Almond Orchards Are Like Snowflakes

Each one is unique!

Up until today, all my almond blossom photos have been from one particular orchard in Capay that I deemed especially photogenic.  The orchard in today's photo is just a few miles away, right here in Davis.  I've posted a blog photo of this orchard before on December 7, 2012.  As you can see from both photos, this orchard configuration encourages leaves and petals to collect on the ground.  I'm not sure why this is.  The orchard is unusual in that it's almost completely bare dirt underneath, so perhaps that's part of the reason.  The other thing you can see from both photos is that we have a very short winter here! 

September 20

The final Cruise-In of the summer and I'm happy to say I had a tough time chosing between three photos tonight.  And I liked all of them better than my last month's photo.   Not that I'm looking to become a car photographer.  Just looking.  One thing I will say about the Cruise-In, it always seems to land on the 100 plus days around here.  And it starts at 5pm which is the hottest time of the day.  So I spend my time wandering around a sweltering asphalt parking lot with the sun glaring off lots of shiny chrome, and I think I'm becoming conditioned to sweat when I see old cars!  At least looking at photos of old cars reminds me of being really hot.
f/8 at 1/320, ISO400, 55mm.

July 4

Happy 4th of July!  This was shot at our local 4th of July celebration here in Davis at the field behind the high school.  We arrived sort of late, so we ended up at this spot under a tree, which worked for viewing about half the fireworks.  Too bad the rest opened behind the tree.  I liked the idea that there would be some framing in the shot, but I don't think the tree really needed to be in that much!  I definitely wanted the people viewing the fireworks to be part of the framing.  We didn't realize it when we arrived, but we sat right under a street light, so I think that helped add light to the spectators.  This particular fireworks was the one that sizzles and pops.  I think it came out really nice in this photo.  It sort of looks like a space ship just went into hyperspace mode. Or maybe like a swarm of fireflies. The other thing I like about this photo is the blue twilight glow in the sky.  They did actually start the fireworks before it was totally dark, which I've never seen done before.  It seemed dark at the point this was taken, but it's a 3 second shutter speed here, so it just brought in all the residual light, and made that deep blue color, which makes a really nice graphic night sky.