Posted on by Anne Sandler · 31 Comments

Lens Artists Challenge #232: Looking Back

I have a lot to look back at; but, at 79, I prefer to look forward! However, Sophia is challenging us to look back and see how things have changed. I remember having a party-line phone when I was a kid, and now I have a phone, small enough to hold in my hand and it’s all mine!

But getting back to photography, my New England trip showed me old architecture and new. Here in Boston one side of the street has old buildings and the other has new.

I found the same in Portland Maine.

Sacramento also shows old and new. Here’s a building in Old Sacramento and another on Capitol Avenue near the State Capitol building.

Also in Sacramento I found old and new escape routes. Fire escapes (But, maybe not as I’m looking at them now. They may just be terraces, but we can pretend they are fire escapes!) and a stairwell. They used the Fire escapes instead of stairs and the stairwell instead of the elevators.

Now on to the Crocker Art Museum. The old home was gifted by the Crocker family to be used as an art museum. You are only seeing the outside, but the inside is beautiful. A new additional building was added on and is the main entrance. The two buildings are connected and can be accessed inside.

My last trip down memory lane and back is the Peanuts comic strip. During my recent visit to the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa I photographed a couple of Schultz’s early strips.

This is what the strip looks like today as Classic Peanuts after Charles Schultz’s passing.

Sophia, this was fun! Thanks for the journey. I am happier with my cell phone then a party line

We all enjoyed seeing your 2022 fabulous favorites last week. When you respond to this challenge, please remember to link to Sophia’s post and use the Lens Artists tag. I’ll be leading the Challenge next week so stay tuned!

If you would like to participate weekly in our Lens-Artists Challenge, click here for more info. 

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 45 Comments

Lens Artists Challenge #231: Favorite Images of 2022

To be honest, 2022 wasn’t my favorite year. I spent most of it in the blahs with a few exceptions. Now John has tasked us with the challenge to pick our favorite images of what was my blah year! To do this, I decided to pick one favorite from each month.

January: Laura and I went to the Point Reyes National Seashore. The Tule Elk were out. What is this one trying to tell me?

February: An outing to Grass Valley in the Sierra Nevada Foothills yielded this pine cone in perfect light.

March: Ray and I made our yearly pilgrimage to Lincoln to photograph Great Egrets and Blue Herons nesting in three trees.

April: Again another yearly visit to Ananda Village and their Tulip Festival. It’s the same each year and it’s always beautiful.

May: My year can’t be complete without showing you a visit to the Sacramento Zoo. One of my favorites is the pelican who lives with the flamingos. He’s missing a wing and can’t fly. This time he was close.

June: Our yearly trip to the Land Park pond to photograph the Lotus wasn’t as spectacular as previous years, but you never give up.

July: My wanting to get Downtown Sacramento building images ended with me getting a flat tire and the AAA driver getting lost! But I was able to get a few photographs.

August: brought us down the the Amtrak station in Sacramento. I tried in-camera double exposures and got one fairly good shot.

September: Another annual event, Chalk It Up. This artist’s piece of Gene Wilder was amazing.

October: I finally had the opportunity to photograph outside of my local area. I joined friends on a New England cruise. Before the cruise we spent time in Virginia. Here’s an image from the Luray Caverns.

November: My photo buddies and I went to the California Museum. It’s a place I need to return to without my camera. I spent a lot of time photographing angles and lines.

December: We were staying with the grandkids in Reno, Nevada when a snow storm hit. This is a picture of the sun rising on the mountains with houses and Reno below.

So that was my year in pictures. Thank you John for helping me realize it wasn’t a blah year after all. I’m anxious to see all of your favorites. When you post please remember to link to John’s post and use the Lens Artists tag. Next week Sofia leads the challenge so look for her post.

 For more information on joining the challenge each week, check here.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 18 Comments

Happy 2023: Day two in Bodega Bay

Happy New Year everyone! Each year we wish that this brand new year brings health, happiness and prosperity. I’m wishing for good health. Health brings happiness and a prosperous attitude. Above all, let’s keep smiling through this year! Smiles are catching and have a healing quality.

We did a lot of smiling during our brief stay at Bodega Bay. On day two, we went to the beach. Again we had cloud cover with a hint of sunshine. Almost sounds like an ice cream sunday, doesn’t it. Yum!

Here are pictures from our beach visit. Here a seagull found its best photographic side.

Learning how to fish.

The beach.

Beach views from the top of the hill.

A colorful kite shop in town. I resisted buying the candy.

This was a great way to end 2022. What will 2023 bring us? I gave up predicting years ago. I also gave up making resolutions. I just try to be the best me that I can be.

Right now it’s still raining in the Sacramento area, and that is good even though some areas are flooding. Our lakes are filling up and we will probably get a good snow pack in the mountains that will give us water during the summer.

Take care everyone, and I wish you the best this year.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 14 Comments

What a museum: California Museum

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and relax because there a more than my normal pictures in this post. I was surprised and amazed at the amount of information and presentation at the California Museum. Two hours wasn’t really enough to absorb everything especially when you are photographing the exhibits.

Here’s the introduction to the place in the gift shop.

The visiting exhibit, Celebrate Women, was geared to women and young girls, helping them understand that they can aspire to be like many of the famous role models. Each exhibit had a view screen with more information. You can see how inviting the exhibits were. Because I was busy taking photos, I didn’t look at the exhibit screens and probably missed a lot. What we do for cool images! Writing this blog, I know I have to go back, without my camera.

The stairs offered us photographic opportunities too!

We will get back to the inside exhibits, but we did go outside to the back courtyard. I should say the beautiful back courtyard. One wall was artistically done with encouraging statements, and architecturally all the buildings surrounding it blended.

Various nationalities have left their impact in California. We know the Chinese and Mexicans certainly left their imprint in California. A lot of space was given to these nationalities showing and explaining their contributions to what California is today.

We’ve learned that the Chinese helped build the railroads and more. But, how about the food we enjoy today.

Mexicans brought their culture and holidays like Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. Below are three-sided cards made by school children to honor the holiday. The painting struck me as amazingly detailed.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the Filipino influence on California history. It is described in this exhibit.

Of course, the entertainment industry had and has a big impact on California. Here are three showcases honoring the entertainers and the industry.

One hallway, honoring our Native American cultures, which I think was a permanent exhibit. Artifacts were behind glass and the hallway was dark. Meaning, difficult to photograph. I did get some pictures from the ceiling. The beautiful paintings ran the entire hallway.

We can’t forget about health. A considerable amount of space was dedicated to healthy eating.

Before we left, the last exhibit I saw honored the nurses who helped us through the darkest days of the Covid pandemic.

I’ll say it again, The California Museum was amazing. I will go back!

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 27 Comments

Beyond kids: Chalk It Up

Each year Fremont Park in Sacramento hosts Chalk It Up where artists claim a sidewalk square and create art with chalk. Some use liquid chalk and some use regular chalk. We went on the last day of the festival. I was surprised at how many artists were still at work. It was to be another triple digit day. So when we arrived at 7:30 a.m.. there were many others trying to beat the heat.

There were many wonderful squares, but you know art, it’s what you like! I narrowed down my many likes and came up with these to show you. First look at some artists at work.

These artists are willing to stop talk and explain their art. Next there were some pictures that were 3D.

Now, the best of the rest!

It was difficult to choose which pictures to show you. Maybe next year you’ll have to do down to see them for yourself. Or, find a festival like this in or near your home town.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 28 Comments

Lens-Artists Challenge #214: Favorite Finds

How do you narrow down your favorite finds, especially when you’ve already shared some of them? So, I’m switching things up a bit. Ann-Christine wants us to share favorite finds at museums, nature; anything that filled us with awe. My twist is to share a few from favorite outings and pictures that you may not have seen.

In Sacramento we have hot days where we look to photograph indoors. I’ve shown you some from IKEA. But it’s been a long time since we’ve visited a museum. They closed down in 2020 and have been slow to reopen. We enjoyed the Aerospace Museum in North Highlands. The old aircraft and space exhibits had a lot to offer us photographers.

Stores are another place we’d take our cameras to. The Antique Trove in Roseville was also closed during 2020. We’d take our time going through the small stalls, finding unique items. They also have an outside area that would, of course, be closed during rain storms. We could use one of those storms now. How would you like one of those cameras? It’s now a lamp. The windmill could give your yard a farm feel. And could you give a hoot?

Another museum we used to enjoy is the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento. One complication was the ropes that stopped us from touching the vehicles. My way of getting around that was to photograph close ups. While we still have horns, we’ve done away with lamp lighting. We’ve also done away with hood ornaments.

And new to me were barn quilts. I found out about The Rio Linda Elverta Quilt Trail Project, a group that put together a barn quilt route. A barn quilt is a painted wooden quilt pattern or replica of a sewn quilt. The women would meet in a garage and cut, saw and paint. They would do this for anyone who asked for their art. Along the route, we saw the quilts on houses, businesses and barns. Photo buddy Jim is standing behind the sign outside their garage.

And to finish up, I’ll show you Peggy Sue’s Diner in Barstow. Out in the California desert, in the middle of nowhere, is Peggy Sue’s. It’s worth the wait to go inside. I remember being amazed when we walked in. It was decorated with 50s and 60s movie and entertainment memorabilia. And the food is good too.

These are just some of the places we found to photograph, and I would love to go back now that they are fully open. Thank you Ann-Christine for having us concentrate on our favorites. Remember to link to her post when you respond and use the Lens-Artist tag. We’d love to see your post. And thank you all for your beautiful rays of sunshine in Amy’s Here Comes the Sun challenge. Next week John is going to have us concentrate on modes of transportation, so look for his post.

If you would like to participate weekly in our Lens-Artists Challenge, click here for more info. 

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 15 Comments

Sacramento’s buildings

Sometimes architecture calls, especially for photo buddy Richard. I don’t object, because I like it also, especially when there are great reflections. Here are the results of a recent downtown Sacramento outing. Some images have descriptive captions. There are more than my usual picks, so have fun!

I loved this mural!
You know I can’t resist red. Taken in Old Sacramento.
Lady Gaga mural, reflections and shadows.
Trying to emphasize the window terraces.
Window terraces and shadows.
Lines, shadows and angles.
The Golden One Center

You can see there are a lot of new buildings in Sacramento. One of our outings must be focused on the old structures in Sacramento.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 15 Comments

Grab a brush: Wide Open Walls

The annual Wide Open Walls Festival is adding more beauty to Sacramento’s buildings. To beat the heat, we left at 7:30 a.m. and headed to downtown. I had a list of about 30 murals and addresses. Diane was our navigator and I drove the one-way streets which sometimes turned into two-way streets. And when you’re not familiar with the streets, mistakes are easy to make. Need I say more.

I’m not going to show you all that I photographed, just some special art pieces. Let’s begin with this one. The artist did separate panels on the building’s walls. I loved the colors and surrealism.

Next is a mural and a close up of the woman’s face. We found on a SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) building. Tea anyone?

This next set is full of symmetrical and asymmetrical designs.

Here are some odds and ends that I thought were great.

I’ll end with art that isn’t a painted mural and I don’t think is part of Wide Open Walls. They are mosaic art images and in some places raised. They are beautiful.

We will return for more mural photography and I hope to have more fantastic pieces to show you.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 25 Comments

Triple digits heat wave: Lotus pond, Land Park

Let’s go back 21 years when we moved to Sacramento, there was maybe one week of triple digit temperatures during the entire summer. We’ve already had that many and it’s not even the end of June! The heat stiffles any desire to grab a camera and go out for the day. Enough griping!

Recently Marlene and I took advantage of a morning when the temperature was to max out in the 90s and went to William Land Park in Sacramento to photograph the lotus blossoms. I think they were just as affected by the heat as we were. Also the cluster of lotus were far away from the bank of the pond. Getting super close was not possible. Here are some of the blossoms. The close ups are well cropped.

What truly impressed me was the size of the leaves. They were impressive. The lotus aren’t the only attraction at the pond. There are others:

Also, in today’s world, I always get pleasure from the kindness and friendliness of others. We met three women who saw our cameras and asked us to take their picture with their cell phone. We talked with them. They offered advice on how I could reduce the pain in my hip. They also had us take a picture of each of us and them with our cameras. Here’s the one I took of them and Marlene.

This last picture was taken just before entering the pond area. It’s not a lotus but I liked the lighting.

It’s supposed to be cooler this week, so maybe I won’t be so grumpy! We’ll see what July brings. In the meantime, enjoy your summer and stay safe.

Posted on by Anne Sandler · 19 Comments

Just a short post: McKinley Rose Garden

A rose will always be a rose! And I do love them. They are the only plants I personally take care of. I have a small but beautiful rose garden. But today I’m writing about my adventure at the McKinley Park Rose Garden in Sacramento.

Every year they have a photo contest to see which photographer will win the coveted first place prize. Last year, I was lucky enough to win first place. This is the winning photo.

This year I also went down to the garden to take photos. That day, the wind was blowing and the roses were either on their way out or budding. But with my macro lens on my Fuji, I did my best. I used a high shutter speed and hoped for a slight breeze. Of course it was the last week of the contest–no going back another day! You know I procrastinate.

Here are the best of lot. We are allowed five entries. In 2020 I received an honorable mention.

We’ll see what happens and I’ll let you know–even if I don’t place.