A trip to the San Jose Rose Garden

We went to the San Jose rose garden the morning after it rained all night...All of the roses had natures natural water drops on them. There were lots of different kinds of roses. The roses are constantly being taken care of by a full time crew of gardeners. Here are my favorite photographs from our photography outing..fun.

(click to enlarge all the floweres)

The last rose was laying down on the job.

A walk from Chinatown to Transamerica building etc.

Walking down the street from Chinatown we found this view:

(click to enlarge all the photographs)

When we got down near the Transamerica bldg I took these photos and reflections on the buildings.

My favorite hi rise photo

A Trip to China Town in San Francisco

I have always wanted to go back to Chinatown in San Francisco.

 We went to a park in the middle of Chinatown.

 The parks occupants are mostly retired people. 

(Click to enlarge all the photographs)

People exercising

Lots of people were playing different types of card games

They had a band playing chinese music..which reminded me of chalk on a blackboard

Everyone was sitting around enjoying the music

The streets of Chinatown are interesting

As are the Vegetable markets

                                                                  Shopping for spices

                                                              

                                                               Interesting butcher shop

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this romantic couple walking into china town.

Coyote Hills county park Bird Watching

March has been a fun busy month...First we went to Coyote Hills county park in Newark, Ca..

We walked around and took photographs of Egrets and Pellicans.. The first is an Eqret by the road, who took off flying when we approached...Luckily I captured a couple of photographs:

I never thought I would enjoy taking pictures of birds with a point and shoot camera, but I did...Today these cameras can shoot up to 10,20, or 30 photographs a second. Here are some pelican photographs of them flying.:

This last pelican looks like he just put on his brakes:

My last two pelican photographs are of them fishing together:

February Old timers dance

We went to the Sunnyvale Elks Lodge for a Jazz band dance.. I was sure glad I brought my little canon point and shoot camera... Lots of people were dressed in the 1920's era clothing.. Here are some photographs  of some of the band members.

Here are some of the Dancers..first the shoe shot..

now the dancers..

This last photograph is of a couple who reminded me of a Norman Rockwell painting.. 

They were dancing and I walked up and asked them if I could take their photograph..before they could 

answer I took the photograph, which I love..

I put it in photoshop and made my interpretation of a Norman Rockwell look:

(Click to enlarge)

February Fun

I can't believe that this is the last day of the month.. Time flys when you are having fun..

The othere day I was taking a walk and I spotted this flower in a bush. I took it into photoshop and used topaz simplify...(Click to enlarge)

When I got home I looked at some flowers on a cactus bush..so I took a couple of photographs.

I used Topaz simplify to give it another effect.

One more photograph of a group of these tiny flowers.

Last spring we went to Yosemite national park for a few days.. I always like to take photographs of the 

small waterfalls on the way down into Yosemite valley.. Here is a sample photograph.

I decided I wanted it to look a little painterly so I worked on the image in Topaz Simplify..

(Click to enlarge)

In 1972 I was standing on a bridge, looking at Half Dome. I took this photo with my old practica camera.

I was so excited that I could hardly wait for the slides to come back from the lab..I wasn't disappointed.

With todays photography software you can manipulate an image to your liking..here is a painterly effect.

                              

   (Click to enlarge)                             

A mini vacation in Monterey and Big Sur

This month we went to Monterey in our Rv and stayed at the Elks Club... The Monterey Elks club has an Rv
park for its members...From the Elks club you can travel all over Monterey, Carmel and Big Sur... We met
our friends Kay Bravo and Nan Pipstem for a photo shoot at the Garapata State Beach..It is really a beautiful
location... Here are some photographs that I took there...The First photo I converted to Black and White...The
final sunset was Beautiful. (Click Photo to enlarge)

The first evening we went to the Pacific Grove Beach..it is one of my favorite spots:

The last evening we went looking for some Birds and Surfers. The only surfer I found was one
playing with his Dog:

Thats all for this month..Can't wait for February..