Springtime came in March with a lot of rain here in the S.F. Bay Area. I had grand visions of a field covered with wild vivid California orange poppies and my MCS. So I motored and motered all over back country roads where I've seen poppies before, but I could only find a few small pockets of them; less than a few square feet. Now if you're looking for dry brush, we've got that in spades this time of year.
Found and checked a website that is updated weekly for wildflower sightings
http://www.calphoto.com/wflower.htm (might be handy for others in the Bay Area), but it looked like the pickins' would be slim to fat chance.
However, time spend motoring enjoying our Minis is never time wasted. I did find some amazing scenery that I thought you all might enjoy. I appologize for the lack of a Mini in the photos and I've tried to compensate; hope you'll forgive me.
On the last photo, the rear spoiler snuck into the photo on the bottom left if that makes you feel any more lenient. Hard to not brace the camera on something for a 1/8 sec shutter speed. All photos were taken just south of Amaden Valley in San Jose. They certainlly reveal just how much rain we have gotten this year.
Before I forget, a quick
big thank you to the other photographers here for their very helpful advice regarding layer merging and masking from another thread. You have helped me to figure out how to do a quick digital 1.5 to 2 stop custom grad ND filter effect on several of these images in 10 minutes or less.
Cheers!
Dave
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