After the heavy rains on Sunday, I could not resist yet another visit to Cataract Falls. It’s a great place but I’ve been there so often some of the rocks and trees are like old friends. Nevertheless, I’ve updated my recent work gallery with some of my favorites from the day.

I took what was supposed to be a quick trip yesterday hoping to get a few shots. That’s about all I got but it took quite a while. Started off with a hike to Mile Rock Beach. The surf was definitely up. Mile Rock Beach is on the Coastal Trail near Lands End. It’s a short hike in distance but fairly steep. Coming back takes me a lot longer than getting there.

I stopped by Crissy Field later in the day hoping to get some dramatic clouds. As you can see from this picture, the clouds were not all that dramatic. You can see some other shots from the day on my Recent Work page.

I went to Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve this morning. It was foggy, rainy and cold. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a really good day. There were lots of wildflowers blooming. And, as a bonus, they were covered with raindrops. (Me too but it was worth it. ) My Recent work web page has been updated with some pictures from today. Enjoy.

BTW, my flower identification skills are minimal, at best. I have a book, Introduction to California Wildflowers by Phillip A. Munz, but I can never find the flowers in the book that I find in the field. Ditto for the Internet. So, if you know what the flowers are, let me know. And I’m only 70% certain the blue flower is called a Forget Me Not.

Later… and I was 70% incorrect. The blue plant is a Pacific Hound’s Tongue | Cynoglossum grande. Thanks to JB for the assistance.

Anyway, it would be nice to say something beyond “blue flower.”

I spent a few hours at China Camp yesterday. The wild flowers are blooming all over the place. I had expected an overcast, windless day and I didn’t get that. And, I need to work on my macro techniques. Nevertheless, I’ve posted a few pictures from the outing in my Recent Work slideshow. And, you can see where I was on this map.

I’ve reorganized and expanded my galleries. The old, and too general, gallery “Nature” has been made into three galleries: Falling Water, Trees and Birds. Each of these galleries contains new pictures along with some from the Nature gallery. You can see the new galleries at rezphotography.com as always.

My new book featuring pictures from my trip to the Eastern Sierra in late September, 2009 is now available.

Here’s a preview of the book.

For years I’ve been fascinated by the Oak trees along Interstate 280 near Palo Alto. Yesterday, I finally did something about it. I spent a few hours just making pictures of Oak Trees. There were quite a few spring flowers around also but, for reasons not clear to me, most of them are not just where I would have wanted them. That is, not positioned ideally for my tree pictures. Nevertheless, I’ve updated the Recent work page to give an idea what I saw.

Arasterdero Preserve is a nice place with quite a few trails. Check it out. And you can read more about the Oak trees on Wikipedia.

OK, I can’t resist this stuff. Here’s the map of where I was in the Preserve. You can even see which trees I found most interesting.

This map shows where I was during the Point Reyes Trip. This was done using GPS Visualizer. You will need to zoom in to see exactly where I was.

I wrote a short post with a thought I had about the future of paper in photography. Or maybe I should say the lack of a future for paper. Brooks Jensen, Editor of Lenswork, has written an essay about that subject that is much better than my short thought. You have to buy the journal to read it – no fair just reading that part at your local magazine shop -but it’s a interesting take on what might happen. Jensen says the comforting thought is that “once a technology exists it rarely disappears completely.” Jensen has a blog about technology but has not directly addressed this subject on it so far as I can tell.

Just returned from a trip to Point Reyes Seashore. Great place but I hit a couple of days with only so-so weather. In particular, it was blowing like crazy making pictures of spring flowers difficult. This is the second time that’s happened to me at Point Reyes. And it was cold. Nevertheless, I got a few shots. Check out Recent Work to see some of them.