Scenes from Anza-Borrego

Enjoy a new video program I have started using to share my images.  This is my first experiment.  Click on the link below to watch.

Scenes from Anza-Borrego

Stop and Smell the Roses!

If you have not had an opportunity to visit Oakland’s Marcom Rose Garden this spring, or if you have never visited it, now is a good time.  It is an oasis of more than seven acres of fragrant rose bushes near Lake Merritt, located at the end of Jean Street just off Grand Avenue. The Marcom Rose Garden is nearly 80 years old, and is the East Bay's oldest and largest public rose garden.  I visited the garden on May 2, and here is a selection of roses that I photographed.

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All Images Copyright by Tom Debley, 2011

All Rights Reserved

All That Jazz

Rose Shrub

Marcom Rose Garden

  

Timeless

Hybrid Tea Rose 

Marcom Rose Garden

Julia Child™

Floribunda Rose

Marcom Rose Garden

Fragrant Cloud

Hybrid Tea Rose

Marcom Rose Garden

Princess Alice®

Floibunda Rose

Marcom Rose Garden 

Dick Clark (Patent Pending)
Floibunda Rose

Marcom Rose Garden
 

Works in Progress: Piedmont Avenue

In my neighborhood in Oakland, California, the closest shopping district is Piedmont Avenue.  It is an historic street dating from the 19th century, developed into a robust business district starting in the early 20th century.  At one end, Piedmont Avenue is anchored by Mountain View Cemetery designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and final resting place of many of the San Francisco Bay Area's most famous citizens. You'll find buildings designed by the famous architect Julia Morgan. A Mexican restaurant, J's, is housed in a building that was part of the historic Key System commuter railroad's Oakland terminus. Piedmont Grocery has been serving the neighborhood in the same spot for more than a century.

Yet much has changed over the decades.  Buildings have been replaced.  Businesses have gone and come.  So I decided that one of my 2011 art projects would be to photograph elements of the street today.  But I decided I wanted to try something different, something that would capture a distinctive vision rather that just pictures.  For lack of a term, I call the emerging results photodrawings.  First, I take digital photographs.  Second, I enhance them to highlight colors, architectural details, people or objects.  These saved images are, third, converted into computer-generated drawings to which I may make additional enhancements. Finally, I merge and blend parts, or all, of the original photographs with the drawings to bring out details that I want in the final image.  Below are some works in progress.  Comments are invited.

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All Images Copyright by Tom Debley, 2011

All Rights Reserved

Mille Fiori

Baja Mexican Food at Night

4200 Block

Zatis Restaurant

(Julia Morgan Building)

French Cleaners

Classic Neon Sign

Lo Coco's Ristorante

Fenton's Creamery

Rooz Cafe

Spring Images from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The spring bloom is on in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park northeast of San Diego. We've returned home after a week-long visit.  This wonderful preserved desert area is known around the world for its spring wildflowers.  The bloom, though not as spectacular as some of the rare years, certainly was worth the trip.  And to brighten the spring spirits of readers of this blog, I am sharing here some of the images from daily hikes to view desert wildflowers and desert wildlife. If there are reasons not to cut funding of state parks in California, you find them in this park by the thousands. Enjoy the colors and the critters below.

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All Images Copyright by Tom Debley, 2011

All Rights Reserved

Natural rock garden in Palm Canyon

Desert Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua

Sand Verbena (Abronia villosa)

Dune Evening Primrose (Oenotheera deltoides)

Beavertail Catus (Opuntia basilaris)

Desert blister beetle (Lytta magister) feeding

Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus)

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

Male Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens)

Northern Desert Iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis dorsalis)

Desert Sunflower (Geraea canescens)

Desert Orangetip (Anthocharis cethura cethura)

Desert Dandelion (Malacothrix californica)

Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus cylindraceus)

Ghost Flower (Mohavea confertiflora)

White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica)

Wild Heliotrope (Phacelia distans)

Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus cylindraceus)

Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens)

Teddy Bear Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii)

Sacred Datura (Datura stramonium)

Brown-eyed Primrose (Camissonia claviformis)

 

Female American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)

Black-throated Sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata)

Honors for Some of My Photographs

I am happy to share that my image seen here earlier, "Steeple Rock on a Winter's Day," picked up a 4th Place Award in the Advanced Pictorial inter-club competition of the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs (N4C) for February.  The image also is now featured in the New Members Gallery on the website of the Photographic Society of America.  You may recall it took a First Place Award in local club competition in January, allowing it to advance to N4C.

"Steeple Rock on a Winter's Day, Olympic National Park"

4th Place Award
N4C, Pictorial Advanced







Two other images in the Intermediate Creative inter-club competition of N4C in February took second and third place awards.  They are shown below.

"EmBARcedro Center After One Too Many"

2nd Place Award

N4C, Creative Intermediate

  

"Psychedelic Interpretation of  Embarcadero Center Architecture"

3rd Place Award
N4C, Creative Intermediate

Standing in Solidarity with Wisconsin Public Employees to Preserve Collective Barganing

At our house, we are standing in solidarity with the public employees of Wisconsin and other states as they battle to preserve collective bargaining rights.  On Sunday, Feb. 26, we joined the Save the American Dream Rally in San Francisco, one of dozens across the country.  To feel the spirit of this American protest movement, click here and take a look at my Save the American Dream Rally Slideshow.

A Beautiful Day in My Neighborhood

It is the time of year that flowers start blooming in neighborhood yards.  So as I take my daily walk I carry my pocket camera and use it to spend a few minutes with different blossoms.  Here are some results that I thought I would share...a beautiful day in my neighborhood.

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                             All Images Copyright by Tom Debley, 2011

                                                All Rights Reserved

 

Flowering
plum
trees
are in bloom.

Fushias

are

starting

to pop

Tulip
trees
burst
with
their
flowers

Rhododendrons

become

a riot 

of color

And some

flowers

surprise me,

and I don't

even know

their names