It's about time for a rambling, melancholy sort of post, and the pic on the blog today is the perfect excuse to write one...
Several people asked me in email Monday if the "Monday's rose" for this week was a recent shot or an archived photo from earlier in the year. I wrote back to say that yes, the photo was taken Sunday morning and that roses here can make it through December or even beyond depending upon the rain and the fog and the frosts (those links are from the "Walks" series).
What I didn't mention is how the "Monday's rose" series generally comes about, or particularly how this week's shot happened: After the long day Friday working in the yard on the Christmas lights, we ended up inside all of Saturday while a rain and wind storm swept through the area. Sunday dawned clear and cold, about fifteen degrees lower than Friday. ...but the sun was out and the air was clear and that was enough to drive me outside as soon as I was awake.
About all I have to say when I'm heading out is, "Brad, photo shoot!" and he'll grab his camera and join me. Sunday he needed a sweater too as the air was probably in the low fifties, but that was a matter of moments. We headed down to Cecille's place on the corner; that's where probably half of the rose shots you see on the blog are collected during the year. She has a circle drive with an eastern exposure that makes for an excellent rose garden border on the inside of the curve facing the street. Brad worked on trying to get a decent shot of one of the purple blooms (his nemesis) and I shot my usual dozen or so photos (yes, I am sandbagging some for the dead of Winter "just in case", and for early Spring when people prune their bushes). We also worked a bit on some 'technique shots' to see how they would turn out with the lower sun angle; one of them became this week's rose...
When we left we turned West instead of taking our usual Eastern route around the block. I wanted to see if the rose bushes near where I took last week's sunset shots had any blooms on them. We wandered by the "snail tree" from the other week to see if the cold weather had 'nailed the snails' (it hadn't yet) and then down to the end of the block. While I was checking out the rain damaged blooms on the bushes there, Brad climbed up on the traffic barrier to scope out the field. ...and I grabbed the moment and the shot. Sure, he was wondering how wet the field was from the rain and if I was going to give him any grief if he went out in it (heck, no; be a kid!), but I was seeing him in the context of the place where we take many of our sunset shots (you may recognize the eucalyptus tree to the left; it gets a fair amount space on the blog during any given year).
...and yes, he checked out the field (while I took shots of the mushrooms growing under that yellow barrier. ...and yes, he threw rocks into the ponding basin (while I tried to get a shot or two of the splashes). ...and yes, we wandered home to make coffee and get warm again. ...and all the while I kept thinking about how I wanted to lock the memories of the morning away so I can remember them when he's off to college and too far away to just grab his camera and join me.