up being a little smaller since it’s cropped quite a lot from the original file.

Which cropping option do you like best? Or do you like the original photo best? Thanks for helping me out!

April 23, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Animal Photos, PhotographyTags: blue damselfly, blue dragonfly, close-up of orange dragonfly, macro of orange dragonfly, nature photography, orange dragonfly, photography, photos 12 Comments

Macro Monday: Tiny bugs in small purple wildflowers

Macro Monday: Bugs hiding in flowers

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Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. Remember you can click on each image to see it in a larger format.

While recently hiking at a local county park in San Diego, I found these tiny purple wildflowers bordering the trail on the hillside.

Each cluster of these purple flowers was no bigger than the size of my thumbprint.

After photographing the first two clusters, I thought I had enough, until I found the next set of wildflowers and saw several tiny bugs keeping busy inside the flowers. I felt I had been transported into Miniature Land for a minute.

April 22, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Animal Photos, Bloom Photos, California Photos, Flower Photos, PhotographyTags: bugs in wildflowers, California pictures, california wildflowers, Macro Monday, nature photography, photography, photos, photos of blooms, photos of flowers, small purple wildflowers, tiny purple wildflowers 4 Comments

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Sea - sea jellies

Travel theme: Contrast

Today I’m participating in Where’s My Backpack’s Travel Theme photo challenge. This week’s theme is contrast. Enjoy my photos and remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

Sorry if you’ve seen this photo earlier this week, but I think it illustrates how you can compose a great photo by contrasting different colors.

Travel theme: Contrast - Orange protea pincushion and purple lavender — Travel theme: Contrast – Orange protea pincushion and purple lavender

Red and green contrast well to make this red hibiscus flower stand out.

Travel theme: Contrast - Red hibiscus flower — Travel theme: Contrast – Red hibiscus flower

The darkness of the water offers a nice contrast with the lit sea jellies.

Travel theme: Contrast - Sea jellies — Travel theme: Contrast – Sea jellies

Of course, there no bigger contrast than white on black. Here’s an almost white full moon on a dark blue sky. You can view a large full moon in a pitch black sky here.

Travel theme: Contrast - Moon rising beyond the trees — Travel theme: Contrast – Moon rising beyond the trees

April 20, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Animal Photos, Flower Photos, Photography, Sky PhotosTags: full moon rising, hibiscus flower, jelly fish, nature photography, photography, photos, photos of blooms, protea pin cushion, protea pincushion, red hibiscus, sea jellies, Travel theme: Contrast, Where's My Backpack's Travel Theme 7 Comments

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Up

I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is up. You can notice quite a lot when you look up, and here are just a few things I captured on camera. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

A dog in the sky