An Inefficient Trip to Discovery Park

On an impulse, I went to Discovery Park yesterday afternoon. My main motivation was a desire to photograph the blooming bigleaf maples - and, as always, see what else I could find.

Bigleaf maple flowers. I love these trees in their full spring raiment.

I say my trip was inefficient for this reason: I came home yesterday with 217 new pictures on my camera. I kept 68 of them. 12 of these ended up on my Picasa. And only four of them will end up on my blog. It's sometimes a bit daunting, potentially even demoralizing, to consider that I spend most of my time in the field taking shots that I will end up deleting immediately thereafter. Sometimes I will take 10 or more shots of a certain subject. But for all that time, and all that error, it only takes a few shots that worked - even one shot that worked - to make the whole evening worth it. I always have to tell myself that I am not spending my time taking worthless images, but chasing that good one. Besides, I like spending time outside period, regardless of whether I am "producing" anything out of it or not.

Here is another good one:

This is my favorite time of year - mid-spring into early summer, usually spanning from mid-April through perhaps early July. The grass is thick and green, the trees are bright, the forests are lush, and we are treated to a kaleidoscopic display of flowers. The weather's better later, in August especially, but things start to brown up, leaves start to look a bit tired, and there aren't as many flowers (though there are still some good ones).

Discovery Park, taken lying in the grass, one of my favorite things to do.