Category: out and about

We spent some time Saturday walking at two of the local lakes.  My soul had been crying out for water! When we lived in Benicia, which is on the Carquinez Strait,  I had become so accustomed to being able to walk down by the waterfront regularly- I miss it.  We actually have (small) lakes here that are just as close to us as was the waterfront in Benicia, so we decided to visit one we had not seen (Goldwater Lake) and one we had visited before (Lynx Lake).

Here are a few photos from our walk at Lynx Lake.

Reflection

Boats stacked for the winter which has not yet arrived

The path

Looking for inspiration, I coerced my husband into taking a walk around the downtown area late the other afternoon.  I had a Flickr challenge in mind- PURPLE, and gave my husband the task of looking for purple items for me to photograph.

How about this one?

And here is a bonus shot of Granite Creek, which I used for the topic- SOUND OF SILENCE (although it certainly was not silent when I took this photo along Prescott’s main street).

Taken at Watson Lake on New Year’s Day

 

 

I decided on my one word for the year! It is meant to encompass all my intentions and goals, and, since I’m recording it here in a cool logo-ish thing, I should remember it.  To me, it means staying TRUE to my intentions, being TRUE in my words, being TRUE to myself, etc. etc.  BTW, I used an iPad app called Notegraphy to instantly create this graphic- easy and fun. It took maybe 2 minutes, of which 1 minute 50 seconds were spent deciding which design I liked.

Do you have a word this year?

Yesterday we took a walk around a small part of Watson Lake, which is a mile or two from our house.  It was a great way to begin the new year. Part of the lake backs up to the Granite Dells, those otherworldly rock formations you see above.  In the background you can see the San Francisco Peaks (by Flagstaff).  This was a midday shot; I intend to return here for a late afternoon or snowy day photo at some point.

We spent a very cold hour or so wandering around Prescott’s Courthouse Square just after sunset last night looking at the lights and enjoying the festive atmosphere. My flickr group’s topic was front and center, an easy one for me as we walked around all sides of the imposing courthouse building.

Here are a few more shots give an idea here of just how MANY tree trunks are lit up and how each side of the courthouse is decorated slightly differently from the others. The top two images were taken as we started our walk and the others after we had walked to the other side and it was getting dark.

Prescott is known as Arizona’s Christmas City (as well as Everybody’s Hometown), and they do take decorating seriously downtown.  Having missed the tree lighting Saturday (cold, windy, with snow arriving any moment. . .), we walked around the square late this afternoon and looked at the lights. Holy Moly! This is just a small part of the square, but gives you an idea of the color scheme. I shot this with my iPhone; I hope to come back for more photos soon.

Since I took over 500 shots last week at the Chihuly exhibit, I think I should put a few more on my blog!

My husband and I toured the Chihuly exhibit yesterday at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.  I knew sort of what to expect, having seen photos of Chihuly glass in other places, but I was still bowled over as we rounded the path to enter the gardens and came upon this sight before we had even entered the gate:

These tall “Desert Towers”, set among the plants, were sparkling in the sunlight.  EXTREME sparking!  The word that went through my head was MAGICAL (a funny word in our family- long story- sorry, Nevin!).  But it indeed seemed magical; I felt like we were entering the Emerald City! Other magnificent glass creations were placed throughout the huge gardens, and we had a great time walking through and encountering each one.

We had never been to the gardens before, so we were also fascinated by the varieties of cacti- and the butterfly garden!  I took a zillion photos- three times more than I will use, because I used exposure bracketing, knowing that the harsh, contrasty afternoon light could make for some difficult lighting situations.

Expect more photos to follow. As I said, I took zillions!

 

I love black and white photography.  Many, many of my favorite photos end up being converted to black and white- and saved along with the color versions.  I don’t think these photos necessarily screamed black and white when I first saw them, but I much prefer them in black and white now.