Shadows and Light

iHanna has a blog photo challenge, where participants go through their photo libraries and find pictures that fit a certain theme. The idea is that you spot that theme in photos that you have already taken, not that you go out and take new photos that would work. I like the idea, so I’m playing along. January’s theme is Shadows. Here are my shadow pictures from my iPad photos. The picture above is an oak tree on one of our walks, and I am so often struck by the beauty of the shadows in amongst the branches. I take pictures, trying to capture it, but I don’t end up sharing them with you because they don’t fit my thought for the post. Until now.

I love this picture, taken on a walk one morning in one of our local parks. I first noticed a turtle sitting on the stick, but it jumped into the water when we stopped. Then I noticed the bird. I love the shadows and the reflections in the water.

In October of 2023, I flew to Portland to attend a funeral, and I took this picture coming home, on the descent into San Francisco. If you’ve never flown into SFO, it is on the peninsula south of San Francisco, and you approach the airport over the bay. It can be unnerving if you haven’t done it before, because you get pretty low to the water right before you land. In this picture, there was another plane approaching at the same time, and I liked seeing the shadows of both planes on the water.

This is Monet’s house, in Giverny, France. I’ve been twice, in late spring of 2018, and early autumn of 2022. This is from the early autumn trip. It’s so beautiful, but very crowded with tourists (like me) working on getting pictures of the flowers. Which makes sense…it’s a cluttered garden, full of flowers much like those that Monet painted. It’s not a tranquil garden that one sits in and reads while kids play on the lawn and so on, it’s an artist’s garden. I like the house seeming to rise out of the shadows in this picture.

Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, was a train station before it was converted to a museum. It has two big clock windows that look out toward Montmartre, over the Seine. I love how the room is in shadow, and Paris outside is in the light.

In 2019, we went to a wedding in Sonoma County. Ted’s cousin was married there, and they had two ceremonies. The first night was a Hindu ceremony, and the pundit who performed the ceremony was the same pundit who married Ted and me way back in 1993. He is Ted’s mom’s cousin, and flew over from England. The second night, they had a western (not country western, just western culture) ceremony at a beautiful equestrian center, and the groom’s cousin (I think) performed the ceremony. We were able to tour the equestrian center, and the horses were so beautiful. If this were my horse, I might name it ‘whiskers’.

In 2021, we took a trip to Maui, and this picture is from Ho’okipa Beach, not too far from the airport. Looking the other way from this photo, there are huge sea turtles sunning themselves on the beach. You are not supposed to disturb them by getting too close, so I don’t have any great pictures of them, but they were pretty amazing. It’s close to sunset here, and the shadows from the clouds, the trees, even the mounds of sand, make a pretty picture I think.

There is no better way to end any post than with a picture of my darling boy Mulder. Look at that beautiful smile. The shadows and light in this picture make me happy.

Oh, wait…yes there is a better way, which is to bring up these beautiful pictures of shadows and light…Maya and Mulder on December 31st, 2016. For my birthday that year, I wanted to go to the ocean, so we went to Pescadero. It was Mulder’s first time at the ocean, and he LOVED it. Pescadero is south of Half Moon Bay and North of Santa Cruz. There is not much there, a few stores and restaurants, and in the nearby mountains there are Girl Scout camp grounds, and close to where kids go in 5th or 6th grade to Science Camp, which is the best week of a NorCal kid’s academic life. There is a little grocery store that is famous for their artichoke bread, which is a loaf of bread with artichoke hearts baked into it. It’s delicious, and we shared some on this lovely day.