First Harvest

It's not quite the middle of July yet and I am already harvesting from my garden. I've been getting my own zucchinis for three weeks, but this morning I was able to pick the first tomatoes - Celebrity, Early Girl and my favorite, Juliet. All are sweet and juicy - such a difference to the poor growing season we had last year.

When I stepped outside this morning to gather the paper, I saw a bunch of lavender lying at my front door - my beautiful neighbor from across the street has left them there. She has dozens of lavender plants in front of her house, and every year she gives me an armful of them - that's the kind of sweet person she is.

I had some fun taking photos this morning before breakfast. A great way to start the day.

I wish all of you a wonderful week - and eat your veggies!

A Fence By The Beach

On our trip we stopped in Bandon, OR, a sweet little artsy town by the sea. We didn't camp here but stayed a couple nights in a beautiful hotel right on the beach. We started each day by taking a long walk along the sandy beach, enjoyed stunning sunsets and listened to the sea during the night.

Right where the path from the hotel to the beach started there was this beautiful fence, decorated with nets, ropes and buoys.

I thought it was the coolest subject for my photos - and such a handsome guy for Theresa's Good Fences!

 Don't you agree?

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I'm participating in the Christmas in July sale on Etsy.

Everything in my shop is 15% off

with coupon code ETSYCIJ15,

now through Sunday, 7/12/2015

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Camping

During our summer break we went up the coast through Oregon and Washington, stopping where we loved it to camp (some nights we spent in hotels as well, especially when we were in need of a refreshing shower). We love camping, I love sleeping in a tent with just nature around me. That's why we tend to go to more primitive campgrounds and avoid the big RV places.

This time was different than all the other times we went camping - Kaefer wasn't with us. She had left for Germany where she spent a bit more than two weeks with friends of us, going to school and generally enjoying life. It was a very new experience going on vacation without her. While we missed her goofiness, it also had its perks - for example we could photograph as long and much as we wanted without her getting bored.

We always have our special morning latte with foam on top!

I usually started the day writing morning pages and enjoying the fresh morning air.

While the rest of Oregon and Washington was pretty warm and even hot, it was way cooler at the coast. We had some pretty heavy winds and all the light clothes stayed in the bag - it was jeans and sweaters.

We cuddled around the campfire in the morning and the evening, often wrapped in blankets which still smell of smoke even though they had their turn in the washing machine.

I even enjoyed doing the dishes!

We cooked on our tiny camping cooker and I always sent the Geek to fetch more water in our Nalgene bottles. We needed it for everything - cooking, making coffee in the morning and hot chocolate in the evening, doing the dishes, brushing our teeth...

In our campsite in the Oregon Dunes we had very special visitors who were extremely interested in our food - no, we didn't give them anything.

Camping is the way to go for me. I hope we still do it when we're much older - perhaps not in a tent anymore, but a VW camping van. That's my dream.

Celebrating Independence

Today, on the 4th of July, we celebrate our country's independence from Britain, back in 1776. We have red, white and blue parties with family and friends, we barbecue and we have colorful and loud fireworks. It's a joyful holiday, a great day of celebration.

Sadly, some Americans seem to be unaware what we are celebrating.

photo by Robert Bartz

A couple days ago I saw a video in which random people on their way to the beach were interviewed about Independence Day. Some of the "highlights":

Question: Who did we gain our independence from?

Answers:
- I don't know.
- The South.  - At the end of the Civil War? - Yes, from the South.
- Those countries.
And my personal favorite:
- From California. (oh yeah, baby)

Question: Who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Answers:
- I don't know. Abraham Lincoln? - And when was that? - 1964? - 19... - 1984! (Perhaps it was George Orwell then....)

Question: Who were the Founding Fathers of our country?

- Silence.

Where the Declaration of Independence was written. Photo by Robert Bartz

While reading this, you probably cringe just as I did when I watched that video. And of course this is not representative for all Americans. But it made me wonder why I as an immigrant have to pass the citizenship test when I wish to become a US citizen. Perhaps natural born Americans should take that test as well.

Especially politicians. No, I am not elaborating on this. You certainly have made up your mind about that and so have I.

Gaining independence is a huge step for any country. For me, the most important part of independence is freedom. Let freedom ring - but so often I feel it's the freedom for one group, but not for the other. Freedom ends where it limits the freedom of others. That is a given. Freedom involves responsibility - a lot of it. Freedom without responsibility is not freedom for all, but just freedom for "Me". Freedom is something we have to work for every single day - by giving it to others and keeping it for ourselves.

Freedom is something wonderful that we so often take for granted. It is the greatest good in our country - and many others. Truly a reason to celebrate.

The Sweater Is Finally Done!

Back in April I showed you a picture of a sweater that I was knitting for Kaefer for her 17th birthday. Well, her birthday was in April, but of course, the sweater wasn't finished by then. I was a bit over optimistic about how long it indeed takes to knit a sweater.

Yesterday was the big day, when I weaved in the last tail of the beautiful yarn. The sweater was finished, done!! More than a month after her birthday, but my girl was happy. It fits her perfectly. I still need to block it, though, but that is quickly done.

Kaefer's sweater turned out a bit different than the picture in the pattern, but I followed the instructions to a T, so I guess the picture was just of a differently knitted model. I would have preferred the wider neckline and so would Kaefer, but we actually like our result as well.

I love the pattern! We call it the wavy pattern; it looks more complicated than it is. It was actually pretty easy, you just have to be careful and count the rows.

The first sweater I knitted after a very long time. My next projects will be socks, hats, toys...

I also will take a break from my blog for some time. I usually do that in the summer, and I feel that I really need a break right now. The last few months have been intense.

See you all in a few weeks again! Enjoy the summer!

A Lavender Garden In The Vineyards

Sonoma County has a huge number of wineries. The gentle hills are covered with vineyards, the valleys are lined with them. More and more meadows and pastures are turned into vineyards - it's not a monoculture yet since fortunately we still have a lot of agriculture here as well.

The wineries are a huge magnet for people from all over the country with several events taking place almost every weekend, especially in the summer and fall. However, you can still find a neat little oasis if you look around.

One of them is the lavender garden at Matanzas Creek Winery. It's quite a big garden with just lavender and few other tall grasses and some sunflowers. On a sunny day the bees are going berserk here, there's constant humming when you walk through the garden. I think it might be a great backdrop for a wedding.

Kaefer and I thought it might be a great place for taking her senior pictures. She will be a senior next school year, and beside the "formal" senior pictures, each graduate can have a "casual" student picture in the yearbook. Since I am not willing to pay $ 200.00 or more for a professional photographer, I am determined to take these "casual" pictures.

I am NOT a very accomplished portrait photographer, so this is quite a challenge for me. I bought this book from which I already learned so much. And at the moment I am practicing, practicing and more practicing.

Kaefer and I were brainstorming good locations for a shooting, and one idea was the lavender garden.

We went there yesterday afternoon when it was bright, but overcast. Perfect for portrait photography!

Thankfully Kaefer is used to get her picture taken (our friends have always teased us that she is the most photographed child...) and behaves quite naturally in front of the camera. We had a lot of fun during this shooting. We limited our time to 45 minutes.

In those 45 minutes I took about 360 photos of her of which I really like about a handful. Now I get why these photo sessions are so expensive...

None of these pictures will end up in the yearbook. These are all practice shots - I learned so much! We have until the end of the year to get the "perfect" shot.

This one is my favorite from yesterday's shooting. It shows a lot of Kaefer's personality.

Color Balance - What Do You Think?

Many of you photographers out there know about the AWB setting on your camera, or the auto white balance. It is used for color correction or just to get the colors right in our digital cameras. This is the very short version - you can read way more in depth about it here (and most probably somewhere else as well). I usually have my camera setting on AWB, but sometimes I change it to the other small symbols beneath it. For example, there is a symbol for shade - I used it a lot in the Valley of Fire to get the color of the enormous red rocks correct that were often in the shade.

Yesterday was a very cloudy day here and I took some photos of my flowers. I first used  AWB and then took the same picture with the exact same settings, but changed the color balance to "cloudy". The difference was quite striking.

"AWB"

"Cloudy"

You don't see it too much in these first two images. The color in the second picture appears to be warmer, more yellow.

But look here at my Agastaches:

"AWB"

"Cloudy"

Quite a difference, don't you think? All of these photos are straight out of the camera, I didn't edit them except for cropping the following two.

"AWB"

"Cloudy"

I personally think the "cloudy" setting is completely off. This wasn't at all what I saw.

"AWB"

"Cloudy"

I do think that if you want a warmer tinted photo, the "cloudy" setting is quite good. However, I do prefer the cooler colors in the auto white balance setting which is also way closer to what the colors really looked like. I think I stick to AWB and use the other settings only sparingly.

"AWB"

"Cloudy"

I do love my yarrow - especially in the auto white balance setting; the "cloudy" one is too "sweet" for me. Would make a nice vintage photo though.

What do you think? Which setting do you prefer? Do you change your color balance settings or do you mainly shoot in AWB? Please do tell!