Wednesday, April 15, 2015

It's All Happening at the Zoo

When your life turns into a Paul Simon song, it's probably time to turn yourself in to the glue factory for old horses but that's a wee bit too dramatic and the Fort Worth Zoo could be a good objective instead.

After three days of Texas drought (i.e. heavy rain), the sun is supposed to come out today and then the temperature will warm to 27C.

Note:  the Texas drought is easing but this is irrelevant to California which is glorying in exemplifying the consequence of American excesses (i.e. they're screwed and no-one will help them).


The plan is to drive by the Zoo.  If there are many cars waiting to get into it then I won't go as I'm not going to deal with crowds.  The wave off from that means only to drive a few blocks down University Ave to get to the Botanic Garden as both are within about a mile from here.

Since the leaves on the trees have already reached a mature green rather than the brilliant Spring green when they first unroll, it should be a safe bet there will be quite a bit of flowering in early- to mid-Spring plants.

Note:  crocus is a plant I love as one of the first signs of Spring but I did not learn until a few weeks ago the plants are poisonous to horses.  Now you know.

The video will be another walk-around tour but this time I will use the Canon R600, the newest, to get a feeling for what it can do.  Where a visit to Grecian ruins is inherently moving, going to look at flowers is not.  That's when you have to 'get into the essence of the thing' and, if the video is to be any good, you will.

After photographing a myriad of orchids, even if I do say so myself, some of the pics were pretty damn good ... but they're also absolutely meaningless.  Yah, nice orchid ... what else have you got.  The act of photographing the orchid kills it as the life is gone, only the image remains ... it's like keeping the body but not the soul.


Click it for an even larger version  (shot with a Minolta Maxxum using a Sigma 70mm-200mm zoom around '94)


The Botanic Garden will be a photographic challenge as it's not intrinsically interesting.  Unless you're a bee, a florist, or some Casanova trying to get laid, flowers probably don't play much in your life.  That's unfortunate as they can but never, ever cut them.  Outside you can watch them live, inside you can only watch them die.

So I will take Cat where they are as she doesn't like cut flowers either.

Note:  if you find a woman who is insulted by a dozen red roses, then you damn sure keep that one, matey.  When she would rather see the flowers alive than have her ego stroked, she's a good 'un.


It's not 100% it will happen as the problem underlying all of this is and has been exhaustion.  The only way to combat that is to do it so ... game on.

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