Notes To My Mother

Buddies are priceless. I have a good buddy, Jerry Huffaker. He rides his bike around Sonoma County traversing a innumerable back roads. He is also a budding photographer so he has been noticing certain things on his rides. Like wild flowers. Today he treated me to an excursion with our cameras, to one of the roads on which he has been enjoying wild flowers for the past few years. Our first stop was this little farm located along the road with a sweet patch of California Poppies in their pasture. We had to shoot through the fence to get some images and wished we had access to get in closer to the flowers. This was taken with a Sony 55-210mm lens at a 114mm 35mm equivalent focal length. Driving a bit farther down the road we came to wild flowers growing between the road and the vineyards.  This was taken with a wide angle lens at a 35mm equivalent 15mm. We spent the rest of our time shooting these flowers, experimenting with different apertures, lenses, fo...

Silent Witness Last October I ended a 45 years career in counseling. I closed the door to my office and three days later jumped in an airplane and went to Eastern Utah for two weeks. It was a rush, a total high. When I came back to Santa Rosa, I was only just beginning to get with the new program of being retired. It has some major differences as you might guess. Like on Sunday afternoon you don’t have to be thinking of the week ahead, you can actually relax and coast into Monday. For the first time ever I do not have obligations first thing in the morning. So I have been spending early morning hours out and about in Sonoma County, rediscovering it’s beauty and charm, and discovering for the first time places I had never seen before, at least not in this early morning light. First Light This was taken along Highway One at the beginning of civil twilight twilight. This is an area of farmland. Lots of dairies, green pastures and farm houses. I was captivated by the ...