San Diego Balboa Park

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Sea - the waves at Coronado Beach

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home

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Sometimes I find it hard to believe that San Diego has been my home for a little over 15 years now. In a way, it feels like it wasn’t that long ago when I drove cross country from Connecticut to California. San Diego has grown on me as my new home over the years. Besides the worrisome wildfires, random earthquakes, and lack of greenery, there’s a lot to like about San Diego and its surroundings. San Diego is my home and here are a few things I enjoy about it. Remember you can click on each image to enjoy a larger view. San Diego is home to the big waves of the Pacific Ocean under a bright blue sky.

Beautiful waves at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California

San Diego is home to a large agricultural community, including a lot of citrus (lemons and oranges, mostly).

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - oranges in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – oranges in San Diego

San Diego is home to not just one single season year round, but also Fall and its bold colors.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - changing seasons in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – changing seasons in San Diego

San Diego can even be home to frost in the winter, especially inland. This is as much cold as I can take!

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - frost in winter in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – frost in winter in San Diego

San Diego is home to beautiful sunrises, especially in the winter.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - beautiful sunrise in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – beautiful sunrise in San Diego

San Diego is also home to beautiful sunsets. This one is from Christmas evening 2012.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - beautiful sunset in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – beautiful sunset in San Diego

San Diego is home to hundreds, probably thousands of different species of animals and plants. It’s also home to the most amazing topiary I’ve ever seen (view more topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden here).

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - amazing topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – amazing topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden

And as of this week, San Diego is home to some beautiful pear blossoms in Balboa Park. You can view more photos of these pear blossoms in a post next week, so I invite you subscribe to this site if you haven’t already.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - pear blossoms at San Diego's Balboa Park — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – pear blossoms at San Diego’s Balboa Park

I’m happy to call San Diego home.

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

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

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

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.

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?

November 13, 2012February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Bloom Photos, California Photos, Flower PhotosTags: Balboa Park, Balboa Park San Diego, blooms, California pictures, lily pads, lilypads, photography, photos, photos of blooms, photos of flowers, pink flowers, pink water lillies, pond, pond reflections, San Diego, San Diego Balboa Park, water lilies, water lily, water lily reflections 7 Comments

My 2013 calendar pick for August: the water lilies of San Diego’s Balboa Park

View all of the pictures I selected for my 2013 photo calendar.

My 2013 12-month photo calendar is now available for sale on my Zazzle online store. Thank you for your support!

I’m warning you right now. The photo I picked for the month of August in my 2013 photo calendar has to be one of my very favorite and I’ll tell you the reason why below. I took it one morning this past August while strolling along at Balboa Park in San Diego. A popular area of the park features a couple of small ponds, which are sparsely covered with white and pink water lilies and populated with a few species of fish, including koi.

My kids were in camp at the Natural History Museum that week and I had a few hours to kill before picking them up that day, so I grabbed my camera bag and walked around the park. There was a nasty heatwave that week, which included a lot of humidity, and my stroll quickly became tedious. There’s nothing worse than sitting still in full blasting heat and sun trying to take a hundred photos of the same thing. I started shooting pictures from different angles, different water lilies (or lily pads if you prefer). Every time I looked at the preview on my camera’s back screen, I wasn’t very excited about what I saw. It seemed the light was too bright and something just wasn’t right. So after a few minutes of frustration, I packed my bags and left, looking for something else to photograph, this time in the shade.

I forgot about these photos for a few weeks, until I pulled the SD card out of my camera to look at some photos I’d taken afterwards. As I was browsing through the files, I noticed the water lilies, so I opened the images. And in the middle of a few good shots, I found this photo of lily pads below. I call it my miracle photo. Why? Because the photo you’re looking at had no work done on it. I didn’t have to recenter it and adjust any of the settings. It literally came out that way. By the way, this never happens (OK, only in the movies!).

So there you have it, the beautiful pink water lilies of San Diego’s Balboa Park is my August 2013 photo pick. Don’t forget you can click on the photo to see a larger view. Enjoy!