Ramble Ramble

What’s this? Could it be?

Photos??

Yes, unbelievable though it may seem, I actually took photos this past weekend. Trust me, no one is more shocked than I am that after months of little, if any, photography happening, I managed to cart the camera around and take photos! (The trip to Chicago doesn’t count, cuz it was a vacation and that’s what you’re supposed to do on vacation).

Anyway, this weekend we spent Sunday afternoon at Balboa Park here in San Diego, this time attending an outdoor organ performance. Kind of random, I know, until you see this monster.

This hulking, yet gorgeous, structure is the Spreckels Organ, one of the world’s largest outdoor pipe organs. And I quote: “This unique organ contains 4,530 pipes ranging in length from the size of a pencil to 32 feet and is housed in an ornate vaulted structure with highly embellished gables.” Um yeah, that’s kind of insanely big. It sounds big too.

You can see everyone with umbrellas for shade–they rent them to you for a couple of bucks, which on a sunny San Diego day proved to be an excellent way to spend $2. Plus made for a fun little shot.

One of the things I love about San Diego is the beautiful weather–and the colors we get thanks to that weather. On a day like Sunday, blue and green can dominate the color palette.

Seriously, there wasn’t even a hint of white cloud in the sky–just that blue as far as the eye can see, punctuated by green. I may complain about the June Gloom out here in southern California, but you can’t see a trace of it on days like this one. And we’re lucky that we have more days like this than otherwise!

Anyway, after the concert was over, we went about our merry way in this little corner of Balboa Park. I got a couple of shots of one of my favorite structures in the park:

I love that second shot, it makes it look like we were in some wild jungle, not downtown San Diego. (I think this is the tower from the Museum of Man, but can’t be sure–I’m always taking photos from a distance to try and get the staircases that show in the the arches of the tower.)

But of course, it wouldn’t be me taking the photos if I didn’t throw in a macro shot somewhere. This time I fell in love with these two little stone lions outside one of the International Cottages (a quirky little area made up of cottages that promote different countries around the world, from Iran to Sweden to Italy to the US. Very cute and friendly!).

Anyway, these lions were guarding the steps to one of the cottages, Italy I believe, and I just fell in love with the crackle in their paint. I thought this was a fun little shot, and a departure from my normal floral macro!

I had a good time taking photos on Sunday, though my growing size makes it hard to get some of the shots I want–it’s hard to get down close to the ground or to maneuver into some of the contortions I’ve utilized in the past. But all in all, it was a nice reminder of the fun I have when I’m taking photos. I may have forgotten a lot of the technical things I figured out about my camera after a few months of not using it, but Sunday I was able to remember that I enjoy the experience of taking photos even if I don’t get many “good” shots out of it.

Here’s hoping I don’t forget that again.

Yesterday, I went to an honest to goodness tea party! It’s an annual(ish) tradition that my best friend co-hosts, but this was the first year I’ve been able to attend. I must admit going to party where I know exactly one person has never been something I’m THAT keen on, but the tea party turned out to be fantastically enjoyable.

When I say honest to goodness tea party, I mean it. We were required to wear our party frocks and fancy hats. There were finger sandwiches. There were teapots, and an endless variety of teas to put into dainty china teacups. There was croquet!! All in all, I had a wonderful time, with some much needed girly interaction–we determined I spend entirely too much time with boys since I don’t have a ton of girlfriends in San Diego.

One other fantastic outcome of the day? I actually took some photos! I know, I know, I was shocked too. I was even more shocked when I came home and edited them right away, so that I could write a blog post with them. (I had the house to myself last night, that might have had something to do with it). Anyway, here are some teaparty photos for you to enjoy!

The hostess had a backyard full of gorgeous roses like this one that were in full bloom.

Croquet and tattoos, a modern day tea party!

This dessert was incredibly decadent (in case you couldn’t tell from the gooeyness), but incredibly good.

In addition to tea, there were sparkling drinks to put in fancy glassware.

And I leave you with one of my favorite images of the day. Something about this shot looks very much like a watercolor instead of a photo, and I love how ethereal it looks. I obviously have an infatuation with both the macro setting on my camera and framing my images a certain way, but I do think this photo turned out quite nicely. A perfect representation of the tea party in my mind!

It has been a ridiculously long time since I’ve posted any photos on this site. I’ve had all these photos from my trip to New York just stashed in my camera, but I’ve been too lazy to bother with any photo editing. Finally today I said, “ENOUGH!” If I can’t make myself edit the photos, then I should at least put up the SOC shots. Maybe I’ll do a followup later with some afters of these with photo edits, but for now, enjoy a brief look at New York with no Photoshop magic to make them super pretty.

As a little treat, how bout some pictures today? We haven’t had enough of those around here lately, due to my extreme laziness about photo editing, but I finally made myself sit down and pull out some of my photos from Christmas. Wait, wait! Before you run off, no they’re not Christmas photos. I know everyone’s pretty over the holidays at this point.

Instead, they’re photos of things like horses and cats and tractors (but in the abstract). My mom has married into a ranching type family–they raise and train quarterhorses, have some cattle, goats, etc. Apparently there’s even a bull who’s calm enough to be ridden like a horse?? Anyway, these shots are from that world, one much different from my Southern California city-fied life.

This makes me think of the pushmi-pullyu from the old Dr. Doolittle movie. Anyone remember that movie?

This one isn’t totally in focus, but I loved the composition of this barn cat against this bright blue background. I just wish my skills were better to truly make this shot.

This was one of many warning signs around the place. I dunno, they kept telling me the bull was pretty docile, but frankly, those things are huge and ummm, this sign didn’t do much to calm my nerves.

Another barn cat, though this guy apparently doesn’t do as much work in the barn as some of the others. Honestly, most of the time we saw him he was asleep…asleep on the lawn, on the roof of the car, under the car, in the bed of the truck, on the front porch…well you get the idea.

Something about this image is so cool to me. The colors, the rust spots, the cracks in the paint, the faded lettering, plus the composition just sort of make it really interesting to look at.

And finally, an ode to my mood as of late. This cow did NOT want us hanging out in her pen taking pictures of her and her friends, and she did not waste any time in telling us. Her ornery response was to tell us so in no uncertain terms. I’ve been feeling a bit ornery lately myself, so I thought she should have a place on my blog, even though the photo isn’t all that special (not that I want you all to go away! I love you all! I just wish some of the rest of life would go away).

I’m going to get back into the swing of photography things around here soon, I promise. Hopefully posting these photos will be the kick in the pants I need to make that happen.

The newest Exposaroonie Challenge is up, and this time they were asking for our favorite photo of 2008. Um, just one?

2008 was the year I got into photography. It was the year I got my camera. It was the year I started shooting everything under the sun. I have a lot of favorites, for so many different reasons, that I thought it was going to be hard to pick.

But in the end, I came back to this photo. It’s probably not the best one I’ve ever done. I know I’ve got photos with more interesting subjects, better composition, etc.

But this photo was taken maybe 2-3 weeks after I got my camera, and I remember being amazed that I got such a crisp, tight macro shot. The colors on this photo haven’t been adjusted, I didn’t crop it, this is SOC. What you see is what my camera captured, exactly, on that September day.

And so, in the end, I chose this photo because it was one of the very first photos that gave me any kind of confidence as a photographer: confidence in my ability to use the camera, confidence in my ability to see interesting colorful subjects, confidence that I may have picked a hobby I might be ok at.

You should head over to Exposaroonie and check out the other submissions–there are some stunning photos. Of course, I’d love if you voted for mine!