tsuyukusa as art (otherwise known as i why i didn't get anything done today)

and tony too

good intentions . . . good thing, i am off tomorrow also

once again i had good intentions of getting more organized today and then going to the gym. yes, i should be able to do both especially since i have no other obligations, responsibilities. but like yesterday's little adventure of taking 3 buses to turn in the "rental" lens which turned into a couple of hours of some Beverly Hills/Rodeo Drive sightseeing. 3 buses later and several hours later than i expected, i returned home and didn't feel like catching another bus to the gym. that was yesterday's excuse. today, i was determined to get things done early and then catch the bus to the gym. well, after seeing a photo of a certain flower on a friend's blog this morning, i set out on a little quest to find, and then photograph that flower. i think i saw it the other morning when i was taking photos of the morning glory. and i think it was actually in the background but i did not pay much attention to it. well, i did pay attention to it a little as i did purposefully put the color in the background of the flower i was actually taking a photo of. after taking some more photos of the morning glories and that flower i decided to bring a sample of the flower home to photograph in a more still-life setting. and that was several hours and a couple hundred photos ago. now it is mid-afternoon and i haven't even eaten breakfast yet. time for some lunch and then i will get started on cleaning up my apartment. for sure tomorrow i will be going to the gym for a long workout.

here is that flower (some consider a weed). in Japanese it is "tsuyukusa" which literally means morning dew grass. in English some call it Asiatic Dayflower. the official name is commenlina communis. later if i have time i will add the still-life version.

a few brilliant blue tsuyukusa in the morning sun

tsuyukusa reaching out to the sidewalk

tsuyukusa growing thru and blooming with some hot pink geraniums

here is the photo with the tsuyukusa in the background. i was taking a photo of the geranium tsubomi (buds). apparently, i had the saturation set way too high while using the "rental" lens which caused an interesting distortion to the clarity and color of the tsuyukusa.

i am not going to tell you how much time i have spent on the above photo, photoshop and pages. hopefully you can see it. tomorrow will be a good day to start again on cleaning up my little apartment and organizing and re-organizing and doing some spring cleaning in late september. and that got me to thinking about this . . . i have lived in this wee apartment for 11 years.

a few miles from the south bay

lens returned. mission accomplished. here are a few images from my day out of the south bay. most of these photos were taken somewhere in between Fairfax Avenue and Rodeo Drive. some on Wilshire Boulevard. some on the backstreets of Beverly Hills. only the first two were taken with the $???? "rental" lens before i turned it in. i almost got a couple of good shots of this hummingbird in front of LACMA. the other photos are taken with my Canon with the "kit" lens. no more complaining about a clear photo.

it IS a small world . . . especially with a Canon Macro EF 180mm lens

so what was i doing for the first two hours of football on tv sunday? i left at 930a to take a few photos with the new (rental) lens of some morning glories i passed by on the way to the bus stop the other day. two hours and a few photos later, i am home again. time for some breakfast, or should i say lunch now that it is 130pm.

a nice reflection to end today's collection of images . . . the above photo is all reflection . . . can you see the small goldfish in the bottom right of the photo? actually the photo is upside down.

bee-ing u-man

my Georgia

bee one

i feel your yellow

just beelieve

_________________________________________8pm

after all this time, after looking for that clear photo, i present to you this image.

heavenly sakura in september

BoneSoir and yesterday at the beach 2

the 232 to the 550 to the 780 back on the 217 and finally a front row seat at LACMA's Friday Night Jazz. tonite: BoneSoir. excellent. before LACMA, i stopped by Samy's Camera on Fairfax and rented a very, very nice lens. i will be playing with it more tomorrow. for sure the first and third photo were taken with the rented lens. i think the second photo was taken with my old 75-300mm.

not the best quality (old Polaroid digital camera ... yes, i did say Polaroid) but you can get some idea of the wonderful sound that is BoneSoir.

back to yesterday