France: black and white

Bon jour!  I’m back from another excellent trip to France, where I was treated royally as always by my s-i-l and b-i-l.  During the trip, my b-i-l, who’s been doing ultra marathons (any race longer than a traditional marathon of 26 miles or 42.195 kilometers) did something a bit different: a vertical kilometer.  Taking place on a very steep ski run, the contestants “ran” to the top and took the lift down, repeating this a total of three times.  Final time was the total of the three uphill segments.  It was grueling!

The morning was cold and foggy, although the fog eventually burned off and the sun arrived.  Fortunately for the participants, it didn’t get hot, at least from a weather point of view.  I took this shot at the beginning of the race.  My b-i-l is on the left, an unknown runner on the right.  The black and white called for on the third Monday of Sally’s Mobile Photography Challenge seemed just right for both the foggy morning and the difficulty of the competition.

A connoisseur of comfort

The fourth Monday means I get to chose the category for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge.  Today I chose “Animals” and, unusually for me, I’m featuring a cat.  This beauty belongs to our younger daughter who rescued her from the streets of Philadelphia.  She reclines in queenly fashion in the new cat bed we got for her.  I’m not sure how much she uses it, as she like to sleep with our daughter, but in Goldilocks fashion, it’s just the right size for any time she deigns to use it.

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”
~James Herriot, James Herriot’s Cat Stories

A delight for the soul

As much as I enjoy color, especially after a long winter, sometimes only black and white will do.  For me, this is such a case.  Every third Monday, Sally asks us for a monotone shot taken with a mobile or none-traditional camera.  This was taken pre-iPhone some years ago with my iPad.

“To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.” – Andri Cauldwell

“There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery.
”– Stefan Kanfer

If I were a bee

If I were a bee, I’d see this view every day, over and over, drunk with joy and pollen.  I wouldn’t need an iPhone camera.  I’d have my wings.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”
~Luther Burbank

“In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.”
~Kakuzō Okakura, The Book Of Tea

and my favorite:

“The earth laughs in flowers.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

(for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Macro)

A drift

Merriam Webster has numerous definitions for “drift” but persevere and you’ll arrive at:

8 :  a grouping of similar flowers planted in an elongated mass.

On my photography walk last week, once I entered into the wooded part of the park, I was adrift in drifts of wildflowers, not all of which show up well in photos.  Of course, no person planted these elongated masses of flowers but nevertheless, there they are.  (As an aside, a photography walk for me is one where I deliberately set out with Nikon and lenses in addition to the ever-present iPhone and don’t even plan on getting any exercise other than the most rudimentary walking.  Call it soul food.)

At any rate, there were still wildflowers aplenty, which I featured on my blog Friday and Saturday.   Here then, is a drift of wildflowers and, I hasten to add, taken with said phone, not my Nikon, lest Sally whip me with a wet noodle.  🙂

May you be adrift in flowers today, whether literal or figurative!  Perhaps I should also include “virtual.”  And happy May Day, which is celebrated with flowers as well!

For Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Nature

View from the top

“Travel” is my choice for Sally’s “Challenger’s Choice”.  The view from Griffith Observatory is one of the top ten things to do or see in Los Angeles.  The night we visited, the observatory was open, free, and impressive.  So was the view.

Abandon hope

“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

OK, this isn’t the gate to Dante’s hell, but it looks much more ominous in black and white than it did in real life and since Sally wants black and white today, that what she gets.  🙂

The Easter ravioli were a big success with even a few left over.  I’m definitely ready to relax a bit after a wonderful church service and good food with good friends.  So I shall say farewell for the evening and good morning to all of you who will read this tomorrow.  I appreciate all of you as well.

Open wide

Descano Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, California, isn’t as big as Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, which I visited during my visit two years ago, but it’s large, beautiful, and much less expensive.  My daughter suggested I go there the last day of my visit and am I glad I did!  I spent well over two hours walking, smelling, sitting, changing lenses on my Nikon, and taking photos with my iPhone.  It was such a wonderfully overwhelming experience that I finally reached the point at which I could not take one more photo or linger in one more garden area!

This shot qualifies for Sally’s theme of “Macro” this week. I like it because it looks as though the flower is sticking its tongue out or the doctor or dentist said, “Say ahhhh.”

Nature juxtaposed

On Monday, I like to participate in Sally’s mobile photography challenge, open to anyone who takes photos with a non-traditional camera, as my phone/camera goes with me everywhere.  The first Monday’s theme is “Nature” and, having been to Yosemite, my natural tendency was to go with something spectacular from there.  After all, what isn’t spectacular there?

But, southern California having a very different climate from that of the Chicago area, nature is also everywhere in the city even now, a juxtaposition I enjoyed greatly, as with the exotic beauty of this bird of paradise bloom against the neutral-colored background of a Spanish-themed apartment complex: city and nature, striking and subdued. Perhaps if you live there, their beauty becomes passé, but to winter-jaded eyes, they were a glorious sight.

Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Black and White…leaf or jawbone?

How can it already by the third Monday of March?  It’s truly March Madness* and not the basketball sort!  However, the third Monday means it time to go retro with a black and white photo and here’s my choice for this week. I hope you enjoy it.

This may be my last post for a while, as I head for California tomorrow morning for a visit with our older daughter.  A short trip to Yosemite is in the plans, weather willing, and I’m taking my Nikon as well as my iPhone.  I’m quite sure you’ll see some of whatever I see during the trip at some time in the not-to-distant future.  🙂  I’m very excited about that trip, as I haven’t been to Yosemite since I was a child, more than a few years ago, and I’ve never been there at this time of year.

Until then, keep well.  I’ll miss you! (I’ll respond to any comments, just not post or read other posts.)

*For those of you not from the US, March Madness is what they call the men’s college basketball tournament that determines the national champion.  It runs for a good part of March all over the US.