New Direction 2

We're getting a lot of mileage out of these Langford Street blossoms. It's a pity that these visuals only communicate half the experience. Even on a gloomy gray day like today the sweet scent is quite overpowering. There is no need to sniff the actual flowers, the street is full of the rich perfume. The video below is another attempt at moving around, maybe a little improvement over yesterday. I think this technique will work better when the moving through activities like a parade or a midway or the causeway. Thanks all for your patience while I try to wrap my old brain around new software.

February Choices!

As I wrote yesterday, "Every year I put together a calendar for friends and family, of photos I have published on this blog for the last year or so. However, it's always difficult to make decisions about which photos to use. I sam hoping visitors to this blog will help out. Every day for the next few weeks I will publish two or three photos from a given month and hope that comments and choices made by visitors will help me make a final decision which photos to use in this year's calendar. As an incentive, I will offer an online downloadable/printable file of the calendar to anyone who helps me make a choice."

Thanks to everyone who gave me their opinions yesterday.

Below are my favorite February 2016 photos: Which one do you prefer?

Flowering Plum

Daffodils on Beacon Hill

View from Swallows' Landing

Langford Street

I drive down this street almost every day and at this time of year I have to stop and photograph it. This is an ordinary suburban street, but when it's like this, what splendor!

Blossom Explosion

Victoria is blessed with a large number of blossoming trees and they are now bursting into glorious bloom. Forgive me for passing along only half of the experience. The wonderfully sweet and spicy scent of these blooms is fully as intoxicating as their appearance.

Old Victoria Custom House

Everything looks fresh and new these days and that includes the old Victoria Custom House, built in 1875. At this time of year even its unusual color seems to be complementary to the exploding plum tree overlooking the Inner Harbour.

Langford Street

So sweet the plum trees smell!
Would that the brush that paints the flower
Could paint the scent as well.
(Old Japanese haiku)

Blossom Time

Spring has definitely arrived. Here's the West Bay Walkway. This photo is the result of exploring one of the characteristics of my camera called "Digital Manual Focus". With this feature activated the camera auto-focuses as normal but as soon as you touch the manual focus ring it zooms the live view and lets you manually fine-tune the focus. This is very handy when you want to focus on something small. For instance, in this photo the auto-focus mechanism put all those background blossoms in perfect focus but left that single sprig in the foreground rather blurry. Since the foreground sprig was what I wanted I let the camera auto-focus and then adjusted the focus manually so what I wanted was in focus. After you have pressed the shutter the camera reverts to auto-focus. Very useful feature!

Sorry!

My apologies to the rest of the country for these photos taken on Sunday here in Victoria. Yes, the city is bursting into bloom. It seems like it must be several weeks if not a month in advance of normal blossom time but the weather has been very warm and wet. Most of my plum blossom photos in years gone by have been posted in March.

Spring!

Well, I know it won't be spring officially for another week or so but here in Victoria it has definitely arrived. I took today's photos yesterday on Langford Street in Vic West. The blossoms are lovely but they are only half the experience. The wonderful incense-like scent of these trees is intoxicating.

Just now....

Here's a street I pass down almost every day near my home and at this time of year I always silently bless whoever decided to plan these beautiful flowering trees so many years ago. They are just starting to bloom now and will soon be covered with wonderful bunches of blooms like pink popcorn. Though there is still a nip in the air, these trees make it seem warmer. I took this photo less than an hour ago.

Plum Blossom Time

The only fitting text for this would be a Haiku.

Streets with Trees

One of Victoria's charms is that many of the city streets are lined with trees. This is particularly pleasant in spring when so many of them bloom. The street above is fairly typical of dozens of streets here at this time of year and is one I pass down several times each week.

Spring in February

The flowering trees that line Victoria's streets think it's spring and who am I to argue? The blooms on this particular tree are generally some of the first I photograph each year since they flower in the warmth of the old south-facing wall of the derelict Janion Hotel. This year they are blooming about a month earlier than in the past.

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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

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