On the Trail

San Diego's Balboa Park has a rather unique trail. It is called the Bridle Trail, and the unique thing about it is that for almost all of it's one-mile length it is within sight of a very busy highway, State Route 163.

Getting to the Bridle Trail is not the easiest task as the three ways to it that I know of require quite steep downhill climbs to get to the level the highway and the trail are at (and of course steep climbs to get back to one's transportation.) So, the Trail is not heavily used, and I myself have gone to it only very sporadically, though it is a very nice walk.

I decided to use it last year for a photography class project, taking environmental portraits. (Or, as in my case, environmental self-portraits. The comments on those photos are from the class instructor and myself.)

Yesterday, January 30, 2010, was a very nice day, which helped me make up my mind to take my camera back to the Bridle Trail and look for new (outside of a class) photos.

Reviewing what I took, I've come with a couple photos so far that I'm happy with:

This view of a small part of the trail, emphasizing the trees lining both sides:

...and this view of another small section of the trail, but also illustrating just how closely State Route 163 (the southbound lanes) runs alongside most of the Trail.



(Clicking either photo will take you to larger versions on Flickr.)

That's an "ouch" moment

As an avid photographer (and aspiring seller of prints of my photos), I am a big fan of the web comic What the Duck for it's very funny and frequently very pointed observations about photographers and photography.

When I saw today's edition of the comic, my first thought was "Ouch!" Check it out.

Lantanas flowers among the rain

Purple lantana flowers (Lantana montevidensis)
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

I had in December posted to Flickr a photo of a grouping of red, orange, and yellow Lantana flowers (http://flic.kr/p/7n9Pid).

As flowers of lantana plants can come in many colors, I've been hoping to find such examples to also photograph.

So: One of the routes I take to get the parking lot at my workplace passes a patch of what appeared to be lantana flowers. Earlier this month I walked to this patch of landscaping and found that is indeed what they are. I guessed they were somewhat immature, as they were not as cleanly structured as the flowers in the earlier photo.

I took some photos at the time, but wasn't happy with any of the results.

Earlier this week I reminded myself to try again. That took some time to do. The San Diego area (and much of California) has been experiencing this week extremely wild weather, one strong storm after another rolling in from offshore. Finally on Friday during my lunch break we were having a decent break between showers, so I took that opportunity to walk back to the patch of lantana plants and get more photos of the flowers.

Seen here is the best result, some purple flowers. There were also a number of white flowers; I'm still fiddling with a photo of those in post production, trying to get a result I'll be happy with.

In the meantime, I hope you like this example of purple lantana flowers.

High surf

High surf - Ocean Beach
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

I drove to San Diego's Ocean Beach neighborhood on January 15, planning to walk on the pier that is there and look for photographic opportunities.

Upon arrival I found access to the pier had been closed because of exceptionally high (for San Diego) surf that was occurring. As it was a very cloudy and gray day, I realized this was likely a preferable situation photography-wise, and spent several minutes getting exposures of the surf breaking against the pier's pilings.

More photos from that visit coming today, and, probably, tomorrow; most likely including a couple triptychs.

Again with the coral tree flowers

Coral tree flower at Lake Murray
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

I seem to be developing an unintended specialty in my landscape photography of photos of coral tree flowers. (Such as this new one.)

I'm on vacation this week, so today I decided to drive out to the City of San Diego's Lake Murray, a water reservoir and recreational area.

My first thought for the visit was to get in a good exercise walk while enjoying the sights of the lake, but I also brought along my point-and-shoot camera in case I came upon anything that attracted me for photo purposes. (Might post more of them later in the week.)

So, I found one coral tree, and it was blooming flowers like crazy in only one section of it's branches. I have no clue why flowers would be growing in that manner, but there they were, so I took several exposures

Also took several shots of the lake with intent to generate a panorama. (By using Hugin, but the result was unsatisfactory, due to my letting the camera drift up and down too much.)

Clouds through trees

Clouds through trees
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

To start this post, I need to explain some logistics. The door to my condominium is reached by an open staircase. (The door for the condo of one my neighbors shares the staircase access.)

I've been noting for some time when I step outside and look straight ahead before descending the stairs, I see an interesting combination of two trees: a sweetgum, and directly on the other side of a neighboring building in the condo complex, a bottlebrush.

Seeing this, it has been occurring to me this could make an interesting photo, but I wasn't noticing good combinations of circumstances for that purpose until yesterday (July 12, 2010) when I saw some interesting cloud formations in the sky beyond the two trees.

So, I jumped back inside and grabbed the camera, and took several exposures. I thought this was the best of those.

Aquariums at Rubio's gone?

I noticed a couple weeks ago when I stopped at a local Rubio's for lunch that the place's aquarium was gone.

As long as I've been eating at Rubio's restaurants, each spot has had a moderately large aquarium with several varieties of fish. It's always been a pleasant feature, and of course children love to watch the fish swimming.

So, when I saw the aquarium was gone at the one Rubio's I visited a little while ago, I was surprised, but thought perhaps it was just being replaced.

But I stopped at a different Rubio's a little earlier today, and in that one also, no aquarium. Huh.

Just before typing up this post, I tried searching in Google and Google News to see if anything was being said about aquariums being removed from Rubio's restaurants. Despite using several combinations of phrases and words, I didn't come up with anything that seemed pertinent. I'm assuming I just wasn't finding the right combination of words, so I'm curious if anyone out there has seen anything online about this?

Very unusual flowers

Flowers of a firewheel tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus)
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

During a visit to Balboa Park, a couple trees at the lawn bowling courts caught my attention. (This is in an area of the park known as West Mesa; it's a relatively thin strip of land immediately west of State Route 163; the large bulk of the park is to the east of that highway.)

Specifically, the bright red flowers on the trees caught my eye.

As I got close I realized I was looking at one of the more unusually structured flowers I've ever seen, as seen in this photo I took at the time.

I was unable at the time to determine what the tree is called, which frustrated me, because I vastly prefer to be able to ID a plant I have taken a photo of when I put it online.

This afternoon I visited the park's Botanical Building, and on the way out noticed some pamphlets that were available for the taking.Viola! One of them had details of many notable plants on the West Mesa, including these trees.

And so I am pleased to present these flowers of a firewheel tree. (Formal name: Stenocarpus sinuatus)