I’m still not great with my new camera. At least it’s warm outside now so that my hands don’t freeze while I fumble with the settings. I finally ordered the lens I’ve been saving for; it should arrive this week. I am eager for a fixed focal length and to be able to open the aperture as much as I want to. I worried I wouldn’t get the lens in time for spring flowers, but I think it will be just in time for the tulips, redbud, dogwoods, lilac, and everything else that follows.
Each spring, I take a week off of work to tend to the garden. Mostly this means spreading mulch over all the beds I killed grass for so I can grow butterfly-friendly plants. I’ve lucked out with weather each year, including this one. My vacation began on the spring equinox, and I had five days of sunshine and warm enough temperatures to work in short sleeves.
In previous years, I ordered 12 cubic yards of mulch to be delivered on the first day of my vacation. This year, thanks to the new bed I carved out in winter, I ordered 14 yards.
And it wasn’t enough. I called my mulch guy mid-week, and luckily he was able to deliver two more yards for me while I still had time to spread it. I finished on Friday, just before the rains of the weekend. Now, I’m back to work today, but the garden is ready for April rains, lengthening days, and sunshine. My chairs are out there, ready for me to sit in them as soon as it’s warm enough.
In the before times, I would swim laps at 5:30 am while my daughter was at swim practice. I’d get my exercise and shower in before the work day began. Then, like the rest of the world, the aquatic center closed its doors.
When swim practice tiptoed back into our lives, practice times changed to afternoons and evenings, and the aquatic center had limited capacity. I no longer swam while our daughter swam. Instead, I walked on a nearby nature trail in the evenings while the swim team swam at the pool. Then the time changed, and it was dark during practice. I no longer walked while our daughter swam.
My scenes became the inside of our house, the views out of our windows, the views out of the car windows in our small town, and the yards, trees, and hills in a two mile radius of our house where I’d walk or run on nice days. I took up drawing. I sat in different chairs at the table. I obsessed about the garden and killed more grass.
Now, the time has changed again, and days extend to 7:30pm. I can walk on the Huckleberry trail while our daughter is at practice. Now, I have another place to observe the plants, watch the sky, and look for signs of spring. There’s not a lot of color out there yet, but it will come.
My mom, blogger at Wandering Dawgs, is hosting a Lens-Artist photo challenge this week. This is my entry for her prompt, A Change of Scenery. Thanks for a fun prompt, Mom!
FINALLY. The first day of spring has arrived! Daffodils pop all over town, forsythia canes begin to bloom, and I even saw a dogwood show some white blossoms in our neighborhood. Chartreuse leaf buds fatten on trees and shrubs, and bright green goldenrod leaves shoot up through the leaf litter. I have awaited this day since the first cold of November.
Robins have suddenly appeared, pretty much on March 1. The sun shines, birds chirp, sparrows pull coconut fibers from the flower baskets for their nests, the sky is blue, my Mexican sunflower seeds sprouted, robins hop around pulling worms, and I want to rearrange my office right now so I can look out the window. But I have a ton of meetings, and I want to take a walk between my meetings and my coaching call, so I can’t do anything about it today. I’m taking our daughter to Richmond this weekend for a swim meet, so I have to skip gardening and office rearranging over the weekend as well.
I need to get to work because I have a bunch of stuff I need to do before my first call. I don’t want to though. I spent my workout time this morning drawing pictures in my garden journal: Mexican sunflower sprouts, the rabbit that ran across the top of the back hill, a robin in the rose bed. I want to throw responsibilities out the window and go outside, breathe it all in, and soak up sunlight. I have a meeting in 20 minutes, though, and I need to do some prep work. I’ll guess I’ll get to work now so I can take my walk this afternoon. It will be warmer then anyway, and maybe the extra few hours will give the first daffodils time to open.
I bought a used Fujifilm X-T30 a couple of weeks ago. It will take some time for me to learn a new setup after 15 years with my previous camera. A friend advised me to put it in full manual mode to get used to the settings, light meter, and the shape and weight of the camera in my hand. I did that, and I’m starting to get a feel for it. I’m still not there with exposure and white balance, but I’ll keep practicing.
I carry my little camera with me more frequently when I go places now, way more than with my previous camera, and I go out of my way to be able to photograph stuff. Like the first flowering trees I saw on my route to and from the aquatic center where our daughter has swim practice. In a landscape of nothing by gray twiggy branches, I saw something — a large shrub or a small tree — with yellow on it. I couldn’t see what this blooming tree was from the road, so today I pulled into a parking lot and trudged over spongy wet ground to get a closer look: witch hazel.
I adore my new Fuji. Now I just need days with sunshine for decent light. Either that or I need to learn how to best use the light of overcast days. I’d rather have sunshine, though. I’m still working with the 15-45mm kit lens that came with the camera, which I love for wide shots, and which works well for closeups, like the bee butt below, but I want a wider aperture. I’m saving for the lens I really want (a 35mm f 1.4), and I’m hopeful I’ll have it for spring’s full arrival.
In addition to my new camera, I’m also excited to try a new (to me) open source photo editing software, Darktable. Thanks to Donncha for that tip in our photography channel at work, to Paolo for talking to me about his Fuji, and to Brie for helping me through my first days of a camera I had no familiarity with. I’m lucky to work with a lot of talented photographers.
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