Happy Friday!

I love Fridays, especially the Friday before a long weekend!  I missed a couple of days this week because I wasn't feeling well, so here's a bunch of stuff I took this week to catch up.  Happy (long) weekend!

This cat always gives me the most amazing profile shots!

First real "profile" of Toby.  He's often too scared to have his picture taken.

This is the underside of a boat that had been pulled out of the water for painting.  I love the colors and the optical illusion that the lower half is angled towards the viewer (it's not).

An old cannery in Alameda.  Beautiful brickwork here!

More 100L love!

I rented this lens through BorrowLenses.com (what a fabulous idea for a company!) especially for our afternoon at Filoli (see previous post), but I've since taken it out on a couple of photowalks around the neighborhood.  Mixed results overall with most of the issues resulting from focus or depth of field problems, but here are some of the ones I really liked.

Filoli

Filoli is a 654-acre mansion and garden in Woodside, CA that was built after the 1906 earthquake by the Bourn family, who owned the Empire Gold Mine in Grass Valley, CA.  The mansion was designed by Willis Polk, one of California's leading architects, and the garden was designed by Bruce Porter, a San Francisco artist and designer.  The Bourns lived in the house until their deaths in 1936, after which the house was sold to the Roths, who owned Matson Navigation.  Mrs. Roth donated the estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1975.  The estate is open from February through October and plantings in the garden change seasonally, tended by 14 staff horticulturists and hundreds of interns and volunteers.  We spent an afternoon there a couple of days ago with a 100mm f/2.8L macro lens that I rented for the occasion.  Here are some of my favorites from the day.

Poppies!

There's this house in Alameda whose front yard is totally covered with poppies and other wildflowers.  I passed by a couple of days ago and the light was so perfect, I had to stop.  Confession: I've been itching to take photos of this yard for weeks now, and I finally got the chance. 

I just ordered the third one on a canvas and I can't wait to see how it turns out.  It should be a great companion piece to this one.



Finally!

Today is my last day of graduate school.  I've been working on this since January, 2008 and I don't think I ever thought it would take this long, but here we are.  And when I walked into my therapist's office this morning I said, last week I was a grad student, this week I am a photographer.  And that's how I'd like to see myself over the next few years: a photographer with an MPA degree and a CPA license.  As Tevye said, sounds crazy, no?

No, not at all!  Besides, I've got Pandora's seal of approval!

Odd reflections

I was taking care of a friend's cat last week and I saw this vintage Pontiac (?) parked outside her neighbor's house.  I love old cars because they have such great lines and shapes.  New cars, not so much, in my opinion.  Anyway, here's a self-portrait, of sorts.

It's raining, it's pouring...

Mother Nature seems to be somewhat confused.  Today's date is May 17th, not March 17th, but MN has seen fit to drop a bunch of cold rain on us today.  Not fun.  So in the interest of bringing Spring back to the bay, or at least dropping hints about it, here are a couple I took this weekend in Alameda.