Two thousand five was the first year I could show Ligia the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. She’d moved to the States in the summer of 2004. We walked around for a couple of days admiring the beautiful blossoms. We even found a parking spot with relative ease.
Each subsequent year after that, the crowds that visited DC during this special time seemed to swell in number, to the point where parking spots were impossible to find, so we’d take the metro instead.
Two thousand four was the year I started to get serious about photography. I was still shooting with whatever cameras I had available instead of seeking out the best equipment I could get, but I’d started to examine my composition, my framing, the shapes I tried to capture, and photography started to appeal more and more to me.
I still remember vividly the day I took most of these photos. I’d just made a momentous decision, one which had troubled me for months, and after getting it over with, I felt the need to relax, so I went outside. It was a gorgeous spring day. The birds were chirping in the trees, the sun bathed everything in soft, warm light, and I felt at peace. Even though I was under tremendous stress, I knew everything would turn out alright. I shut every stray thought out and focused solely on the beautiful images I was seeing in nature. After an hour of walking and taking photos here and there, I was fully relaxed and ready to take on the things that would come my way.
The photos were taken with an Elura 40 MC (a Mini DV camera from Canon that took 1024×768 photos) and an Olympus C3000Z, a wonderful camera (for its time) which took wonderful and clear photos as long as it had enough light and the ISO stayed under 400.
A large white swan preens itself while floating on a pond, on a hot summer day. I filmed this at the same location as the stag.
I’ve never seen a water fowl hold one of its feet so persistently in the air while preening. I’ve seen geese do it from time to time, but only for a few seconds. This swan was bent on doing it for a long time! 🙂
All of us have probably heard at one point or another that it’s good for us to walk barefoot once in a while, either on grass or on the beach. It’s the sort of information that we file away and don’t remember to do all that often, until we find out why it’s important.
In these three videos posted here, Dr. Stephen Sinatra explains why walking barefoot (or grounding, as he calls it) is important for our health.
Enjoy and apply his advice! It’s backed by the wisdom of our forefathers and by current scientific research, and it’s also really easy to do.
Wild garlic leaves make a delicious soup in the spring, they’re wonderful in salads and they’re packed with healthy nutrients, since they grow in rich, pesticide-free forest soil. Here you can see Ligia picking wild garlic this past spring, in a forest near Medias. The forests near our town are full of them!
Spring is almost here and if there’s a forest near you, go pick some wild garlic! The soup is finger-licking good, especially with nice, home-made bread on the side.
Raoul Pop 