Templeton Night Sky

Here is a photo from last weekend - a predawn view from south Templeton looking toward Atascadero.  The constellation Scorpius is predominant in the center of the picture.

A Very Fine Pinot

Pinot the cat is looking for a new home.  He is currently staying at the North County Humane Society in Atascadero, but hopefully his stay there will be short.  This 14 lb, 7 year old maine coon bundle of fur is a real sweetie and can adapt to being both indoors and outdoors.

Update 4/7 - Pinot has found a new home!!

Where Did the Cars Go

Both of these photos were taken at "rush hour" - 5 pm on a weekday along Highway 101 south of Atascadero.  The first photo is taken at 1/500th of a second.  The second photo, sans cars, was a 20 second time exposure, with 10 stops of ND filters in front of the camera lens to allow for the long exposure time.

Shell Creek Wildflower Update

Time again for the Saturday morning drive out Shell Creek Road looking for wildflowers.  With no rain this week, it is continuing to dry out in Eastern San Luis Obispo County, and the wildflower bloom was pretty limited.  There are still some goldfields and tidy tips; added this week are lupine and California dandelion.  The wind was gusting during my visit, so flower photos were a challenge.

So the overall flower display is not spectacular - has it already peaked??  But the area is such a pretty, peaceful setting, it's worth the drive just for the joy of getting outdoors.

SLO Botanical Garden

I spent an hour in the San Luis Obispo Botanical garden one afternoon last week.  The wind was gusty and the delicate flowers were dancing - its hard to focus on and photograph wildly waltzing wildflowers.  So I stuck to succulents which seemed to stay pretty still.  I tried a few shots for focus stacking - never done that before.  And here are the (sometimes spiny) results.

Shell Creek Wildflowers

I took another exploratory drive out Shell Creek Road in eastern San Luis Obispo county on Sunday March 17, and the luck of the Irish was with me as the weather was delightful and WILDFLOWERS WERE BLOOMING.  Ok, so it was not the splashy flower carpet of some past years, but the tidy tips and goldfields were starting to paint the valley floor and hillsides in a pale orange yellow.

I spent a few hours out there, and the photos below are a tease for what you will find if you look around carefully.  In addition to the yellow flowers, there were small groups of fiddleheads, paintbrush, lupine and even a few small thistle sage blooms.

And the picnic'ers, dog walkers, bike riders and hikers were all out enjoying the fine sunshine.  I did not see many other photographers, and I'm not sure how long this  bloom will last - maybe it is just starting, or maybe this is it for the year.  Hard to tell.

And here is a plug for the Santa Margarita Widlflower Festival to be held the weekend of March 23 and 24. You can get more information at:
http://visitsantamargarita.com/wildflowerFestival2013.html

Burrowing Owl

I found this little guy hiding in a storm drain in Morro Bay.  A local rancher tells me that drainage pipes are a common hiding place for burrowing owls.

Photos are taken with an old Pentax 135-600 mm zoom lens at 600 - it's a really back breaker to carry around - f8, 1/500 sec, ISO 800 at 100 ft.  I wish I had a "crisper" long lens, but can't justify spending $5K or more for a really good lens.

Comet PanSTARRS

I was searching for the comet last week, and could not find it on Tuesday night 3/12 - the sky just was not clear enough and the horizon too bright.  I met some other photographers on Wed night 3/13 near the western summit of Highway 46 (above Cambria) with a clear western view, and took a few photos around around 8:05 pm.  Here is a sample - 1 sec exposure, ISO 800, f 5.6, 400 mm lens:

Gracie Lookin' Pretty

Gracie is the only one of my cats who will pose for photos.  She is extremely fluffy right now with her full winter coat!  Who says it's not ok to wear fur???  And with our warm spring weather just beginning, can shedding season be far behind??  Get out the vacuum ....

Driving Shell Creek Road

Here is a 2 minute drive through Shell Creek looking for early season wildflowers.

Storm Clouds Passing Morro Bay

The clouds were quite dramatic over Morro Bay at the end of this week, and lunchtime provided a good excuse to get outside on the beach and take some HDR panoramas.  Here are a couple of the results - they lose some of the effect when compressed for the web page, but the originals are relatively large images - 4 panels each.

Two Views - Morro Bay

Here are two versions of the same scene - Morro Bay fishing boats.  Photos were taken at lunch between the storm systems earlier this week with a little point and shoot Pentax camera.

Oak Trees in Black and White

Here are a few oak tree photos and details from the last weekend.

Shell Creek Wildflowers March 2013

I took my first trip of the year to Shell Creek looking for wildflowers.  Not much in the way of flowers right now - just a few scattered Baby Blue Eyes.  It's awful dry out in east San Luis Obispo county, and we could really use more rain.  So the jury is still out on how the wildflower bloom will develop for this year.

I had to work hard to get photos - down on my belly with the macro lens.  The photo below gives an overall sense of the wildflower cover right now.