Pre-spring and catchup (warning: lots of pink)

Wouldn't it be nice if I could keep up with my blog more regularly? Every time I post here, I feel like there are too many pictures! I have to narrow everything down so much.

Yuba City knows how to party

Goodness, could I take any longer to show you the photos I took while in California? Every time I think of editing them, I want to do something else instead. But I did start on them the other day, so I might as well post a few that I have ready. I've narrowed them down a lot, because it turns out I wasn't very thrilled with many of them. Don't be sad at me, though! I feel like any time I make a less-than-positive comment about my photos I have people disapproving of me. :P

I really loved how this particular flower worked with the droplets, so I'm going to show you a few. I need to do more with flowers with this sort of pattern.

I also much prefer doing droplet photos with grass, because it feels a little more natural.

Droplets are adorable!


Here's a secret: I've been experimenting more with focus stacking, which is where you take several photos of a subject with a different focus in each photo, and then have a program (like Photoshop) smoosh them all together into one picture with many parts in focus. So this is built of several photos because, with the macro lens, it's about impossible to get everything in focus. I can talk about it a little more in depth sometime, if you want. Or at least link you up to someone who explains it better.

Okay, more to come. Someday. :)

Easter weekend sample

Blog, I have lots of pictures to post on you. I am now back from California and enjoying the gray rain in Salem. :| I had a great trip, though! I was bummed to end it. It was low-key and relaxing, and I got to take hundreds of pictures and be outside a lot. Here are a few of the pictures, and I'll try to catch up with more in the coming weeks. I still have photos all the way back to winter that I have been meaning to post here! I may just give up on some.

On Saturday evening, my friend Dania, my mom and I took a drive over to Bear Valley near Colusa. I had read about some wildflowers there. The wildflower display wasn't quite as I imagined, but it was a pretty drive and fun time. California is green like this for such a brief time that I was very glad I didn't miss it.

We decided this was a good place to turn around and head home. :)

Per my request, Easter dinner included fresh artichokes and tri-tip (I like it well-done). Two things I rarely have anymore. So good!

One of my favorites of the flower-droplet photos.

Close up. I've been polling people to determine which of these two pictures they prefer. I welcome your input!

Finally, some cute vases my aunt gave my mom.

I got several bug photos on this visit, too, and I'll probably put those in their own post so that you can skip it if it gives you the creeps. How was your Easter weather?

San Francisco (Part 5)

Home stretch! This is the last post about my Christmas SF trip. If you want to see previous posts, here they are:
San Francisco (Part 1)

San Francisco (Part 2)

San Francisco (Part 3)

San Francisco (Part 4)

Our final stop before leaving town was Alamo Square Park. That's where you can see Postcard Row/the Painted Ladies, and it's in the opening credits of the show Full House.

We got an awesome parking spot right next to the park (we're the blue car), and had this view of City Hall from the closest intersection.

Like much of San Francisco, this park is on a steep hill. I'm not sure any of it is truly flat. It's a bit of a climb to get up (especially on a semi-empty stomach...Dania and I had only had breakfast), but the view gets better with every step.


[Click image for a larger version.]
I took several pictures of the cute houses surrounding the park, Painted Lady or not.

I took some of these pictures for my friend Dan who was recently commenting on how boring most house colors are. I love the dark teal.

Some of the house details were really pretty.

Love the butterfly gate that Dania brought to my attention.

This was a great stop. Even though we were tired and hungry, I enjoyed the simplicity of stopping at a park to admire the view. Free entertainment with plenty of photo ops. I would love to get more photos sometime. I think it was also nice to know that we were headed home after this. Driving around SF can be very tiresome, and it's not always easy to locate a decent bathroom (plus find parking) or know where to go for reasonably-priced food. I am a bit wimpy when it comes to big city tourism and adventure, and I think we both had our fill at that point.

Despite leaving town before rush hour, it was Friday and there was quite a bit of traffic getting onto the Bay Bridge.

Eventually we were able to stop in Vallejo to get gas and have some dinner, and I snapped this picture of Six Flags.

The sunset was really pretty and I loved this very California scene (this was on December 27th) near the gas station.

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed this little photo tour. I have a lot of thoughts about photography in touristy locations and my expectations vs. reality, but I'll save them for another day. Thanks for looking. :)

San Francisco (Part 4)

Okay, I'm back to continue posting my SF photos! Remember how I took a trip there a million years ago and then took months to show you pictures? If you missed it or would like a recap, here are the earlier picture posts:

San Francisco (Part 1)

San Francisco (Part 2)

San Francisco (Part 3)
I was realizing that one of the reasons I've taken forever to finish up these pictures is that I'm just not very excited about them. Even though I enjoyed my time at these final stops, I didn't get the best photos. I blame many things. But I edited them as best as I could and narrowed them down for you. Here goes:

After our time at the Palace of Fine Arts, we headed across the street to the Presidio.

If I remember correctly, this is an old base that now contains normal housing as well as some touristy spots like museums and learning centers (I think). It's kind of cute when you drive around. I didn't really know what was there or what we'd see, so mostly we just stopped at a few points and took a few pictures.

One neighborhood is full of cute little houses like this. It was very quiet there (it was Friday, so people were probably at work).

This walking path was in the neighborhood.

It was interesting to be more aware of the different types of trees and plants in SF compared to Oregon or even where I grew up in the north valley of CA. There's familiarity since my relatives live in the Bay Area and we went there quite a bit, but also some novelty since I pay more attention to nature as an adult than I did as a kid.

Then we headed over to the Sutro Baths, which is by Ocean Beach (shown here). Dania had come across it in her trip research and wanted to check it out.

These windmills have some significance that I don't remember. We drove up to one later, but I didn't get a picture.

This giant camera looked kind of creepy (or maybe it was just the employee?), so we just took pictures of it and didn't go in.

This is a view from the Cliff House, a restaurant we didn't eat at.


Okay, here we are at the baths. Basically these are the ruins from what used to be a bath house/bunch of swimming pools that some rich guy built.

Here's a drawing of what it looked like before it was destroyed (now I'm forgetting how). You can go read up on it if you want. :)

There's a trail and you can walk down to the ruins and up around it. We didn't, though.

More interesting trees with some people for scale.

We did watch the ocean, though.

I'm going to stop here and post the final set of photos later. Hopefully this week! Thanks for hanging in there while I snail my way through these.

San Francisco (Part 3)

After Muir Woods, Dania and I headed south across the Golden Gate and to the Palace of Fine Arts. We were both looking forward to this, as we had seen pictures and passed it the night before (but missed the turn).

It did not disappoint. This was probably my favorite stop of the whole trip. Not only because it was so beautiful (and so was the weather) and it was still early enough that we had energy...

...but also because of our awesome parking spot! That blue car is Dania's. Considering my low expectations for all parking on the trip, this was like an awesome gift. Close, free parking.

The park is lovely and so is the neighborhood around it. I decided that if I had to move to San Francisco, I'd just buy one or two of these houses.

One of my favs. And yes, I did Zillow some of these to check the price. I was actually surprised at some of the prices at prime spots in SF--I expected them to be higher.

Dania and I walked around for awhile and I don't know about her, but I took a ton of photos. And yet I was still wishing I had taken more, because afterwards I realized some angles I had missed.

In case it's not obvious, this is looking up at one of the archways.

I love all the stuff going on in this shot. Oh and someone left their child. ;)

My future neighborhood.

Interestingly, all the lady sculptures are facing inward and have their hands at the sides of their face, so you can't see them.

I guess I can understand why they're sad.


Have a great rest of your weekend! More SF photos coming soon eventually.

See next post: San Francisco (Part 4)