Greetings, and a Happy New Year !
Putting together a selection of my favorite photographs from the past year, is both the easiest and the hardest post to do every year. Easy to find photos I love, hard to narrow it down to a few.
It’s easy to pick my favorite, a total solar eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Yes, there will be other Solar eclipses, but I won’t see them.
We went to the tiny, tiny, tiny town of Ola, Idaho where there were no crowds and the total eclipse was more than four minutes, which gave me just enough time to overcome the wonder of it all and be ready for those four seconds when the diamond ring affect appeared just as a sun nudged past the edge of the Moon.
Another photo entirely dependent on the sun was this dawn at Anza Borrego State Park, where I went twice last year to photograph the spring wildflower superbloom.
The superbloom was particularly extraordinary as inspiration for gardeners, showing how the shrubs and perennials of the desert can blend together.
Cactus, flowering shrubs, wildflowers, and perennials were all blooming in marvelous combinations no gardener could possibly improve.
The blooming was so profuse, the small canyons looks like demonstration gardens with flowers in the rock work and tumbling over the fine gravel in the bottom of the canyons to look like pathways.
The superbloom moved south to north all spring, and a few weeks after Anza Borrego peaked, I went to Carrizo Plains where I was captivated by wide panoramas of wildflowers stretching for miles in the grasslands.
Grasslands have always fascinated me and I made a point to visit the Tallgrass Prairies in Oklahoma this year as I begin to formulate a project about grasslands and the potential for carbon sequestration.
So when I went to Colorado, for some photography workshops at the Denver Botanic Garden, I also made time to visit West Bijou Ranch, managed by the Savory Institute as sustainable grasslands for grazing, using techniques of regenerative agriculture.
Denver Botanic Garden is certainly one of the most dynamic Botanic Gardens in the country, and seems to always be expanding and adding new exhibits. I could easily spend days there photographing.
Photography workshops are always fun, as I always get to learn from the students. I noticed the students in Denver clustered around the remarkable Calico Astor, ‘Lady In Black’, and found a remarkable combination of autumn flowering perennials.
And at my own workshop I made one of my favorite macro photographs of the year, when I noticed the central disc of the Corolla of the aster nearly matched the mass of asters behind them.
Asters were the theme of that September visit to Denver as I found in this wonderful private garden design by Lauren Springer.
Other private gardens I discovered in 2017 include two gardens built on steep hills: Diana Magor’s backyard cottage garden:
and Jim Bishop’s incredibly steep garden of succulents.
I have no idea how these gardeners are able to maintain healthy soils on these steep slopes.
I continue to photograph the San Francisco Botanical Garden.
There’s nothing quite like early morning light in San Francisco when the fog begins to lift.
A number of the garden beds are looking particularly good including the selection of summer-dry perennials in the mediterranean garden on Heidelberg Hill.
And I loved finding these ‘Electric Pink’ Cordyline in the New Zealand section.
Sometimes I photograph Gardens that have to be staged such as at the Spring trials. Here at Syngenta, where they were featuring the remarkable new sunflower, Sunfinity™, I enlisted the support of photo stylist Linda Peters to create this scene.
The devastating wildfires that struck Northern California were a catastrophe for thousands of people but for the environment, it has become an opportunity for regeneration, as the landscape has always been affected by fires.
At Pepperwood Preserve I noticed the fires must have moved quickly through steep hillsides only burning some of the trees as you can see in this panorama.
In Sonoma Valley Regional Park some of the oak trees looked like ghosts after the fire as the bark turn to ash but did not fall off the tree.
I wonder how these California landscapes will recover over time, and I will continue to document this process. Trees have a very special relationship to the land in California and I find continual inspiration all around me.
My daily walks with my dog Kona take me to the remarkable oak woodlands right around our house
And into the wetlands across the street.
My walks with Kona dog are found in my Instagram feed, where I always use the hashtag, get outdoors. I hope my photographs might inspire you to get outdoors. There is peace and beauty out there. Go get some – and have a Happy New Year.
WOWOWOWOW!! Saxon the pic’s are great!!
I hope all is well and doing fine with Good health!!!
Please give you wife a good SIMPLE SQUEEZE form me ok..!!!!
I will be coming out to Help John Greenlee with a JOB from 7 to the 16..
be in the bay area around the 14 or 15 after ..I leave on the 16th am!!
My you and all your family be blessed with good health and love Simple
Thanks my friend! Would love to catchup when you are there. Always happy for excuse to hug Mary. Hope it is not too cold back there
Thank you for sharing your artistry
Much appreciated. Thanks for dropping by Lydia
All so inspiring, Saxon. The ‘ghost trees’ (ash) – Wow.
Thanks Alyse – and yeah,that ghost tree is/was spooky