Taiwan 2024 - New Taipei Awesome Garden, Blue Flower with Glowing Interior

Starting with the big guns...this was captured in the Awesome Garden after a few days of soft rain.  No post-capture work was needed to make the center appear as though illuminated; it just came out that way.

Different angle observed below with focus shift:

Seeing how the middle glows reminds me of some of the NDE descriptions of how the flowers, grass and other plants on the "other side" are seemingly illuminated by the life within.  I have not had such a deep experience, but it's fun to read about those that recount their supposed "death" upon their return to this side of life.

Taiwan 2024 - New Taipei, Buddhist Smokestack

I retired in September of 2023, and on the top of my list of goals was to spend more time perfecting this blog.  That would include spending more time to refine my writing, improving skills in the pictures I take, and finding another platform in which to distribute and showcase my work.

Oddly, upon completing the Canadian posts of Sept-Dec of 2023, I lost interest!  There seemed to be simply no desire to pursue the craft any further.  Perhaps it was the laziness that settles in over time with not having or needing a job...who knows.  Whatever the cause, I ended up spending way too much time laying on the couch with a book or YouTube video.  Haven't even spent much time on the flight simulator (MSFS 2020), another of my retirement goals.

Then our daughter Allison got married.  Preceding the ceremony - which was private, just between the bride and groom plus the officiator and photographer - the wife and I were visiting with Allison as she was getting made up by a professional make-up guy.  She had a friend there who raved about this blog and how much they both enjoyed perusing the pics and reading the stories.

Thus, for the sake of my two followers I'm going back in to continue the blog.  Besides, it's important to keep the creative, right-side of your brain engaged, and this is a good vehicle to do just that.

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The series that I'm starting now is from a five-week visit to Taiwan, the first since the both of us retired, enabling longer trips.  The vast majority of the pics to be posted from New Taipei are either on the way to the fantastic garden featured in previous series or in the garden itself.  The pic above is just down the street from my sister-in-law's apartment where we were staying, and I thought interesting because of the huge smoke stack on top of the place where they burn things, primarily fake money.  Might be a tad wide for a bookmark in spite of its narrow composition...

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Animals We Saw / Farewell to Blogger (maybe)

Invariably one of the questions asked of us about our vacation was about animals: "What kind of wildlife did you see?" (not much)  "Did you run into a bear?" (no, but we thought about it at times because there were sightings they warned us about)  "Did the wolves howl?" (we weren't in the wilderness at night)  "How many mountain lions did you have to fight off while hiking?" (none, though with my sciatica it would have been very difficult)  "How many bald eagles did you see plucking fish from the lakes?" (none around while we were there)  "How many bald eagles does it take to pluck a fish from a lake?" (one, at times two if they're fighting over it)

No, these were the only creatures we saw...a few small birds and a couple of rodents.

And that does it for our Canadian Rocky adventure.  We were very fortunate in that the weather cooperated when we were most active outside, we made the right decision in basing at Lake Louise Village instead of Banff, and the latitude got us away from this dreadful Houston heat!  In my older age I've taken a shine to the cold, and that alone made it worth all the expense and hassle of traveling.

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So farewell in more ways than one.  This is the last post of one of the more productive vacation shoots, and this may well be my last post in the Blogger platform.  I'm taking some time to scope out other digital venues to showcase my work, which will be linked below if I find one.  It's been a blessing having a place to deposit the better of my pics, as well as a place to archive some of the stories from my rich and varied past.  Hope you've enjoyed it!

-Jim

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Sprig of Three Colors

As a follow-up to this post from Emerald Lake, found it interesting that one sprig could have three distinct colors as seen above.

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Small Tree Branch Pattern

 

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Swirly Pattern

Ever on the lookout for patterns and nature's design for plants, caught this at the entrance of the restaurant, and decided to try the Found and Glowing Edges effects in these bookmarks.

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Trail on the Hill

The first pic posted in this series on Moraine Lake, a few days ago on December 10th, was captured from a vantage point fairly high up on a huge hill.  The shot above was taken on the trek upwards on this hill, as was the scene below with its accompanying bookmark:

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, Canoeists

As mentioned in an earlier post, we found out that renting a canoe in these parts is upwards of $100/hr.  Would be fun, but not that much fun.

After zooming in, due to their forward motion, had to act fast to get the focus shift below:

...and last but not least, a semi-reflection shot of the rental place made into this bookmark:

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, View of Moraine Piles #2

 

Canadian Rockies - Moraine Lake, View of Moraine Piles #1

I worked on the reflection here (as done for the Emerald Lake pics) which took some of the blue out, but was pleased with the result in this 4-shot panorama.  Standalone pic below presents a zoomed-in shot of a portion of this view: