Blog

The Green New Deal

Oil well pumpjack or donkey pumper in Oklahoma
Let's actually do something about climate change.  The Green New Deal is an actual plan.  Support it. The climate has changed: recent fires in California, early hurricanes in the Gulf, Canadian ice shelves breaking off into the sea.   Let's stop wringing our hands. When young...

The Year in Panoramas

I found myself composing lots of panorama photos this past year. I visited a number of expansive landscapes and used panoramas to evoke a sense of wide open spaces. It's started in the early spring when I went to Southern California for the wildflower superbloom. Anza Borrego...

Speaking Out

“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.” Thomas Jefferson - Notes on Virginia I did not March yesterday.  Every woman I know, who could get out of bed, marched in solidarity and protest against the impending train wreck of the Donald Trump presidency....

Disturbance at The Sea Ranch

The Sea Ranch is legendary in the annals of California Coastal development.  In the early 1960's, ten miles of the Sonoma Coast was designated for development, in an era before there was any regulatory agency overseeing coastal development. Now, and as a result of such...

M’Eyes and The Goldfinch

"Between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is a space...

Favorite Photos 2014

Gardening Gone Wild is bringing back the Picture This photo contest and since I am the judge I may as well follow up my own advice: "... a chance to look back at a whole year of photos and get your files organized." I have huge...

PhotoBotanic.com – Self-Publishing Experiment

At launch of my new e-pub site, PhotoBotanic.com, one book is ready, 3 more scheduled. I have spent 30+ years in garden publishing, and am still standing.  I sold my first photograph 42 years ago.  Along the way I have received some nice awards and have...

Garden Photography Workshop

  I offer garden photograph workshops all around the country.  Built around my book "The PhotoBotanic Garden Photography Workshop" and the photo lessons at the Learning Center at PhotoBotanic.com, the workshops offer an opportunity to sharpen your skills and focus your concentration with an assignment...

The Beauty of Natives

  As a professional garden photographer for more than 25 years, I have seen all sorts of gardens and have learned a lot from many expert gardeners, designers, and plant geeks. California native plant gardens are absolutely the hardest to photograph, though they are my...

Peeling Bark

I see what I see, even if I can't show it very well on a blog.  Here, the peeling bark of a Manzanita (Arctostaphylos densiflora) has been transformed into elegant orange, rust, and mahogany brush strokes with the Topaz Simplify3 filter.  It looks great in...