Photo A Day

Didn’t manage to grab a shot until I got home from work and by then the sun had gone down.  Went for a walk in the dark  and managed to find someone out with her dogs.  As I said before I never a met a stranger with a dog who wasn’t nice.   In situations like this it would have a been nice to still have some daylight left.  The built in speedlight just doesn’t do a great job of lighting this sort of scene where I can’t choose the background.

Jill with Clara and Fritz

Last spring we started a raised vegetable garden and actually did pretty well last sumer with fresh tomato and  carrots and zucchini.   Just before Christmas we saw some nice looking Broccoli while wandering the isles at Walmart and thought we would give it a try.

Doing  the research we should have done a month or two ago shows that we should have cut off the top stocks before they flowered and let the side buds develop.   Oh well.  We will probably do that now and see what happens.  Here is a link to an article on growing Broccoli.

Broccoli

Shot a quick picture of the flower bed next to where I parked my car today as a backup photo in case I didn’t find anything else.  I actually didn’t try all that hard.

Not even sure what type of bush/flower it is.

Some flowering bush

And just as a bonus.  I did shoot a technical photo today to update a document I put together a few months ago.  This is a photo of a USB keyfob that I’m using in a Ham radio project.  The write up where this photo will be used–when I get around to updating it–can be found here:  Modification of a USB Sound Card for Asterisk app_rpt Use.  The entire card is about 1 inches wide and about 2 inches long.

USB Sound card wrong capacitor image

Two sunny days in a row and  to celebrate here is another photo from the same park as yesterday.  This time it is baseball practice.  Gar is taking pitches from his father or perhaps his friend’s father–once again I’m not demonstrating my photo journalist ability to ask the right questions.

Gar at Batting Practice

Really nice blue day today.

Went down to the park and found Taj playing with Corinna’s dog Dixie.   Taj hardly blinked twice when I asked if I could snap a few photos even though we just met.  Dog people are great that way.

Wind!

One of the things in life I dislike is wind.   This probably comes  from growing up in the desert where the wind would blow non-stop for weeks at a time. I’ll take 110 degree heat any day over a windy day.

Didn’t spend much time trying to find something interesting to shoot today and I’m afraid this photo of a flag waving in the breeze shows it.  I do have a fondness for shooting flags  that stems from the number of photos I’ve  had published of flags.  This specific flag is actually a large flag and having it fully extended and flapping in the wind would show how strong the breeze was if I had managed to show some reference.

The other thing that caught my eye was the McDonald’s Corp flag.  I’m sure I’ve seen flags like this before but  it is a clever way to get around the City ordnance of banning tall street signs.  The McDonald’s flag is actually not small but just looks small below the large patriotic American Flag.   Here is the link to the Google map street view of the flag pole.

American and Mc Donald's Flags in the wind

Today’s shot is just something I took quickly in the parking lot  on the way back from lunch.  Fun contrast with the sunny sky but then the sky isn’t as interesting as I would like.   Perhaps something to try another day with some color in the sky.

Another raining day.

Todays photo takes me a bit back to my roots.  I saw a tow truck driver pulling a car out of a ravine.  Figuring that since I grew up on this sort of small town news,  I would shoot the average stock newspaper photo.  I failed to show my skills as a photo journalist as I only know the “where” (here is a  link to Google maps showing “where“) in the “who, what, where and when”

But before we get to today’s news,  I shot a backup photo of a wildflower just in case nothing else came up today.  I like the results and hence here is a bonus shot.   Much more pretty than the shot to come.

Wildflower in the rain

And now the news:

The driver drove the car away as soon as the tow truck driver drug it back on the road.   Appears based on the tire tracks that the driver just went straight instead of turning.

Car being pulled back on the road

Monday evening already and I failed to get the camera out during the day. Somehow between arriving to work before the sun came up and going to the Red Cross Board meeting this evening I didn’t see much sunlight. I  probably could  have brought the camera into the board meeting for old times sake as  I have shot plenty of meetings for newspapers over the years.  It it somehow different when you are there in an official capacity.

I have two shots tonight.

The first is just a quick shot of of the daffodil lowing their heads in from the rain.

Daffodils in the rain

The next is a simple shot of the night rain and the street lights against the trees starting to bloom.

Street light and Tree in Bloom

I have always been a dateline Washington type of  photographer.    That is to say I much rather shoot a sporting event or a news conference any day over something that stands still.   Therefore the hardest part of this photo-a-day blog has been finding inspiring subjects to shoot.  Today I was inspired.

I grabbed lunch at Del Taco.  In addition to  being between work and the post office I really like the staff at this Rocklin Del Taco. One of the crew members actually remembers what you ordered last time around and can ring you up with nothing more than asking if you want the usual or in my case if I want 3 or 4 of the 79¢ tacos.  It is really a remarkable ability and great customer service.

I happen to bring my camera into the restaurant to review some earlier shots for today’s photo.  I couldn’t help but notice an incredible mother and her child.  You can always spot the great mothers since they have an amazing ability to interact with their child.   I got brave and asked if I could shoot a few photos.   I have not shot for newspapers in a long while and  am out of practice doing this.  Also my dorky photo-a-day experiment is hardly an attention grabbing press outlet.  Amanda (the mother) was very gracious and Kathy (I hope I got it right) was all ham.

Mom and Daughter Outing