Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Oregon Garden Bench

The Oregon Garden in Silverton is a wonderful eighty acre botanical garden in Silverton Oregon. This beautiful stone bench is a favorite spot for me to explore with my camera. This particular day I was experimenting with my Infrared camera, which gave the garden a wonderful winter scene feel.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Portland Japanese Garden

Stone Lantern and Waterfall at the Portland Japanese Garden. I've always loved botanic gardens, and the Pacific North West has no shortage of beautiful gardens and parks, but one of my favorites is the Portland Japanese Garden. They even have some great Bonsai demonstrations and classes, just in case you're a crazy plant person like me and you want to try to get a little taste of a Japanese garden at home.

Sunday, June 16, 2013
Dr Seuss' Garden

This ever so slightly other-worldly garden is at the beautiful Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria. Seaside Gardens is both a Botanical Garden and a nursery. So you can not only be inspired, but they can send you home with the plants to make your own garden paradise. (and no I don't work for them, but I really love to wander their beautiful gardens with my camera).

Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Carmel Mission Garden Sunset

The gardens at the Carmel Mission. The mission just underwent a major restoration and only recently shrugged off the massive scaffolding around the main sanctuary. It's looking even more beautiful than ever thanks to the dedicated people who are preserving this beautiful landmark!

Saturday, May 25, 2013
Evening Over Alice Keck Park

This is Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, one of the most amazing spots right in the middle of downtown Santa Barbara. At one point they wanted to turn this piece of land into a very large condo development. Fortunately thanks to some dedicated people, we have a place only a couple blocks from our main city street, State Street where you can enjoy a retreat from the concrete and steel (or in our case the stucco and red tile roofs).

Thursday, May 23, 2013
Rose Garden Panorama Sunset

An amazing sunset at the Santa Barbara Mission rose garden. The Roses are in full bloom this time of year, it's a wonderful time to visit the Mission and wander around the grounds. If you have really good timing you can experience a spectacular spiring evening with amazing beauty in every direction.

Sunday, March 10, 2013
El Paseo Fountain Courtyard

This beautiful spot is right off of State Street in Santa Barbara. winding back pathways in the appropriately named El Paseo building, you find yourself in an amazing garden-like courtyard in the middle of a busy city block.

Sunday, October 14, 2012
Alice Keck Park Evening Lamp Post

Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens is beautiful any time, but at twilight it becomes almost magical. This was from a nice evening walk a while back. Looking at this image I can almost hear the sounds of the wildlife settling down for the evening. The ducks seem to like to stretch the evening out as long as possible in the park. Trolling the lake for a last snack before bed time.

Friday, May 25, 2012
Alice Keck Park Peaceful Night

A long exposure after dark at Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens looking across the duck pond at the gazebo.

Sunday, March 18, 2012
Alice Keck Park's Australian Tea Tree, Virtual Reality

I really love Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, the variety of wildlife and plants right in the middle of the city is unparalleled. This beautiful tree is at the corner of Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, it's one of my favorite trees in Santa Barbara. I have no idea how old it is, but you can see on the map of the garden which trees existed before the garden and this is one of them. No surprise, normally when you see Tea Trees they are trimmed to look more like bushes. This guy must have seen some amazing things in his lifetime.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Sunken Gardens Twilight

A wonderful spot any time of day, the Courthouse Sunken Gardens take on a magical quality at night. The lighting makes for wonderful photo opportunities that would not otherwise be possible. I like to experiment with architectural photography later in the evening than might seem to work. As long as there is still blue in the sky to complement the buildings it's a good time for photos.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Getty Center Main Garden, Virtual Reality

Another hand-held virtual reality shot from The Getty Center in Los Angeles. From a distance the main garden looks like a very cool topiary hedge maze, and it is, but to find the Minotaur in the center of this labyrinth you need a gondola. Because it is in the middle of an amazing fountain.

This, of course starts the discussion of how do you think they trim the maze. Because it's really nicely groomed. It's not like they could drain the fountain every time it needs a trim. Gondoliers with hedge trimmers? Hope they're not electric trimmers. Oh well I guess we'll have to chalk that up to the mysteries of the ages.

If you'd like to see a great virtual reality shot of another fountain in The Getty Center at sunset take a look at February 6th

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Friday, July 8, 2011
Mission Sunset Time Lapse

Time lapse of the sunset over the Santa Barbara Mission from the Mission rose garden. The Mission is my favorite place to try out a new technique, so after an evening of driving around trying to find an interesting spot that might have some interesting clouds I ended up here. And I wasn't disappointed.

Monday, November 15, 2010
El Paseo Restaurant Courtyard, Virtual Reality

This spot is a slecluded little courtyard behind the El Paseo restaurant. It's an amazing spot all around but I really love the wonderful Mandeviiia vine. It's got to be at least fourty years old.

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Monday, October 18, 2010
Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens, Virtual Reality

This is from just off the side of the sunken gardens on the Anapamu street side. This is the VR view of the recent still photo of the Courthouse Gardens at night.

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Monday, September 1, 2008
Mission Rose Garden Sunset

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I really love the fountain by the Santa Barbara Mission. But most people don't realize there is another fountain across the street in the rose garden. It is really worth the little walk, especially at sunset.

If you have been around the site for a while you know that I really like the clouds in the winter around Santa Barbara. Mainly because we don't normally get much weather in the summer other than some very thick low fog in the mornings. Well, this summer has been a little different. Not much fog, I assume because it has not been very cool at night, but lots of humidity. On the plus side we have had some really nice winter-like sunsets. Of course there is one drawback. The night before last was so warm and humid I almost could not breathe. Fortunately it looks like we are starting to get a break from the heat.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Garden Path

There are a bunch of these little pathways in Carmel. Some of them lead to little shops in the center of the city blocks. This one lead to a little garden shop that sells all sorts of plants and garden figurines. One of the cooler things on the path was the enormous vine that made an archway at the center of the path. You can see it at the top of the photo with the little red Christmas lights in it. It was truly a different world compared to the city street at the other end.

Monday, June 13, 2005
Mission Arches

One of my new collection of local architecture images. I am preparing them for a restaurant remodel.

Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Monterey Garden Stairs

This is a shot from a nice garden in the middle of Monterey. They are in the process of trying to revitalize the gardens and so far it looks like they are doing a good job.

Sunday, May 1, 2005
Mission Gardens

There are quite a few images of the front of the Santa Barbara Mission. And for good reason, it is a beautiful place. But it's beauty is much more than skin deep.

Saturday, April 23, 2005
Monterey Garden Path

After stopping at the Monterey Museum of Art we looked around the garden across the street. Apparently Monterey is in the process of restoring many of these small gardens throughout the city. From this view it is hard to believe this is in a very busy part of downtown Monterey.

Friday, March 4, 2005
Floating Koi

This was taken at a Botanic Gardens in San Diego California. The blue one is called a "Soragoi Kawarimono" but I am not sure about the orange one. There are a surprising variety of them...

• Koi Identification