Somedays, Overcast is Better

I like sunny days, but sometimes I think it is much easier to take photographs on overcast days.  When the sun is out, there are some directions, depending on where the sun is and what the subject is, when you can't take the photograph you want.  On overcast days, I can shoot in just about any direction I want. And that was the case here, with these broken stalks of marsh grasses.  I love the pattern and the reflections in the water that the stalks make.

 

Happy Birthday Liz!

It's Liz' birthday today!  Since she is in Los Angeles, we called her with Facetime and we got to wish her "Happy Birthday" in person, so to speak.  It sure is nice that things like Facetime and Zoom now exist. Not only is it good for birthdays, its good for seeing grandchildren as well!  I photographed this scene because it seemed incongruous, the electronics in the middle of some nice candlesticks.

 

The Sun

I spoke to a small group of students at the school where I gave the talk about light pollution a couple of weeks ago.  About six students were interested in telescopes and their design and how they work so I said I would come by and we would talk during the lunch hour.  It was a nice meeting.  As the students were leaving I saw this sun stitched on the left sleeve of one of the students!  I saw it and said "Did you make that?  It's really cool!"  He said he did and he is going to make the moon and put that on his right shoulder!  How cool is that, and look at his workmanship!

 

How Cool Are We!

OK  we are ALL SET for the Eclipse!  AND we look really cool!  Today, my friend Grace gave us three pair of these plastic eclipse glasses.  Usually these glasses are made out of cardboard, and don't stay on easily.  She is a photographer and will be traveling to upstate New York to photograph the eclipse from Buffalo, and so she decided to order some of these glasses so they would stay on while she was shooting during the eclipse.   So she was generous and ordered us some too.  I am glad that they are not boring colors!

 

The Flower Expert, Again...

It was only two days ago that I introduced you to the fact that I am an expert in flower identification!  So today I am showing you another flower, called "The Little Purple Flower."  Isn't it nice for all of you to have a friend as knowledgeable as I am?  I photographed these  blossoms in the garden right next to the house.  It was late in the day and it was raining.  So two things in my favor - the overcast light generally gives you better colors because bright sun can create too large a brightness range which is hard for the camera sensor to handle.  The other thing is, and you may have noticed this, that colors are brighter and more saturated in the rain.  That's what attracted me to these blossoms.

 

A RAINBOW!

After dinner tonight I left the house at about 6:30  It had been raining most of the day.  As I drove by the harbor, I saw the sun break through some clouds as it was close to setting.  "Looks pretty amazing" I thought because there were rain showers around a a beautiful atmospheric effect.  Then I turned the corner down by the old power plant and started to climb the mile long hill.  I didn't get far before I saw the most spectacular rainbow I have ever seen in my entire life!  It was a perfect bow - 180 degrees of rainbow.  I quickly pulled over and grabbed my camera but realized the rainbow spanned a huge area of the sky, so used my new iPhone 14 with it's wide angle setting to get this photograph.  I didn't like all the wires so got back in the car and drove a few blocks more, and took some more photos, with both my iPhone and my Sony camera.  And then I did a really smart thing.  I just sat in my car with the wipers on - it was raining - and decided to just take this all in, so I sat there quietly and carefully observed the beauty of this spectacular rainbow!  No photos, just looking.  After a couple of minutes, I drove on, but stopped at two more places as I drove east where I took photographs.  But I hold that image in my mind, where I just sat quietly and observed.  What an incredible experience.  So here are a few more photographs because I just could not make up my mind which were my favorites!  These photographs are a bit darker but that way you can see more detail in the colors of the rainbow.  OH, and look for the double bow - another much fainter rainbow outside the main bow.  It is very faint but can be seen in some of these photographs.

The Flower Expert

At the start of my walk today I had only gone downhill a few hundred feet before a saw an area to the side of the road with these pretty flowers in it.  There were hundreds in this patch of weeds and wild grasses.  These blossoms are called "Little blue flowers" and I just thought you would like to know their name.  How do I know this?  Because for almost half my career I did garden photography for the magazine and for a couple of garden books and for three garden calendars.  So it is clear I am an expert! OK, you got me!  I haven't a clue what these are called.  And after all my garden photography, I can probably only name perhaps six flowers.  Busted!  Clearly I am hardly an expert!  I hope my silliness made you laugh.