Walk on the Wild Side

I visited the San Jacinto National Monument Visitor Center and did a short walk along the Randall Henderson Trail. I did not walk the full three miles of the trail but was busy shooting the wonderful wild flowers that were blooming along the trail. I can’t identify all of the flowers but did my best with the books that I have.
Many of the Cacti were blooming. The most prevalent was the Beaver Tail with its wonderful pink flowers. I also found one barrel cactus, some cholla, and ocotillo that were blooming. One purple flower that was very prevalent I was not able to identify. I also saw a lizard and jack rabbit along the way.
It was a warm day and with all the desert flowers blooming I think my allergies are acting up.
More pictures can be seen at my Flickr account.

Love or Something Like It

The highlight of my season at RCB is over. This year eight singers including myself and Pauline presented a musical review called “Love or Something like it. I sang two songs with Pauline including “All I Ask of You” from Phantom of the Opera and I did three solos including “Some Enchanted Evening”.
It was well received by the people and we had many wonderful comments about the show. It is always a pleasure to work with Pauline. The focus of the show is on the music and there is very little use of props or costumes. I guess it is the old Keep It Simple Stupid outlook on doing a show.
We had Ruth on piano and she is always a great help with her ability to follow the singer and to change from one song to another when we put several songs together in one set. I had not been singing very much for a number of years until I had a chance to work with Pauline and I have learned a lot from her and the other people in the group. It is great to sing and for people to enjoy it.

Photography Workshop

I have been taking as many wildflower pictures as I can since our photography workshop in Phoenix. I also posted a number of pictures taken during the workshop online. One of the things about the workshop was the wide range of cameras the people had. Many had SLR’s and several lens but there were still many that had only a very basic point and shoot.
For an untrained person like myself I really didn’t see that much difference in the pictures that were taken. Yes the people with the long telephoto lens got some great shots. One person, a birder, had a 60 power spotting scope that he used to put in front of his camera to take pictures.
The picture I placed at the first of blog was a picture I took with my Canon 550 and just by luck it turned out great without the need for a lot of work in Photoshop. It just goes to show that the fancy camera is not all it takes. I had been wondering about going SLR and the cost but I also saw the amount of heavy bags many of the people were carrying to take pictures. With all my traveling I don’t think I want to have one more LARGE bag of rocks to carry. OK I did buy the adapter for my S5 so I could put on filters and got the 1.5X telextender but I am still lighter than many of the people.
I will be out shooting and not becoming the hunch-back of Corvallis. I will say that the Photoshop hints and demonstrations he did were great. He didn’t do much and most of it I had done but it was great to see how he used it and made the pictures POP. Each of use got to submit 6 pictures and he would discuss them using Photoshop and do some modification on them. It has changed what I do in some cases but not on all pictures.

Wildflowers

Wildflowers are starting to bloom in the desert. We have had enough rain that the warm weather has brought and beautiful array of wildflowers. I have not had a chance to get out and really enjoy all the flowers but hope to get out for a hike or drive before all the flowers are gone.
I did take a walk to the end of our street and into the empty lot that is to be a city park at some time in the future. It had a very nice collection of flowers and I spent about thirty minutes shooting a number of the flowers. I selected five of them and submitted to The Desert Sun for their wildflowers pictures online. Of the five I selected to submit one was selected by the editors to print in the Saturday paper. You can look at mine and other photographs online. I go by the name Roland42. The picture with two purple flowers was the one that was published. I will try to get more information about all the things I am doing now ASAP. It is a very busy time.