We had a choice, see a terraced bounty of tulips at Ananda Village’s Crystal Hermitage Garden in Nevada City or a small patch of them locally in Fair Oaks. Ray and I remembered the crowded walkways and decided to go to Jensen Botanical Gardens. Fortunately, we were the only people there.
I had my 80 mm macro lens on to get up close to these beauties and I was amazed at the variety they planted. Take a look.
So not only did we save time and gas money, we experienced a beautiful tulip garden.
We need to find cause to celebrate. And we need to do this frequently. If we can’t create our own celebration, we can always find one! Amy encourages us to do just that with her challenge this week.
I’ve chosen three festivals I’ve visited during the past years. I visited the Nevada County Fair in Summer, Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley, 2019. It’s a small fair, but large enough for a photographer to have fun.
In December of the same year, we went to experience the Nevada City Victorian Christmas where vendors sold crafts, musicians played and attendees dressed in costume.
In 2020, there wasn’t much happening but we did find a celebration at the Asian New Year Festival in Isleton in February, just before lockdown.
Lions were dancing. Here we can see two dancers getting into their costume and dancing.
Let’s end the fun with a Taiko drumming demonstration.
Thank you Amy for helping us celebrate down memory lane with your wonderful challenge. Seeing pictures from these outings made me smile!
Given this week’s challenge by Patti to focus on details, my mind went back to a Toastmaster Photo Club I tried to start and a speech given by a professional photographer in the group. He talked and demonstrated about a different way to focus on details: finding the picture within the picture.
He showed us how to focus on the details of an image to find more images by cropping sections. His example was of a construction site. First he showed us the entire landscape of the site. Then he focused in on a worker, continued with more sections and ended with a pair of shoes. It was an amazing lesson.
Today I’m going to try the same with a landscape taken yesterday at Scotts Flat Reservoir in Nevada City. I was hiking with my daughter-in-law Jess and granddaughter Olivia. Here’s my picture within a picture.
First the landscape.
Next I isolated Jess, Olivia and their dog Hana.
My final capture from this landscape is of a log on the beach.
Although the official Toastmaster group disbanded, a few of us kept meeting until 14 months ago when the pandemic shut us down. We continued to share information, but I will never forget this lesson on details and finding the picture within the picture.
Photos are our memories, and I’m glad to have images from Ananda Village‘s Crystal Hermitage Garden. Each year, volunteers plant tulips on the terraced hillside, creating such beauty worthy of a yearly visit. However, this year they didn’t open to the public because of the Pandemic.
Ananda Village is just north of Nevada City in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The village is run by a spiritual association that provides a range of tools to strengthen spiritual lives of individuals of all ages. It follows the teaching of Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple, Swami Kriyananda, to meet the needs of spiritual seekers. They also have retreats and rent cabins to individuals who just want to get away and meditate.
A group of us go up each year to take pictures. These are from last year.
Thank you Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles for this Spring Lens-Artist Challenge!
Slow Shutter Speed 