Musings

JCB pointed out to me that this fountain over at the ABG* produces a double rainbow**….

While at the ABG, we found nice orchids, but stayed out of the main orchid house because it was FULL of people.

We found interesting blooms in the high-altitude room, more than we saw there several weeks ago….

We tasted chocolate nibs courtesty of a mobile educational cart, also in the orchid house….

Outside, we strolled the canopy walk, and enjoyed the sun on a bench in at the foot of the Cascades Garden.

We walked to the ABG the long way, via the Carter Center, then up the old rail right-of-way that is becoming the Beltline.

And it was a nice sunny day for all that!

* Atlanta Botanical Garden—and I now include their homepage link because it no longer is a festival of crappy moving images and audio. Or maybe that’s because I’ve blocked flash in Safari with the VERY helpful and useful and I love it: ClicktoFlash.

** Sorry, no audio with over-the-top oooohs and aaaahs….

Posted at 7:24 PM | Comments Off on Double rainbow

I admit it. I’m not ready for the holidays.

Yesterday at the BotGarden, we did pick up some bulbs for some winter flowers and scent—an amaryllis and some paperwhites (LOVE the smell of paperwhites!), but we’ve gotten little beyond that….

So…I’m going to post this, then go hang the wreath Bob sent us….

White Rabbit to Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865): “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!”

Posted at 5:35 PM | 1 Comment »

On today’s walk, we took an unusual route—this is most likely on Sundays, when different buildings are closed, open, busy. We cut through the parking lot of Grady HS, and wound around buildings and by the revamped stadium. I found the colors and lines of the track around the football field, sandwiched between the stands, visually interesting.

Posted at 5:28 PM | Comments Off on Sunday reflection

I find the word “finial” a bit odd, strange, peculiar, and just a tad freaky. So, here’s my attempt to de-mystify the finial, by making it just plain strange. Of course, the decorative kerfs in this wooden example pretty much make it impossible to tell just what this is in this close-up.

Posted at 7:07 PM | Comments Off on Close-up offers clarity?

Okay, one more picture from yesterday’s outdoor lake-side wedding (too overcast and grey out—and, whoops!, now rainy—for a nice photo today): the bride’s after-dark-by-the-campfire-wear included these stunning over-the-knee stockings….

The stockings came from a Left Coast (more-or-less) store that sells only socks!

Enough hyphens for ya?

Posted at 1:55 PM | Comments Off on She’s a trip!

Once again, I only find the “hidden” insect when I look at the photo.

Anyway, one of our “long” peppers—they’re sweet. And this one is just about ready to pick!

Posted at 6:02 PM | Comments Off on Sharpen your eyes

Back before digital cameras I didn’t really know much about backlighting. The Guru has taught me to look for it….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Detail of a leaf

The Guru got me to switch from cropping and “improving” my photos in Photoshop to doing the few operations I use right in iPhoto—since, after all, that’s where the photos (mostly) are sitting to begin with. I find there are pros and cons to each program for the three or four variables I like to tweak (other than cropping—which is mediocre in this specimen).

Anyway, this is a slightly enhanced landscape from our tour down Skyline Drive last month. I try to avoid making photos too sharp and “over-correcting” flaws; I’m afraid, however, that my eye is changing in response to all the over-tweaked photos I see near-daily, and it’s a bit too-too. A bit. Well, I’m not going to redo it today!

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on When the photo and my mind’s eye differ

What’s with the pelican?

Obviously, there’s lots to look at in this September 1941 photograph from the Library of Congress collection taken by Jack Delano in Rutland, Vermont, but my eye returns to the pelican over and over.

Yeah, I get it; s/he traveled with the show, but still I find it confusing to see a pelican in inland New England….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

Sometimes I really can’t figure out peoples’ design paradigms. The piece I can’t figure out with this entry area is the Fresca box….

Mind you, no protection from the purported feline from the screen door….

Posted at 5:31 PM | 1 Comment »