Saving for a rainy day

When the clouds parted and revealed blue sky briefly late yesterday afternoon, I grabbed my camera and The Wife and headed out for a walk around the block. I banked enough photos for rainy days to cover this week's weather forecast.





Day 41 of 365

40 Days And 40 Nights

The storm that blew through town today chased me outside to see if I could catch the wind.

The huge trees in the front don't move much, but the stuff around them gets whipped about.

This long exposure attempts to capture the motion of the branches as the wind races through the trees.

For several minutes I set up my tripod on the floor of the garage. I had a real problem pressing the shutter release without jiggling the camera. Add to that the requirement that I release the shutter just as a car enters the frame and you begin to understand why I'm so excited about this photo.

And, of course, any effort that produces so many rejects is bound to create an equal number of opportunities to apply Photoshop's Glowing Edges filter which has become so ubiquitous around here.

In honor of The Wife, I'll toss in this Jimi Hendrix video:



Day 40 of 365

Temptation

When I started this project I knew I would face Temptation. The Siren song of modes and filters and layers upon layers calls me every time I open an image in Photoshop. As I explained when I started this daily effort, I've always been fascinated by what Photoshop allows you to do with an image. And now, with seven more years of experience with Photoshop, the addiction is even stronger.

I took this photo the other day, attracted by the way the slanting rays of the winter morning sun cast a shadow of tree branches on this sign. Light and shadow are rare enough this time of year to make this a vaguely interesting scene. But then Temptation struck.

Layer five copies of the image, each 80 percent smaller than the previous. Then change the modes on each layer to a soft light overlay. Now that says Dead End.

But Temptation drew me on.

Three layers of the same image, again progressively smaller. This time with glowing edges on the bottom layer, a soft light overlay on the next layer and finally on top a color dodge is multiplied. Now it's so hot it sizzles and smokes.

And on and on I could go, layering and blending, never exhausting all of the possible permutations.

Day 39 of 365

Days that get away

Somewhere I misplaced the time I was going to devote to posting photos today. It's not that I didn't have any photos. I took more than 200 photos when I walked from Watt and Kings Way to home on Thursday.

When putting together yesterday's birds, I set aside four photos for today -- all plant life -- with the intention of saying something.

But now it's after 11 p.m. I've just finished two glasses of wine and "Angels and Demons" and I'm simply not up to being any more creative than this. So here goes.

This is the second try at photographing this flower. The earlier attempt was so lackluster that I didn't include it. I would prefer to have managed a broader depth of field. After all, this was one day when I actually had some sunlight to help. Still the balls of dew nestled in the petals makes this at least marginally interesting.

This is one of the borderline choices. I liked the light more than the flower. Someday a little sunlight won't be so exceptional. But under the Central Valley's persistent winter blanket a little celebration of sunlight is in order.

Speaking of sunlight, the slanting rays of the winter morning sun created a striking pattern in a hedge. That light and dark captures winter's starkness.

Next to the tangle of vines was a yellow rose in amazingly good shape for so late in winter.

And down the street I found these flowers, still sleepy and not quite ready to greet the day.

Day 38 of 365

Taking Flight

I've made it halfway into the first month of the new year and I haven't yet abandoned all of my resolutions. That's pretty good for me.

Yesterday, I got up early enough to run two miles, shower and catch the bus with The Wife. We rode together as far as Watt and Kings Way (actually the Chenu stop since I was heading south on Watt). I got off there and walked across Watt to the Starbucks, where I settled down with my laptop and a cup of coffee to get some work done.

This is the second time I've tried this routine. The payoff is that I get more work done in a concentrated period and when I'm finished I get to take photos while I walk 2.5 miles home.

Just like the first time I tried this, the birds were the prize catch. But this time it was tiny birds.

The carrier landing . . .

Squabbling diners . . .

The dive . . .

The VTOL bird -- vertical takeoff and landing

The pole dance . . .

The sentinel . . .

I'm assuming these are all finches. If they are not finches, please leave a comment and let me know what type of birds these are.

Day 37 of 365

Magic mushrooms

Can't resist giving these photos a day of their own. These are from yesterday morning.

The morning dew was heavy and everything glistened as the sun rose above the horizon, breaking through the clouds for the first time in weeks.

I laid down on the ground atop an old doormat in order to get up close to the action.

Yes, you guessed it. More glowing edges. But, really, can you blame me? I'm a child of the '60s, and I just can't separate mushrooms from psychedelic.

Day 36 of 365

Sunshine!

Got up this morning and couldn't believe my eyes.

SUNshine breaking through the clouds. Made me want to get up and dance.



In my dreams.

The daisies in the front yard were radiant.

Inspiring today's creative efforts.

When was the last time Sacramento saw big, fluffy clouds?

By sunset I was looking forward to tomorrow. It's supposed to be sunny. I've got to bookmark this post because by August I will be pining for the days when the sun didn't burn so bright.

Day 35 of 365

The other commute

Today has been one of those days. That would be one of those days that seem to be short an hour or two. So much has to be done and at the end of the day you add it all up and discover there weren't enough hours in the day.

I'd almost given up on getting any new photos for the second day in a row when I stumbled in the dark.

This evening at around 6 p.m. I had to pick up a computer from a customer. She lives out in Citrus Heights just off Interstate 80 at Greenback. I took my camera along just because you never know. Sure enough, I was driving back after picking up the computer and noticed that a low chain link fence was all that separated my side of the road from the eastbound freeway. Since I've not had a chance to try really low light photography on this new camera, I decided to pull over and give it a shot.

I did not bring a tripod. Next time. But this worked out well for a handheld effort. "Well" being defined as modestly interesting.

The 6 O'Clock commute on a rain-slick freeway.

No cars. Just rods of light flying along like futuristic hovercraft.

And then I tried moving the camera around . . .

Stream of consciousness . . .

Fireworks, perhaps. Or maybe electric hair blown by the wind.

And no night of Photoshop experimentation is complete without at least one polar coordinates demonstration.

Day 34 of 365

The Morning Commute

I don't commute to work. It's been a year now since I started working from home full-time. After a lifetime of commuting to work -- 28 years of which took me to The Sacramento Bee or The Bee's Capitol bureau -- I've found it hard to adjust to working from home. In fact, I haven't really adjusted. I still pine for those long rides on the bus and light rail that afforded me that valuable time to read and relax.

In memory of my previous lifetime as a "transitarian," I've put together some transit photos and paintings. Enjoy!



And because I can't resist the lure of Photoshop's filters . . .

The stamp filter with simple overlay mode ...

... and the ever popular (at least for me) glowing edges!

Day 33 of 365

The Flower Show

The Wife had an errand to run at Borders on Fair Oaks and so I took some time to wonder around Pavilions next door. If it weren't for commercial landscapers, there would be no color in winter in Sacramento.





I can't wait for a chance to shoot in the sun, but these worked out well enough.

Day 32 of 365

One month down, 11 more to go

I stopped the other afternoon in the shopping center at Watt and Fair Oaks, parked the car and walked over to the sidewalk in front of the gas station on the corner. The light standard at the intersection had more than a dozen pigeons on it. Just seemed like something worth a photo. I waited for several minutes for one of the birds to fly away or another to land or anything, but they all just sat there. Later in the evening I drove by the same intersection. Not a bird in sight. Where do pigeons spend their nights?

The traffic was only marginally more interesting and then only after I applied a Photoshop photocopy filter and overlaid it on the original.

Since Jan. 9 marks the end of the first month, I return to the easy shots: Cats at play. Didn't have to drive anywhere today to get all the action I wanted.

Tomorrow I'll send you flowers.

Day 31 of 365

The box of photos

I drove into the parking lot from Arden Way on my way to the Petsmart on Watt Avenue to buy food for The Pets. As I drove past a long-vacant storefront I noticed a bearded man seated erect inside a low, long box. His hands rested on his outstretched legs, fingers splayed. His shoes were outside the box and his socks were pulled nearly off, leaving his ankles and heels bare.

That was worth a picture, I said to myself as I drove on. And if I'm going to do a blog about pictures of the day surely I can't pass that up.

But I didn't stop. I went on to Petsmart and selected two bags of cat food after carefully reviewing the ingredients. Then I picked up some expensive dog food that comes in a huge sausage-like plastic package. The Pets eat well.

I left the parking lot the way I arrived. There, in the doorway of the vacant store, was the man in the box, still seated erect, his hands unmoved from his legs, his belongings scattered about him.

This is just not something you see in a neighborhood of expensive suburban ranch-style homes. This was really worth a photo.

But I didn't stop. I continued east on Arden on my way to pick up some "treats" for The Wife and some fresh fruit for myself. The decision not to stop and take a photo, not once but twice, gnawed at me, chewing on scars so old you'd think by now they'd be too tough to hurt.

What really bothered me was the reminder of a day in the summer of 1976. I was working as a reporter/photographer for a community newspaper in Sunland-Tujunga, and I was returning from a "Man On The Street" interview assignment. I had been walking around a neighborhood park asking what people thought of the African nations' decision to boycott the 1976 Olympics. The editor had picked the topic. The answer I got was most often, "Huh?" from the people hanging out in a public park in the middle of a workday.

At the time I was just realizing that bothering people bothered me. My curiosity, or in this case the need to collect some public opinion, didn't outweigh what I perceived as my intrusion. As a cub reporter starting out in a career in journalism, this was a troubling revelation. On my way back to the newspaper, I was mulling over that discovery when I came upon a crime scene.

Police officers were milling about as I started taking photos. In the doorway of a building in the backyard was a man lying on his back, obviously dead, blood filling and overflowing his open mouth, bubbles from his last breath captured in the goo.

As I moved around taking more photos I could hear people arriving. These were the man's relatives and friends. They were clearly distraught. Cries of despair marked each arrival.

I continued to take photos of the crime scene, but I could not turn my camera on the weeping crowd gathered just outside the police lines. I couldn't put the camera down and take out my notepad and ask them who the dead guy was. Whose child was he? Whose husband? Father? Son?

Instead, I got into my car and drove back to the office and called the local law enforcement office for the details needed for a short story about a local murder investigation.

That was the day I realized I would never be a real newspaper reporter.

Years later, working as a night assistant city editor at The Sacramento Bee, I worked with real reporters and sent them out to crime scenes and I edited their stories describing the anquish at the loss of a loved one. And once, late at night after the paper was put to bed, I chatted with a couple of reporters and asked how they could just walk into a house full of grieving people and sit down on the couch and start asking questions. "I'm giving them an opportunity to tell their stories," I remember one reporter explaining. "It's not an intrusion," another reporter said. "It's a service, a gift I offer."

It's a sort of guilt I feel for not being a real reporter, and that was the guilt I felt at not stopping and taking the photo of the guy in the box. It was like not doing my job.

At Whole Foods I bought $90 worth of frozen vegetarian dishes and fresh fruit and loaded them into my car. I drove out of the parking lot and headed home on Eastern Avenue. I got about two blocks before I finally couldn't take it any more and turned around.

What finally broke my inertia was something I had read a few days earlier during my morning prayers. On our altar is a small spiral-bound book, "Daily Wisdom from the writings of Nichiren Daishonin," and I had set aside the entry for January 3, thinking I'd do something with it. The entry reads:

"Just as flowers open up and bear fruit, just as the moon appears and invariably grows full, just as a lamp becomes brighter when oil is added, and just as plants and trees flourish with rain, so will human beings never fail to prosper when they make good causes."

I drove back to the man in the box and parked. I gathered a half-dozen tangerines and several apples in a plastic bag and then I got my camera out of the trunk of the car. I walked over to the man and set the food down near him.

"This is for you," I said.

"It's outside my reach," he said, his hands still on his outstretched legs.

I moved the bag next to him, within easy reach, and asked, "Can I take your photo?"

"No," he said.

"That's OK," I said. I smiled and walked back to my car. As I opened the trunk I heard the man say something.

I walked back, still holding the camera, and asked if he had said something. I couldn't understand what he said. He was mumbling and I don't have the best hearing. He had to repeat himself several times until I finally heard him say, "You can take my photo."

He offered to stand up, but I said he should just stay where he was. I took a half-dozen photos, thanked the man, smiled and left.

This Photoshop treatment of one of the photos says everything. The black and white stamp filter applied with a hard light mode and the effect reduced just enough to let some of the color emerge reduces the reality of a man living in a box outside a vacant storefront to an unreal pastel cartoon.

Day 30 of 365