May 13, 2007

• Yesterday I drove to Pasadena, Ca., to the Huntington Library, Art Gallery, and Botanical Gardens, about 60 miles to my north, on a photograhy expedition. Liz (The Queen of Swords), with whom I planned to accompany, had to bow out at the last minute owing to sickness, but later in the day she did take me out to dinner at a fantastic Mexican restaurant in East L.A. I spent about five hours canvassing the 160 acre gardens with my camera, and I was there only to photograph plants and flowers.

  

  I began my day in the cactus garden. I want to excuse myself from the fact that I'm not going to give you botanical information for everything you are about to see. My apologies. Believe it or not, when I worked in Garden Departments in retail back in my youth, I memorized a lot of genus and species names for almost everything we sold and then some. All flora at the Huntington is tagged, but I was there for photographic reasons and not reference work. So if I know the plant I'll identify. Suffice it so say that above is a flowering cactus. From a photographic standpoint, notice the difference in the three "fields" of cactus.

  

  Still don't have a new camera. These were all taken with the 1.2 megapixel still camera in my 3 year old Sony videocamera. I got some interesting shots of bees, since they were all over pollenating yesterday. In fact, had to beat a hasty retreat from one busy bee and his brethren when taking this photo from the photoblog. I guess nature photographers have to be quite patient. More bee shots will "be" in my Webshots Folder when it goes online.

  

  I do know these are Azalea blooms. (Azalea is a member of the Rhododendron family) Since Azaleas and Camelias bloom at the roughly the same times in SoCal, when I saw this, my heart soared, hoping that they had lots of Camelias in the Camelia Garden in bloom perhaps. All the blooms had frozen in the frost we had in January, or crumpled in the extreme heat of May. The Azaleas (this is in the bonsai tree section of the Japanese Garden) were in bloom, however.

  

  They never say 'and botanical gardens" much when talking about the Huntington. It's always "The Library and Art Gallery." There are many varied gardens, and the new Conservatory, where this completely undoctored reflection photo of a lily was taken, contains a "cloud garden" and a "rain forest". The humidity inside the rain forest was very high.

  

  A contrasty shot of two blooms inside the rain forest area of the Conservatory. I wish the Conservatory in the cactus gardens had been open, but it was neat to see the new one was open, since it was only being built last time I visited the grounds.

  

  Wildflowers in the Shakespeare Garden. Situated outside the main residence, which was where Henry E. Huntington lived, and which is now the currently being renovated Art Gallery on the grounds, the Shakespeare Garden contains plants and flowers local to English gardens. I always try to get interesting angles, and you might not realize it, but in some of these shots my camera is pretty low to the ground. This has some good contrast, but some shots I make where I'm reaching out so much I can hardly see the little LCD screen, and some shots are highly planned, and some the result of kismet. The heartbreak is when I think I have something great and get home and it's not what I imagined.

  

  That said, this is a composite shot. The orchid (I'm pretty sure it's an orchid, I could be wrong) bloom was pasted from a close up photo, since the bloom in this shot was slightly out of focus. I am always trying different focus "tricks" with my present camera. I can hardly wait to get something that records the photos in 5 or more megapixel. I have to be really careful to get the best shot with the 1.2 I'm carrying around now.

  

  This rose bloom was captured in the Rose Garden, which was abloom aplenty. Lots of pinks and reds and whites. This multicolored pastel pink and yellow caught my eye.

  

  Also from the Rose Garden, I waited for a long time, and shot countless useless photos trying to get the exact right time when the wind blew the roses and the flag in the right composition for a photo. I think this one came out the best. The blooms are supposed to be slightly out of focus. (I can play lots of digital tricks by the way, but I choose not to with most of my photography.) It's easy to shoot the photo with crystal clarity with a digital camera, but I turn off the auto focus and rely upon my focus ring and instincts, since sometimes the glare on the LCD screen is bad and I can't focus through the sight with my glasses on, and can't see with them off.

  

  My favorite garden at the Huntington is the Japanese Garden, complete with vintage Japanese house and a footbridge over the koi pond. The photographic intent of this shot was to mimic the arc of the bridge with the bend in the tree branch above it. I had to have lots of patience when shooting a lot of the landscape photos becase I don't want "tourists' which look horribly out of place, in the shot. And let me tell ya, there were thousands of tourists there yesterday. This used to be a sleepy little museum when I first went there, and now it's turned into Disneyland.

  

  I liked the textures evident in this shot of some twisted junipers on the banks of the stream running into the Japanese Garden. The new Chinese Garden, being constructed at the north end of the grounds, looks to be a fantastic place when it opens in 2008. The stream will start there from the lake and flow back into the Japanese pond.

  

  One last look at the cactus garden. Happy Mother's Day. I spent most of the morning on this entry, so hopefully you Mothers will get the greeting in time if you happen to viist me later today. If you click onthe photo, you'll be taken to the photoblog, and clicking on it there will give you the larger image. STILL MORE PHOTOS TAKEN ON THIS SHOOT ARE IN THE "FLORA AT THE HUNTINGTON FOLDER" IN MY XANGA PHOTOBLOG

  For eagle eyed MikeVideo fans, the 2nd of 3 "webisodes" of "Almost Homeless" has been online in the Xanga Video folder for an hour or so now. I invite you to go see it and give it 5 stars, won't ya?

  • 2:53 pm
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