Back in the garden

We are back, after eight weeks in Provence, heaven. While we were gone our wonderful neighbors watched our cat and took care of the garden. All I had to do when we returned was mow, blow and do some weeding. They also got rid of a weed evergreen that shaded a lot of the backyard. The picture above is of a cast iron plant that is a tenacious shade plant. Very interesting leaves but almost impossible to pull up as it roots densely and deep. What it doesn't like is full sun, which it now has. I hope to get rid of it and replace it with sun loving plants.

The flower is a datura, or Angel's Trumpet. The added light has made them take off. Beautiful flowers and, at night, a lovely scent.

Not graffiti, France, For Carl

Serendipity again. These appeared in front of our rental in France on the day of Carl's post.

Branch, jet trail, cloud, dock, Roscoe

Another Holga lens shot. (See post below.)

Shadows, Roscoe

I have just gotten an old friend back. When I had a working darkroom I loved the images from toy cameras. I had Dianas and, when they broke, as they always did, I converted to Holgas, a bit better built. The 120 film required a darkroom so that I could develop it for a longer time and then print the resulting negatives to my taste. I love the soft/harsh look of toy cameras. I have tried, since going digital, to duplicate the look with Lensbabies of many versions. They were similar, but lacked the instinctive point and shoot of the Holgas. You had to squeeze the lens to focus!

I recently found that I can get a real, original, Holga lens that will fit on Micro 4/3 cameras. I ordered one and it came yesterday! I put it on one of my Olympus E-M5s and went out to play. Well.....the files look just like Holga files! The lens actually is more usable on a DSLR as you can use the viewfinder to focus and see if it works. Plus, if you set the camera to Aperture preferred you get a good exposure every time! Not guaranteed with the old Holgas. So I am a happy camper. This is one of the first shots from this morning.

Rock on dock, Roscoe