Gold and Green

This is an unretouched photo directly from my iPhone 8 plus. It is late in the afternoon and I took the photo without any special effects. Here is a copy with a little bit of enhancement.

Nothing Alive

Of course, I am alive and I am the one taking the photograph. But this is the only view of its kind in the United States I know about where you can see this much without seeing one living thing. Not even a blade of grass, a cactus or a creosote bush. It is well named as Death Valley. I know places where there are sand dunes where all you can see is sand, but if you turn your head slightly, you can see a mountain with trees. Here, there is no living thing. Hmm. That sounds almost beyond reality. Actually, it is beyond reality. You have to select the photos pretty carefully to avoid people, cars, roads, and etc. If you look closely at the tops of the ridges, you will see trails where people have climbed and walked. Oh well, it was close to being a wilderness, it was just a highly visited National Park. If I turned around from this photo, I would see a parking lot.

Looking into the Light

I have a hard time deciding on my favorite season of the year. I guess I like all of them equally. As I have noted recently, I am experimenting with my somewhat new iPhone 8 plus camera. So far, I am impressed with the quality of the photos. This photo was taken in my front yard so perhaps you can see why I like the seasons so much. As I write, I can look at the forest outside my window and see the leaves change from day to day.

An Experiment with Light

Apple has developed a new "portrait" mode released with iOS 11 on the iPhones and iPads. It is supposed to be for taking photos of people. But, of course, I work with landscapes and nature. Here is one photo of some Fall leaves on a bright sunny day. I think I will continue to experiment with this new function. It will likely prove interesting.

A Wood Stove

When I was very young, we moved to a small town to live in my grandfather's old house. One thing I remember is that for a while, we had a wood stove. That didn't last too long but it was a vivid memory. I simply can't imagine all the extra work it took to keep a stove like the one in this image going to cook meals all day. Imagine the wood and the ashes, not to mention the smoke.

Ornamental Pumpkins

Recently, fancy varieties of pumpkins have been showing up for sale in supermarkets and vegetable stalls around Provo. The varieties shown here are Red Warty, Cinderella, White pumpkins, and Knucklehead. We bought a pumpkin to eat.

Fruits and Vegetables

Finding this kind of market would be next to impossible in the United States. But this image comes from a trip to Costa Rica. One thing missing in the U.S. is the variety of bananas and plantains. We usually get the "standard" varieties of bananas, but there are a variety of kinds that are not available generally in the U.S. First of all, the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" is artificial and was created by advertising to sell one variety of bananas. The currently accepted scientific names for most groups of cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata Colla and Musa balbisiana Colla for the ancestral species, and Musa× paradisiaca L. for the hybrid M. acuminata × M. balbisiana. See Wikipedia: Banana. Here is a link to a post on "Six Types of Bananas to Know." But I am familiar with several more. I especially like caudrados.