From Playground to Museum

Going to Discovery Park makes me a bit nostalgic. It's not quite the playground of my youth - or even last year. While I was walking around the meadows one recent evening, I noticed that a lot of the social trails that used to crisscross a few areas are disappearing. Some grass trails that I used last year are were apparently social trails, as they are now gone. Even a few trails that seem like they should be "real" trails are not being maintained and will be overtaken by the grasses before too long. It is a bit sad to see some of my old romping grounds disappear. It seems like this is the case in a lot of parks. My playground is becoming a museum - a place you go to observe something from the other side of a clearly defined boundary.

I am not saying that this is a bad thing - it is better for the health of a park's ecosystem for human use to be confined to a set number of established trails, and to have larger undisturbed tracts. This is especially true as population increases and human use of the park increases with it. You could just say it's a necessary tragedy that goes hand in hand with more people going into nature; the more people that do so, the more their effects have to be mitigated - thus, the less romping freedom they have while in it.

Anyway, enough of that. Pictures.

I got a pretty neat closeup of a fireweed flower, if I may say so. Instead of focusing on the petals, like I usually do, I focused another part (the anthers? I am looking at a flower-part diagram and I think that is what the arrow is pointing to!). I was so close that even without a breeze, the flower still moved! Just of its own volition! I had to wait for breaks in the movement to take each picture.

This next one was an unexpected success. I didn't think the lighting would work, but I ended up having good definition in both the flowers and the sky. I used f/22 to get both in focus. The colors are a bit muted for my tastes; still, I think it creates a very serene feeling, especially with the clearing in the middle top. I could also use post-processing to make the colors close to what I saw.

Finally, there was quite a nice sunset! The colorful part only lasted a couple of minutes, but that was all that I needed! When I saw it, I jogged to a good vantage point to get some pictures of the lighthouse. My desire to rush proved auspicious due to the short-lived nature of my surprise sunset.

...Or was it a surprise? I have to give myself credit where credit is due. When I was up on the bluff, I was wondering whether it would be worth it to schlep all my camera gear down to the beach. I saw a few clear areas opening around the western horizon, though, and I knew that at that time the cloudy/rainy weather system was moving out rather than in. Thus, even though the moment of color (which came a bit before actual sunset) took me by surprise, I was partly expecting it and ready for it, and also knew exactly where to stand to get this view of the lighthouse from prior experience. So to say that I was caught by surprise or that I got a "lucky shot" would not be perfectly accurate.

The first of this set has a bit more space at the top than I'd want; but the dark cloud ceiling makes the picture moodier than the second, I think, even though the second picture is more compositionally "correct" (i.e. following the rule of thirds, etc.) The sun's rays streak like that due to my using a relatively narrow aperture (f/18 and f/22, respectively).

Here is an interesting comparison: a sunset shot I took from practically the same place in July 2010. See how the cloud configuration, particularly the dark cloud ceiling, makes the scene more moody? I think I like my pictures from this year better, although the one below is nice.