Just some pics: May 2006

Cactus flowers

I don't know why the gold glows so much, but I think it looks great, especially the reflection onto the white petals. No post-processing at all. Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona.

Columbine

Columbine comes in many colors and some in multicolors, such as this one in my garden.

Bleeding hearts

I love this flower which blooms well in the many shady areas of my yard.

Descent into the Japanese Garden

Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. This picture in contradistinction to the last: one rugged and untouched terrain while this is carefully manicured; one Maine and the other California. This garden has a long pond divided by the bridge you can see in the lower center of this picture. The bridge is the arch at the end of the tunnel-like arbor. The bridge itself was closed off. Here is the margin of the pond on the right as you walk down into the garden.

Northern Maine

During a visit to my wonderful first cousin Francie and her husband Frank near Bangor, Maine a few years ago, we headed north and crossed the border in New Brunswick. Before we got there, we stopped by a few spots in northern Maine. Maine has more traffic accidents caused by collision with moose than any eastern U.S. state.

A different perspective

This is another view of the plants in the previous post, shot standing. Their height is from one foot to two meters, I would hazard. Not a very interesting shot, but I thought I would include this to respond to some of the comments I received.

At the Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, USA

I took this picture from ground level looking up. It was the only way to avoid distracting backgrounds and to have the sky for contrast. And it is a lot more interesting picture! Seeing these unusual plants with no context but the sky is more appealing than the standard eye-level shot (see next post). 18mm, f3.6, 1/640 sec., ISO 800.