I sometimes use the Stephen Stills song title to categorize a set of pictures taken with my phone camera. It's a pop culture version of a photography truism: "The best camera is the one you have with you." Recently, I made the lamentable decision to leave my "real" camera at home for my morning walk, thinking I really didn't have the time for a good shoot and that the weather didn't look promising anyway. Oops. As soon as I was in Golden Gate Park the fog returned in a flirtatious and gorgeous way, never overwhelming the scenes. My phone is seven years old, with an unfancy 12 MP camera. But I just had to capture some of what I was seeing as I walked through the Botanical Garden and around Stow Lake. The images — which supported more finishing work than you might expect from Jpegs — should serve me just fine for online display, or for cards or small prints.
Gaps in the Canopy
The big old trees of Golden Gate Park have been falling over the last several years -- some due to age alone, and many due to the strong winds and torrential rain of this past winter. It is the way of all things, of course. But even so, it's hard for a park lover, and a photographer fond of trees, when seemingly each new walk reveals another old friend stricken or down.
It has taken a while, but now the thinning of the canopy is becoming apparent even from a distance. The first of the following two north-facing photographs was taken from the 15th Avenue stairs (climbing from Kirkham to Lawton) in April of 2017. The second was taken from the same vantage point a few days ago, in May of 2023. What you see in the distance is Strawberry Hill, the island rising from Stow Lake in the park. The new gap-toothed look is clear from this angle.
If there is a silver lining in all of this, I suppose, it is the vistas that have opened from Strawberry Hill itself. The third of these images, south-facing, was captured in recent weeks from the hill's peak. And so the dense mystery of 140-year-old giants gives way to open views of the rolling City. Whether Strawberry Hill is reforested, or instead reverts to its native coastal prairie look, remains to be seen.
Intermission
About a year ago I posted an entry here titled “Rain…Maybe…Please?” This year, by contrast, California has faced one “atmospheric river” after another, bringing record rain and cold. Another set of storms is coiled to strike again. But in this day or two of intermission, we’ve been treated to sun and dramatic skies. My iPhone caught these clouds today, piled above the Big Rec ballfields in Golden Gate Park.
Walks in Ohio
There's a town in southern Ohio, almost 200 years old, to which family visits have brought me for the last quarter-century. On the edge of town is a "newer" development built in the 1950s, and at the development's edge, of even more recent vintage, lies a park with open land and athletic fields. Just beyond the park, farmland begins, and in the distance, the ripplings of Appalachia.
The transitions from space to space, use to use, take place with few or no fences. You can walk from many backyards into the park uninterrupted. On the opposite side, you'll know where the park ends only because you face a wall of corn in summer, or, in autumn, flattened rows of dried stalks. In the wide acres of park not devoted to athletics, trees were planted in the mid-aughts, but they seem in no hurry to become anything like a woods. Similarly, an old barn in the corn fields is decaying, but ever so slowly.
The park is a short walk from where I visit, no vehicles needed, and so I've spent many a spare hour there -- in the muffling ground fog of early mornings, or the breeze and birdsong of late day. These images come from fourteen years of such walks, quiet rambling transitions from street to park to farmland.
Chilly Scenes of Summer
In the morning, the back hall thermostat reads 55 F. Fog-damp darkens the sidewalks, and in Golden Gate Park the drip from eucalyptus trees patters the dirt paths -- a welcome, if inadequate, sound in the midst of drought. Sometimes the weak sun works gentleman's hours, 11 - 3; just as often, it contents itself with scant seconds of flirtation, a brief smeared disc in the gray.
Welcome to Summer 2022 on the west side of San Francisco.
Nevertheless, I love the fog, and I'm grateful that we aren't setting heat records -- yet. Here are some chilled impressions developed out of recent camera walks in Golden Gate Park, arranged roughly in east-west order. Click to view larger against black background.
Wildwoods
Oak Dance
Survivor
“Just So.” Big Rec ball fields.
Statue and Ferris Wheel, Music Concourse.
Testimony
Water’s Edge, Stow Lake (inversion)
Willow, Elk Glen Lake
Western Tangle
Reflections, Metson Lake
Ivy Woods
Ivy is bad for forests and parks, in so many ways. I know this fact in my head. But my sensual aesthete side — the side that’s so often in control as I hike about with the camera — is nevertheless beguiled by stands of trees that have come under the power of ivy.
Park Color on a Gray Day
On a recent June morning, with San Francisco draped in its finest gray after weeks of sun, I found myself walking west on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. I don't get to JFK that often, compared to the frequent hiker miles I rack up in the rest of the Park. But after the city's recent decision to make one stretch permanently car-free, I was curious to see how it "felt" in the middle of the week.
I had just passed the Rose Garden when, on the north side of JFK, I happened upon a beautiful splash of color. I had no memory of this unnamed garden, which nestled against a copse of trees, and which was all the more beautiful set off against the gray day. As I was exploring the area with my camera, two women approached from the west. As chance would have it, one of them turned out to have been instrumental -- as a volunteer -- in the rehabilitation and development of this area. It had been a "pandemic project" of hers, a labor of love undertaken with the approval and, as time went on, material support of Park gardeners.
For me, this was a bright spot in the day's walk. It was literally a vibrant, bright spot, of course. But it also gladdened my heart to learn some story behind it. I was happy that the bureaucracy of a big city -- with its necessary but occasionally spirit-crushing rules and protocols -- could still bend just enough to allow one devoted person to see a need, bring some tools, and get to work.
Rain ... Maybe... Please?
Morning walk with the camera phone today included this look west from the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps with their beautiful, community-tended gardens. There’s talk of a half-inch of rain by mid-day tomorrow, and I’m hoping these approaching clouds are evidence of that. Cross fingers and toes, knock on wood.
Must Be Spring
Although colored leaves still cling to some trees, it’s already Spring in much of San Francisco. In some respects, Spring here never ends. I used my cell phone this morning to capture these chasmanthe bathing in morning sunbeams at the edge of Stow Lake.
Must Be Autumn
Fun fact, surprising to non-San Franciscans: Autumn brings our warmest, sunniest weather of the year. On a recent September morning, these Stow Lake rental boats basked in the sun and awaited their first customers.
Fleeting Gift
Photography not only lets us record what we see, it also heightens our ability to see. This image was created by evening sun streaming through the beveled, leaded sidelight windows of a front door. I had my camera phone to use, but lately I try to appreciate such moments even when there is nothing in my hand to “capture” them. Fleeting image gifts are always available to view in my inner Instagram.
"Deep Woods"
In the parks of San Francisco, it’s possible to stand on a paved walking path or steps from a road and find a scene that suggests wilderness. As I discovered, pondered, and framed these images, sounds and distractions faded away.
Golden Gate Park, near Lily Pond and AIDS Memorial Grove
Sutro Forest, seen from a UCSF parking lot
Presidio of San Francisco
Near Elk Glen Lake, Golden Gate Park
Stern Grove canopy
San Francisco Botanical Garden