WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections

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When you’re taking pictures, reflections can be a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes you don’t realize you caught a bad reflection (often yourself) until you open the photo file on your computer. Other times you’re lucky and you end up with great pictures.

Here are a few of my photos to illustrate the WordPress weekly photo challenge theme of “reflections”. Remember you can click on each image for a larger view.

These are lilypads I photographed at Balboa Park in San Diego this past summer. You can see gorgeous close-ups of these water lilies in this post. Still water is a great medium for reflections and you can’t go wrong.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections- Water lilies at Balboa Park in San Diego
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections – Water lilies at Balboa Park in San Diego

Here is a soap bubble on artificial grass. I took this picture because although it’s not the most beautiful photo out there,I think the many reflections on the bubble (the sky, the house, the grass, and me somewhere in there) and its transparent nature give it a mesmerizing effect. What do you think?

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in a soap bubble
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in a soap bubble

Here’s a photo of a little rain left over on a begonia leaf. If you look closely (you can click on the photo to see a larger image), you can see the bars of a metal fence are reflected in the water. Because of the shape of the leaf, the bars are not straight but curved, as if they were embracing the flower inside the leaf. They almost look like a flower stem too. Pretty neat!

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in rain water on a begonia leaf
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in rain water on a begonia leaf

I kept my favorite photo of reflections for last – rain drops sitting on a spiderweb over river rocks. You can view the rest of these rain drops here and here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in raindrops on a spider web over river rocks
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections in raindrops on a spider web over river rocks

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’m participating in the online adventure travel magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is: Macro Photography! Remember you can click on each photo to view a larger size.

The funny thing is, Let’s Be Wild used a dragonfly to illustrate this week’s challenge theme. Hey, wait, I’ve got one of those too!

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro - blue dragonfly
Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro – blue dragonfly

And to continue with insects, I’ve got bees too.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro - bee on a wild rose
Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro – bee on a wild rose

I also love taking close-ups of flowers, in the case below a yellow lilium.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro - yellow lilium
Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro – yellow lilium

And finally a beautiful hibiscus, showing off his pistil and stamens.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro - hibiscus pistil and stamens
Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Macro – hibiscus pistil and stamens

Sunday Post: Natural Resources

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’ve decided to join a few hundreds of other fellow bloggers in Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post photo challenge. This week’s theme is Natural Resources. As always, you can click on each image for a larger view.

California is full of natural resources, the main one being the sun. We get a lot of sun and don’t harvest as much as we should for energy purposes.

Sunday Post: Natural Resources - the sun
Sunday Post: Natural Resources – the sun

One very precious natural resource in California is water. Unlike the sun, we get too little of it.

Sunday Post: Natural Resources - water - Lake Hemet, California
Sunday Post: Natural Resources – water – Lake Hemet, California

And with sun and water, we get vegetation, mostly brush and small trees. But with a good amount of water, you get tall, beautiful trees.

Sunday Post: Natural Resources - trees of Idyllwild, California
Sunday Post: Natural Resources – trees of Idyllwild, California

I’m very fond of this last featured natural resource: honey, made by precious bees. Unfortunately, bees are a natural resource in danger. Besides being kind to bees, you can help their population by growing lots of flowers and flowering plants.

Sunday Post: Natural Resources - honey making bee
Sunday Post: Natural Resources – honey making bee

Did you like the original water lilies? There’s more where it came from

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

Do you remember the photo of the water lilies I took at San Diego’s Balboa Park? The one I used for the month of August in my 2013 photo calendar? Well, I went back to my memory card and looked if there were more photos good enough to share. I found a few, so here we go.

Remember to click on each photo for a larger view.

Here’s the whole patch where my water lilies came from. I like capturing reflections in the water. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to find a good angle to photograph the water lilies from to get their best shot, as well as an interesting building reflection, so it can be tricky. I think this photo came out OK.

Water lilies at Balboa Park in San Diego
Water lilies at Balboa Park in San Diego

Here’s the photo of the three pink water lilies on the right, the one I used in the calendar.

Pink water lilies at San Diego's Balboa Park
Pink water lilies at San Diego’s Balboa Park

And here’s a photo of the single water lily closer to the front of the first picture.

Pink water lily and lily pads at the pond in Balboa Park, San Diego
Pink water lily and lily pads at the pond in Balboa Park, San Diego

This pond at Balboa Park also displays white water lilies but I think pink beats white any day when it comes to standing out on the green lily pads. What do you think?

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Renewal

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

Remember you can click on each photo below to see a larger view of it.

I find it interesting, not to say awkward, to choose “renewal” as a theme in November, when everything in nature is dying or falling asleep. So most of the photos I’m displaying here were taken at another time of the year.

Well, expect for this first one, which I took last fall after a rainstorm. The clouds were still quite grey but the sun rays did their best to light up the golden leaves of the poplars that live by the San Diego River. I love to watch the rain do its magic as it revives and replenishes the trees that have been thirsty for so long, giving them one last burst of energy before they go to sleep for the winter.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Renewal - after the rain
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Renewal – after the rain

The WordPress person who wrote the post on this weekly photo challenge suggested us to stay away from the stereotypical renewal of sunrises. Well, I love sunrises and they are inherently a sign of daily renewal. But I like moon rises  just as much, especially when they happen in the daylight. They remind us that day and night work together to bring constant renewal to the earth.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Renewal - moon rising over trees
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Renewal – moon rising over trees

I used the photo below for another photo challenge theme but I think it fits this one perfectly. This is a small pine tree growing out of the root of a seemingly dead tree. Nature knows best how to renew.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Renewal - new tree grows out of a dead tree
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Renewal – new tree grows out of a dead tree

Finally, nothing screams renewal more than brand new flowers in the spring. In this case, these are California wildflowers, which are also featured in my 2013 photo calendar.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Renewal - California wildflowers
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Renewal – California wildflowers

What is your idea of renewal?