First, I need to apologize to those I have unfollowed and then followed and unfollowed many times, WordPress reader is going mad. Not sure what’s going on, sometimes I am reading something and it tells me I just unfollowed the person. Go figure.

I have allocated the last Friday of each month to post about important (to me) things that happened during that month in my photography. Like a photo log of sorts. Feel free to jump to the pictures on the last part of the post, if the text seems to long to you.

January has been slow and uneventful and it seems as if the pandemics will never end. On the 15, I was ready to walk out of the house when I read that Sonoma County was asking people to voluntarily stay home. I am glad I was headed to Napa, the nearby county. I don’t think anyone stayed home even in Sonoma: now that Covid-19 is the most contagious, it is when we are too worn out to care.

Now, onto more cheerful subjects.

In the Central Valley of California, December tends to be the coldest month of the winter, and January is a doorway to the spring, with temperatures getting close to a frost at night, then up to the mid-60 F during the day. Some plants begin to flower as early as mid January. This year is no exception. Unlike 2021, however, fog was not prevalent in my neighborhood during January.

CHANGES TO THE WEBSITE

I keep changing my mind about the ArtSpan Website and have changed the layout several times. It has taken me a while to find a theme that works on the computer, my Ipad, and more or less on the phone. I have also linked my GeoGalleries online store to it, under the “other images” tab, so people can find everything if they google my name. I have also uploaded a few more photographs to the GeoGalleries and, to help S.E.O. work for me, I have pinned all my vertical photos on Pinterest.  

WINTER TULIPS series

This project, which I blogged about on the second week of January (click here for the post ), is going slow. Like a few other things, tulips temporarily disappeared from Trader Joe’s “shelves”. That threw me off loop for a while and when I was coming back to the project, I received a rejection regarding another series, Dry Leaf. The rejection letter had a long page of possible reasons why my work was not chosen, and upon reading that, it seemed to me that all, even the mutually exclusive reasons, applied. That sent me on a temporary downward spiral, telling myself that my work is worthless, why do more of the same? Submissions followed by rejections are common in my life, and may be a good subject for a blog post.

I now have a handful of photographs that might go into the final series and have ordered a few test prints to choose the paper on which I shall have the series printed on. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen the one below. The background effect is the light going through the blinds of my photography room.

PLACES I have been

Consistent with the high gasoline prices, I pledged to stay near my home this past month.

On 02 January I went to the UC Davis arboretum with my friends Teila and Daniel, for a photo walk. There was not a lot going on there, except that the Aloe and Agave are beginning to flower. I did point the camera to a few succulents, including the featured photo, a nice addition to my “leaf” GeoGalleries portfolio, the bark of trees, and shadows. My friends did get some good shots of hummingbirds. The best part of the walk, however, was a warm lunch at the local Burmese restaurant, inside.

I visited the Lagoon Valley Park the following week (Jan 08), alone, and wrote a blog post about it. It was surprising not to see the cows grazing there this time of year, since the grass is green and free-range cows still need to eat.

A hike in Napa County, Rector Reservoir trail, was the highlight of January 15. I went with my son, who now lives in Napa, and our friends visiting from the Ukraine, Kristina and Severyn. I did get a few shots for my stock photography work. The trail is a steep climb to a ridge, from where we can see the Napa Valley (pictures below) and the Rector reservoir (not shown). Notice some yellow on the fields below? That’s mustard beginning to flower. In a couple of weeks, the fields and vineyards in Napa will be covered in yellow.

I had not visited the Stebbins Cold Canyon in a while. That place deserves a post of it’s own (to come). My photographic purpose there, on January 23, was scouting. I also wanted to show the place to my friends Kristina and Severyn. I had not been to that trail in a few years, since the last wildfire there. I was surprised to see a few wildflowers already blooming, probably because there is no vegetation to shade any stretch of the trail anymore: Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja affinis, Chaparral Currant, Ribes malvaceum (I posted a photo of the flower last year), the Tufted Poppy (I also posted about this one last year in, black and white) and the Purple Nightshade (Solanum xanthi).

I am looking forward to another month of photography and blogging. If you like this blog, subscribe by E-mail to ensure that you don’t miss any updates.

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Wall Art Botanical Images

Wall Art Photography projects

Wall Art Old Work

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