Watery Bellevue Botanic Gardens

Continuing my tour of the Bellevue Botanic Gardens, here are some of the lovely water features, in the grey light from the cloudy and rainy day when I was there.

The next one was taken through some leaves, with a very wide aperture to blur those leaves and create a frame for the water. I'm not sure it's completely successful.

But I did like this green reflection.

I think this is appropriate to link to both Water Wednesday and Scenic Sunday. Visit both memes for lots of great photos!

Varied June Sunset

If I don't respond to your comments for the next couple of weeks, it's because I'm working an absurd number of hours these days. But I still appreciate comments and followers, and I've got several posts scheduled so the blog will remain active! And to answer Linda's question, the falcons are not used to keep the runways clear of birds.

This week's Skywatch Friday photos were all taken on the same late-June evening, from my yard. I thought the variations in the sky over a short period of time (just over an hour) were impressive, and would make a fun entry.

I'll never get tired of the sunrises and sunsets out here.

Air Force Falcon

The mascot at the Air Force Academy is the falcon, and they have several live ones. Here is a young one, on his trainer's hand. These are flash photos taken at night.

What amazing birds to see up close! And for more interesting sights, visit My World Tuesday.

Mycenae Citadel Walls (Greece)

For Sunday Scans, here's another 1973 photo from Greece, of the Mycenae Citadel walls, complete with 1970s-era tourists.

Bellevue Botanic Gardens Flowers

While staying in Bellevue earlier this year, I took the opportunity to visit the Bellevue Botanical Garden, which was close to our hotel. I was impressed, and I've decided to start posting some of the photos from my visit. Here are some of the flowers which I enjoyed. It was a cloudy day, raining by the time that I left, but I was still happy with some of the photographic results.

Every photo I took in this garden was taken with my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens - there wasn't much light, and I really wanted to experiment with using a single non-zoom lens in the field as well as trying a narrow depth of field, forcing me to actively compose the photos. There are several more posts to come from this area. But until then, visit Scenic Sunday for more scenic shots around the world.

Twisty Lightning

Here's another summer lightning shot (taken in my yard as my lightning shots always are) - I liked how curvy this strike was, just twisting everywhere. How did it ever find its way to the ground?

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For more skyward photos, visit the Skywatch Friday meme. And don't worry - I try to stay safe for my lightning shots. We can see for many miles so these strikes are usually further away than they look. I've only been caught by unexpectedly close strikes a couple of times (the closest of which was a couple of streets away and struck a tree), and in any case I'm usually sheltered when I take the photos. But regardless, there's a unique excitement to capturing lightning photos!

Fox Run Socks

For both the My World Tuesday and Pet Pride memes (the latter of which is new to me), here's a photo of my favorite dog, Socks, in Fox Run Park. He's getting older, as the grey is really starting to show. But he'll still happily hike for miles with me.

We often go to this park for walks, as it's close to my house and has several miles of natural hiking trails. It's one of our favorite places!