I will be displaying my work at the upcoming Capitola Art and Wine Festival. The festival will run from 10 am to 6 pm, September 8 & 9. This is a great show, really top of the line art, good music, food and wine. To avoid parking frustrations near the village, they will be running a free shuttle from the Capitola Mall on 41st Ave (near Sears).
Find us by the Monterey Stage.
Here’s more about the Capitola Art and Wine Festival
The Sierra Club Engagement Calendar is always great – each week features a fantastic view of our beautiful planet. This photo I took of Dogwood Blossoms in Yosemite Valley can be found in the upcoming 2008 Engagement Calendar on the week starting March 17th.
For more on Pacific Dogwoods, see my previous post.
For more about the Sierra Club go to sierraclub.org
Get your own copy of the Sierra Club 2008 Engagement Calendar
Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) is also known as Mountain Dogwood and can be found along waterways in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, especially Yosemite Valley. As the waterfalls in the Valley burst forth in spring and swell the Merced River, Pacific Dogwoods echo back with a spectacular display.
These showy white blooms are actually modified bud scales (rather than petals like a traditional flower) and can measure up to eight inches across. The blooms appear before the leaves and usually cover the entire tree in a brilliant display.
Nothing marks the start of spring more to me than blooming Dogwoods in Yosemite. Yosemite Valley is spectacular any time of year, but seeing the entire Valley set alight with these blooming trees is life changing. My wife and I first experienced this on our honeymoon, so these blooms will forever hold a soft spot with us, as we try to return every year if we can.
It’s hard to predict when the bloom will occur each year; the year I took this shot, we were a little early. This tree caught my eye as I drove around the Valley, so I had to stop for a better look. I loved what I was seeing– standing under this beautiful tree with the granite walls of Yosemite Valley in the background, so I managed to get a couple of hand-held shots off before the wind came up.
To see more dogwood images, visit our photo gallery at www.paulzaretsky.com
As far back as I can remember, I have loved hiking and backpacking, and what I love about it most is wildflowers – even as a child I scoured the fields around our house looking for a little beauty to press or draw. In college I studied botany, which only fueled that fire and gave me a great excuse for following the early spring bloom on the coast all the way up to the high country for some spectacular summer shows.
A few summers back, Paul and I found ourselves in Washington with some time on our hands. After a quick stop at Mt. Saint Helens we headed straight for Mt. Rainier. Not knowing anything about the Park we got a map and headed straight for a place called Paradise. When we arrived, we could hardly park fast enough because what awaited us was the most spectacular display of mountain wildflowers I have ever witnessed.
The subalpine meadows at the base of the mountain are brimming with blooms of white, yellow, red, and purple. I counted over 20 species on our visit and was particularly taken with the delicate Avalanche Lily, showy Bear Grass, and bright red paintbrush. Just when you think you’ve picked a favorite, you turn a corner and are charmed by another.
We ended up spending several days exploring the area. We stayed at the charming Paradise Inn (not an easy task without reservations), which enabled us to spend some magical evenings and early mornings out in the meadows. If you ever have the occasion to visit Paradise in the Summer – I highly recommend a trip to the Mountain – you won’t soon forget it.
For a bigger view of the above photo, click here.
– Lisa Z
I’ll start off our blog with a entry about one of my most popular images.
This photo was taken on Christmas Day, at the Grizzly Island Complex, in the East Bay Area. This was taken a few years back, before our daughter was born, when Christmas Day was about getting away for some birding and photography. We were parked on the side of the road where I was set up and shooting some Black-tailed Kites that were hovering over the marsh at sunset. Suddenly, two birds popped up from the nearby brush. At first we thought they were Northern harriers, but my wife Lisa got a good look and yelled “owls!”. One of the owls began to circle around the truck and suddenly flew straight toward me. I was able to get off one successful frame as the autofocus searched frantically between the bird and the shrubs. It was definitely a great surprise to get this film back and find one perfectly sharp frame – the one that mattered.
This shot was taken with a Canon EOS3, 400MM 2.8 with 1.4 extension out the window of our truck.
Short-eared owls hunt at sunset and sunrise, so they are one of the few owl species that are spotted durring the day. They are quite magnificent, and just like other owls, they are almost silent flyers. Since this first sighting, I’ve learned to distinguish their flight patterns as much more irratic than the graceful, low gliding harrier, but definitely seen in the same locations.
Our next encounter with the short-eared owl was on the beautiful island of Kauai, driving up the hill to Waimea Canyon for sunrise. Two Hawaiian owls, subspecies of the Short-eared, flew out in front of our car. We quickly parked and watched them fly off together. No time to get out the camera, so I wasn’t as lucky that day, or so I thought… we asked around and learned that just seeing a Hawaiian owl is considered good luck. The Hawaiian owl, or the Pueo, is known as a guardian bird, assuring travelers of reaching their destinations safely. My wife and I feel fortunate every time we get to see this bird, always at sunrise and sunset, always hunting, and usually not alone. One still, golden evening at Tule Lake in Northern California, we spotted at least 20 of these owls flying above a lake-side field. They fluttering about like moths then quickly dropping out of the sky attempting to catch a meal — a memorable evening for sure.
For a larger view, click here.
This is what this blog is to be about – discussions of nature, images, and photography that is important to us.
– Paul