Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Spring

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.

This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is the season of spring. Spring is my favorite season, especially in San Diego. I love witnessing the rebirth of nature and noticing all the beautiful colors popping up around town.

I’m using the gallery format to feature my photos of spring. You can click on any photo below to open the slideshow. To view any photo in a larger format, just scroll down while in slideshow mode and click on “view full size” on the bottom right on the page. Enjoy!

Advertisement

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward

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.

The new WordPress weekly photo challenge theme is forward. I’m always looking forward to the next best photo opportunity, so I can display it here and on my online store. I’m so behind on uploading new photos to my store, and I’m looking forward to working on it over the next week or so. There are lots of good photos to add, that’s for sure.

Remember you can click on any of the photos below to see it in a larger format.

I’m always looking forward to exploring new hiking paths, and there are a lot of them in San Diego. Here’s one path in Mission Trails park I haven’t tried all the way yet.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward the hiking path
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward the hiking path

Today, I’m looking forward to enjoying the cloudless blue sky, after three days of gray clouds, rain and hail.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to a blue sky
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to a blue sky

I’m also looking forward to the raindrops helping my rose bush grow new rose buds for the spring.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to new rose buds
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to new rose buds

Finally I’m looking forward to new strawberries this summer. That is, if I can get to them because the slugs and pill bugs do…

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to strawberries
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Forward to strawberries

Lots of things to look forward to! What are you looking forward to on your end?

What comes with rain? Raindrops!

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.

This is another follow-up post to a photo I featured earlier this week. I’m not crazy about rain. I get wet if I go outside, I don’t like driving in it, and my kids go nuts staying inside all day. But one thing I absolutely love about rain is the leftovers, specifically raindrops. I’ve featured raindrops several times on this photo blog, including raindrops on spider webs.

I think raindrops can look very pretty, especially when they hang from something in a special way. I’ve noticed that raindrops hang on very well to thuja tree branches, and so after this most recent rainstorm, which lasted almost three long days and nights, I managed to take a few photos of them, including some with my brand new Canon Powershot SX500 IS digital camera. By the way, I’ve decided to return this camera. After giving it a long try, I just can’t stand the chromatic abberations on many photos. Most images are pretty grainy too, which I find unacceptable. So I’m back to shopping around for another camera to replace by beloved old Canon Powershot, which doesn’t always want to turn on. I’d love to go for another Canon because I can navigate through the menus pretty fast, but I really don’t know at this point. Sigh.

Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

Raindrops hanging from a thuja tree branch
Raindrops hanging from a thuja tree branch
Rain drops on a tree branch after a rainstorm
Rain drops on a tree branch after a rainstorm
Raindrops on branches
Raindrops on branches

I took these photos below with my new camera.

Raindrop on a thuja branch
Raindrop on a thuja branch
Photographing rain drops
Photographing rain drops
Raindrop photos
Raindrop photos

More rain in San Diego means more raindrop photo opportunities

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.

We seem to be enjoying a pretty rainy winter in San Diego. Besides the seven days of almost continuous rain we had before the holidays, we also had some rain just before and after Christmas, and again this past weekend and a couple of nights ago. The good thing is, most of this rain is steady but not overabundant, so the ground is soaking it up nicely and floods are few around the county. Another good thing is, we’re starting to see new green growth on our hilly landscape. Of course, it will all turn brown by May but we’ll probably have a green spring before then. I can’t wait!

I like taking photos of raindrops after the rain. I’ve found them on spider webs, and again on more spider webs. After the latest rain, I noticed a large amount of raindrops on the netting I put around my garden. This netting is there to protect my produce from the darn squirrels that try to eat it. So far, the squirrels have won every time.

Here’s what I saw when I stepped out in the garden. You can click on an image for a larger view. I like the wavy patterns the raindrops make because of the loose netting.

And yes, it’s my bougainvillea in the background, not faring well with all the frost we’ve had. I guess it will need a good trimming when spring comes. Talking about frost, I took a few more photos of frosty leaves last weekend, so I’ll be working on a post with lots of frosty photos. Brrrrrr….

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections

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.

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