Active

First try at getting the cyclists, didn’t see them coming so I didn’t have time to change any settings.

Delicate

Skeeter hawk hanging around, guess the skeeters won’t be far behind.

Violet

Wisteria usually doesn’t do all that well here but I guess the record breaking winter we had did result in some awesome floral displays.

The Boy

Arc

The iron benches at the start of a “bike” trail. Multiple arcs. Played with a couple of filters including a radial blur. I tried cropping it down to one bench but I didn’t care for it as much.

Looking Down

An amazing amount of green since it’s all freeze damaged. The orange jessamine has lost most of it’s leaves, some are still green.  One of the few fern fronds that isn’t burnt to a crisp.

Cold

My poor Plumeria did not like our freezing weather. This one was a lovely 15 foot specimen that burned back badly last year during a freeze. The one small limb that survived took a hit with the hard freezes this year. Not sure if this one will survive.  I was playing around with different filters and blend modes and added a texture.  And being interrupted and distracted a few times I don’t know how I ended up with this image!

Layers

This is what is left of a rose mallow flower. I peeled back the outer layer to see what was left of the flower inside. I’m afraid it won’t open and the plant will be history this weekend when it warms up and I start doing a little yard repair. The mallow usually dies back and then new plants appear in the fall. I will have to look at the rest of the cold damaged plants for a few weeks before they can be pruned or (worse case) removed. But it’s really just a little  inconvenience in the greater scheme of things. I did take this mid-day as it had warmed up.

ISO 400, 53mm, f/11  1/250 sec

Texture

A knot that was protuding from a wooden fence. Just cropped, converted to black & white and added a chocolate layer.

f/11  1/25s  ISO 400

Happy & Healthy New Year to Everyone!

Edible

The peanut.  It is a very rainy day here in sunshine state. Ran outside for a few minutes when there was a break in the downpours. After the rain we will be getting very cold here; our first freeze of the season on the way.  The Hoppin’ John is about ready to sample and the Rose Bowl Parade is on the television amazing us always. Football later and hopefully get Lightroom loaded.  The DH got an excellent price on it on Black Friday so I was also able to spring for the Topaz bundle. Excellent Christmas, though he was complaining to some friends that he wanted to get me jewelry but I just wanted computer junk.