April Fool

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I'm an April fool, and same goes for the rest of the year.

Poking around a mountain to see what I might find.

Found most of it before, but it's always new.

I stop shooting just long enough to go out of my mind.

And then I find . . . resistance is futile.

Flowers too small to photograph, or at least I thought so at first.

Too cool to be fooled, Elizabethan leaves.

The monk of Potrero Meadow noting that the geocache remains stashed in its allotted space.

The pontiff of Potrero Meadow, adorned with moss, waits for azaleas to bloom.

Sunshine warms the lupines and perfume wafts into the air.

A fool and his lupines are too soon parted.

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Season of Renewal

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It's always good to be able to push away the obstruction, come out of the cave and embrace a new day. Especially if you can do it with someone you love in a place you love.

Among other projects of renewal this season, I finally broke down and bought a new computer. Because Adobe no longer supports CS2, my upgraded version of CS5 Photoshop became useless, so I subscribed to the CC version and have already fallen in love with the content-aware fill tool. So much better than the clone tool for cleaning up dust spots.

The new machine is also so fast that I no longer have time to brush my teeth or do laundry while HDR operations run, and focus stacks run so fast I can't quite believe it. 

I've also moved my entire image library to a single 5TB external hard drive (my old drives will be used for back-ups). I haven't been able to fit all my images in one place in years, and it's great. I re-imported everything into the CC version of Lightroom and now have a well-structured and complete catalog.

We saw a couple of wild turkeys and several deer today. Seems like it's been a while since I saw any deer out enjoying the hillsides. I guess a few years of drought have been hard on just about all the wildlife, so it's good to see things being back to the "old" normal (while still feeling anxious about the "new" normal). 

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Winter's End

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I hesitated to get up this morning and didn't arrive at the gate until after 7 a.m., so I'm not sure if this was as good as the sunrise color got, or if I missed the peak. The combination of clouds and fog gave the sun just a little window to shine through.

There were several other photographers already there when I arrived. It used to be rare to see anyone else first thing in the morning, but that has been changing over the last year.

I checked out the calla lilies again, having noticed from a distance last week that there were many more blooms on the patch, but it's already gone well past its prime. When I saw that the lilies were a mess I hurried back to hang out with the lupines. What a brilliant morning.

I spent a lot of time just taking things in without taking any pictures. I was surrounded by bird activity, from chickadees to flickers to acorn and pileated woodpeckers, wild turkeys, band-tailed pigeons. And so much green.

It's really a great time to get up there. I think if you rarely go for a hike on Mt. Tam, this is the time to do it, especially along the Coast Trail. There's also still plenty of water in the creeks, so you could pick up a waterfall if you chose the right route.

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