On my morning walk, a great blue heron and a beautiful flowering Japanese cherry tree. Lovely start to the weekend!
Read about a 1,200 year archive of Japanese cherry blossom dates in Japan.
Categories
Sakura
Tag: sharon park
On my morning walk, I’m often surprised and delighted by some moment of serendipity that pops up and pulls my mind out of whatever rut it’s in and opens it up to what’s happening in the moment. Always a delight when it happens. Often becomes the highlight of my morning!
Here’s what popped up on my walk when I turned a corner and moved up a walkway…
Wow! Those light beams shining down. The woman standing right in the center. And the. A few moments later her companion joined…
I almost couldn’t work my iPhone fast enough to capture the moments but I got lucky.
I often enjoy exploring an image in black and white. Not sure it’s the best for this image given the color of the sun’s rays but worth a try…
She left before I could walk over and say hello leaving me behind with that delightful sense of wonder that occurs when moments like these come along in my life.
On my morning walk this morning, I came across this young woman sitting on the pavement adjacent to pond at Sharon Park – looking across the water to the fountain and a sunny Sunday morning sky.
The fountain in the pond was just re-activated a few days ago – and it adds so much to the image by creating a point of interest where otherwise there’d just be negative space. It was blessed with great timing – both her being there and the fountain now active again.
There’s a walkway behind where she was sitting which is elevated by about four feet so I walked around behind her on to that walkway and snapped a few photos with my iPhone 14 Pro Max. This is the most peaceful and Zen-like of them – and I opted to post-process into black and white to remove all of the color and focus the eye on just the contrast between light and shadow.
Hope you also enjoy this image!
Categories
Reflection
On my morning walk yesterday the skies had some moisture in them that combined with the morning sun to make a lovely pattern. The surface of the pond was smooth because the fountain which is usually running and making subtle waves is still offline due to damage from last winter’s storms. Most of the time I’ve missed the fountain but this morning I was happy the surface of the pond was like glass!
The questions about this image include:
- Color or monochrome – I tried both and decided the subtle color of the original worked best.
- The tree limb – there’s a pesky (actually pretty) willow tree at the end of the pond that likes to intrude in photos taken from this particular spot. I debated about removing it in Photoshop or not and decided it was a feature worth leaving in.
This particular pond is among my most photographed locations. I’ve captured it in all seasons and from many angles. It’s truly one of my favorite photographic subjects! Yesterday the light/cloud combination was just lovely! I make the image with my iPhone 14 Pro Max.
During these hopefully late stages of pandemic life I’ve been doing a regular morning walk around Sharon Park and the pond.
Last week the City of Menlo Park drained and cleaned the pond. It’s looking fresh again after a summer with some algae growth.
The last couple of early mornings have been foggy which adds a moodiness to the scene. And it’s usually pretty quiet early in the morning!
I’ve recently shared on Instagram a couple of photos taken on these recent morning walks. These photos have been post-processed using the iPhone Photos app along with DistressedFX+ and Snapseed. These apps have become my usual workflow for processing on my iPhone. These tools are quick and easy to use plus they help add some drama and a painterly effect to the images.
Went for a walk on this lovely brisk January morning at Menlo Park’s Sharon Park.
iPhone 11 Pro Max Live photo – edited first in Photos (to change to Long Exposure) and add a bit of warmth. Next, edited in Snapped to add a touch of ambiance, a bit of negative structure (more painterly), and added a No. 12 black border (size: 20).
A late Tuesday afternoon, after a bit of rain – along the shore of Sharon Park.
Image shot with Fujifilm X-T1
As I headed out the door this morning to do a bit of grocery shopping for our dinner tonight I stopped by Sharon Park briefly. I love the low sun angle this time of year – and it was filtering through the trees from this particular angle which captured my eyes.
I post-processed this in Photoshop CC using a combination of Topaz Simplify 4, the Oil Paint filter, and some old fashioned dodging and burning to add a stronger sense of depth. Shot with my Fujifilm X100S.
Once in a while, I’ll snap a quick shot on my iPhone and, sometime later, come back and look at it more closely. This is one of those images – shot yesterday at Sharon Park in Menlo Park while out for a walk with Lily. I had just come back from the Menlo Park Library where I’d spent an hour or two looking through some of their great books – including a huge book on the French Impressionists and a large 1974 collection of Ansel Adams’ images.
Perhaps some sort of combination of those two is what I saw when I snapped this shot while on the go with my iPhone 5. I opted to post process it using Topaz Simplify 4 – with the Black and White I preset brought back into Photoshop in Luminosity blend mode. I then added an Oil Paint layer – that impressionist effect working a bit of its magic on me!
You must be logged in to post a comment.