Sara’s Fave Photos

The tulip display is only getting more so at the Pike Place Market’s North Arcade where all the flower sellers are. These are forced ones, but the weather is warmer than usual here in the Seattle area and the field ones will be a bit earlier than usual. I can’t wait for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (about two hours away) in April. This year I’m sure some will be blooming at the very beginning of the month.

For more ruby redness, visit Ruby Tuesday, and be sure to check out Color Carnival while you’re at it.

We saw the sun for a few minutes this morning, but now all is gray again. In honor of the brief view of the happiness-giving orb, here are two studies in yellow, complete with shadows. Visit Shadow Shot Sunday for more interesting shadows. Go to Color Carnival for more brilliant color, and of course, Mellow Yellow Monday for you know what. Check out Today’s Flowers, too.

The lemons are SOOC, or straight out of the camera. As for the daffs, I couldn’t resist Auto Tone in Photoshop when I saw the neat purple-ish background it produced.

Remember: Now you can always get back to the latest entry here by clicking on the “Sara’s Fave Photos” title in the header, no matter where you’ve wandered in the blog. I invite you to click around, and hope you enjoy your visit.

This photo was taken at the NW Flower & Garden show, so it’s forced and blooming under indoor lighting, but still, isn’t it glorious? I think this kind with the frilly edges is a parrot type, but I could be wrong about that.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ravishing redness. And Color Carnival is where the other bright colors hang out.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you! No matter how commercial, I love the holiday that’s all about love. And flowers!

To see more flowere all around the world, visit Today’s Flowers. And try Color Carnival for more cheerful, bright colors!

Navigation Note: Now you can always get back to the latest entry here by clicking on the “Sara’s Fave Photos” title at the top, no matter where you’ve wandered in the blog. I invite you to look at the archives of Flowers, Cloudscapes, or Water tags on the lower left, or whatever appeals to you today. Hope you enjoy your visit. Thank you, Marsha Perry of Perry Internet Consulting!

Thursday’s Challenge is “ROMANTIC” (Flowers, Chocolates, Hearts, Lace, Red, Pink, Sunset, Holding Hands,…) and so of course I have to post flowers. This bouquet also photographed at the NW Flower & Garden show in Seattle last week. It says Be Mine to me!

This also works for Color Carnival (the local gray skies make me crave color!) and is a straight-out-of-the-camera shot, or SOOC.

This urn at the NW Flower & Garden show was almost as tall as I am, and the forsythia stems must have reached almost ten feet. Now that was one impressive bouquet! They keep the lights quite low to keep the plants lasting well, I am told, and the dim lighting was a bit of a photo challenge, but still so pretty.

For more interesting visions of red, visit Ruby Tuesday. And check out Color Carnival for more photos like this. And see SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

I don’t want to overload this blog with too many photos, so here are just a couple of fave shots I took on Friday. I do love this new camera. Fun!

For more macros/close ups, please check out Macro Monday, and for more views of yellow, go to Mellow Yellow Monday. And visit Color Carnival for more brilliant color!

They do smell heavenly. But be super careful about getting the pollen on your clothes, as it can stain permanently, I’ve found out, unhappily. I grew this and it bloomed in August. They are actually pretty darn easy to grow, but do put in stakes early, because they get tall and delightfully covered with flowers and then maybe a wind comes along and pfffft, it’s a mess. All you gardeners out there, stake early and stake well! You’ll be glad you did.

Visit Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday and Ruby Tuesday for more great photos in blogland. And for sure, Color Carnival, too.

Oh, another flower meme! How can I not? This one is in Norway, and it’s called Blooming Friday. Lovely photos. Here’s one to start thing off, something actually blooming here in the Pacific Northwest in January in a rare burst of sunshine. It’s called Heather and I think its real name is Erica. Maybe.

It’s straight out of the camera, or SOOC, bright enough for Color Carnival, and PINK as well!

Here’s another saunter into the archives, this from May 12 of last year: my backyard. I planted every single one of those bulbs the previous fall and was so happy to see how they looked. This year they might even look better, but only the barest tips of the crocus leaves are showing now.

For more entrancing flowers, visit Flowers for Today. I also call this pretty darn Scenic, too! And sunshine makes taking a perfect (or at least pretty good) photo so easy, so this is SOOC as well. But do you think it’s colorful enough for Color Carnival?

That bouquet my sister brought last week yielded another photo I really like. Here is an alstroemeria blossom with its floral friends. I do like daylight best, but sometimes even incandescent light can be lovely for flowers.

Visit Today’s Flowers to see other flowers, and Shadow Shot Sunday for more shadow creativity. Macro Monday has close ups, and Mellow Yellow Monday showcases golden yellow. Have fun!

I really like this one a lot, so I’ve tagged it Best Post of the Week. Check out some other self-selected posts. Fascinating.

I was at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, and some intrepid flower growers were there in their usual spot in the North Arcade, showing their heaven-on-earth wares. This one grower had tulips, forced in a greenhouse heated with propane; so expensive to grow, so welcome to see and purchase. The others, mostly Hmong immigrants, had the usual spectacular, unique and incredibly cheap bouquets of dried flowers, but that’s for another day.

For more blissful pink, visit Pink Saturday. For more brilliant colors, try Color Carnival. And for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots, visit SOOC.

When I was a kid in New York City, we called them fireplugs. I think that now they are fire hydrants? In any case, I loved the bright colors seen while driving by on a wet, fall day in Portland.

Today is Thursday Challenge, and the theme this week is “Red.” This photo is also a good entry for Color Carnival.

That amaryllis bulb from a week or so ago is continuing to open. It’s in a south-facing window, but it’s mostly been cloudy and rainy, which is actually great if you are a plant like this one. I’ll keep you posted.

For more rubine redness, visit Ruby Tuesday. Color Carnival is always a thrill. And go check out SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

My sister brought me some flowers the other day and these gerbera daisies are still going strong. So cheerful in the Seattle “sunbreak” we had for a while this morning.

See more interesting shadows at Shadow Shot Sunday. And more brilliant colors at Color Carnival. More straight-out-of-the-camera shots at SOOC. More yellow at Mellow Yellow Monday. More macros at Macro Monday. And more flowers at Flowers for Today!

I’ve discovered that I’ve left incorrect links to some recent meme entries, and I apologize. I thought that by leaving the link to the category it would help people find things, but I didn’t realize that sorting by category disables the comment feature. No wonder it seemed so quiet out there! Sorry, everyone. I’ll go back to leaving the general blog url for most memes and let visitors find their way by category if they wish, or just by scrolling down a little bit. Please DO leave a comment if you feel so inspired; I love them. I’ll do my best to return the visit as soon as I am able.

Since everyone likes this photo so much, and since I like it a ton also, I’m calling this my Best Post of the Week. Check out the cream of the blog week there.

This is the plate I made for New Year’s eve to go with our ritual crab and creamcheese dip and potato chips. I love veggie platters. People only really eat raw vegetables when they are cut up pretty and on a plate in front of them. This assortment is especially fine because the carrots and purple cabbage came FROM MY GARDEN. That is so exciting to me, especially since we had a serious cold spell last month. But the cabbage waited in the fridge and the carrots waited in the ground! Their green tops were ratty from the freezing weather but the carrots are just fine, if not even better than in the summer. I will grow them again, that’s for sure.

For more ruby redness seen in photos around the world, visit Ruby Tuesday. And Color Carnival is back!

Even though winter just got here, officially, I’m already thinking towards the bulbs of spring. These tulips were at the New York Bronx Botanical Garden last May. For more cheery splashes of yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday. Let’s have a dream of spring tulips, shall we? And hie on over to Scenic Sunday while there’s still a bit of Sunday left.

I seem to be most attracted to photos from exactly half a year ago. This one was in a neighbor’s yard. Alstroemeria is a very nice spreading perennial that can take a bit of neglect. And they make superb cut flowers, lasting a LONG time. The only downside is no scent. I planted some pink ones and we’ll see if they do well.

For more closeups, visit Macro Monday, and for more brilliant yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday.

This is my friend Lyle’s dahlia garden. You can see the telltale shadow of me trying to photograph with one hand while holding the bouquet I had just picked in the other. Oh, the warm and sunny days of summer!

For more lovely flowers, visit Flowers For Today.

It’s almost time for presents! Don’t you just want to open every single one? I do. Have a happy Ruby Tuesday, all. Santa’s coming SOON!

I know a dahlia grower over in Des Moines, Washington. He grows about 250 different kinds of dahlias. I wish he would use a computer and see this photo (mong many) I took of his flowers on a fine September day. It looks a bit Christmassy, doesn’t it?

I like the neat shadows on the petals. Visit Hey Harriet for more cool shadows.

This was taken at my old front yard in the Des Moines house. Glads closest, yellow and orange day lilies behind, and some Asiatic (Oriental? I always get those confused) pink lilies behind that. The glads were such a thrill, and easy, too.

Visit Flowers For Today for more floriferousness. And Scenic Sunday is a great photo browse as well.

These rhodies are from my old house in Des Moines, Washington. It was noisy, right in the SeaTac flight path, but we sure had some great flowers. The magnolia tree I’ve posted a couple of times was growing there. In front were some huge rhodies and some orange azaleas, too. I miss them, but I sure don’t miss that noise.

Winter hasn’t even begun officially and I’m already thinking of spring.

For more pleasing pinkness, visit Pink Saturday. And this one, like most of my entries, is SOOC or straight out of the camera. I rarely even crop them after I take them. Flowers are nice that way, staying still for you while you compose a pretty frame.

These were taken a couple of years ago in the town of Redondo, south of Des Moines, half an hour or so south of Seattle. This one street just goes all out, collecting food for a food bank and everything. I love the lights. Nothing makes me feel like an enchanted child like Christmas lights sparkling in the nighttime.

You can see more Window and Doors here, and have a very merry time doing so. Try Color Carnival for more brilliant colors, too.

Today is the final day for voting on the Photoblog Awards for 2009. If you like the photos on this blog, please vote for it today by clicking in the link below. You have to register (name and password only) and then click on the word Vote in the upper left. Thanks very much! Photoblog Awards 2009.

This sunflower, photo taken in my garden in September, is actually a volunteer plant, sown accidentally by the birds or squirrels from the black oil sunflower seeds they love to eat. It’s a good system. The birds spill a ton of seed from the feeder on a pole on the lawn, and the squirrels who cannot raid the baffled feeder are the clean-up crew on the ground. Everyone fat and happy, and the contented squirrels seem to leave the tulips and daffodill bulbs alone.

Visit Macro Monday for more close ups and Mellow Yellow Monday while you’re out and about, along with Color Carnival.

Free Photography Lighting Class starts tomorrow, Tuesday, 11am Seattle time. I’m registered and can’t wait. These classes (I’ve taken others from this group) are just super, and they are free.