Category Archives: Weekly Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: All-Time Favorites – Sunset

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From Word Press – “Welcome to the final installment of the Weekly Photo Challenge. In wishing you a fond farewell, we wanted to share our all-time favorite photos with you. We welcome you to share your favorites with us. Happy photographic trails!” – Krista Stevens

I want to thank the Word Press staff for years of Daily Challenges. I have enjoyed participating in the challenges and love to do my best to present my posts. This is my second post to the final installment.

I love taking sunset photos for its dramatic colors with the combination of clouds, moist in the air, and reflections in the ocean. The fascination is the colors change so quickly within a matter of minutes. I have taken sunset photos during travels to many countries. Including in this post are photos from July 18, 2017 at La Habra, California; November 23, 2015 at Huntington Beach, California; October 11, 2014 at Maui, Hawaii; and January 10, 2011 at Key West, Florida.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: All-Time Favorites

Photo Challenge – Portage Glacier Cruise, Alaska

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May 22, 2018, was our last day of sightseeing before leaving Alaska on the following day. We went on the Portage Glacier Cruise. We were fortunate to have a sunny day for the Denali National Park trip. We had a sunny day again for our glacier cruise. When we arrived at the site of the glacier, the boat stopped, and the captain gave us an orientation of the phenomena of the glacier. Toward the end of the cruise, we had photos taken with the safety ring labeled the company name as our souvenir.

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As a point of interest, here are the what and why of blue ice and iceberg.

Blue glacier

In the case of oceans or lakes, some of the light hitting the surface of the water is reflected back directly, but most of it penetrates the surface, interacting with its molecules. The water molecule can vibrate in different modes when the light hits it. The red, orange, yellow, and green wavelengths of light are absorbed, the remaining light is composed of the shorter wavelengths of blue and violet. This is the main reason why the ocean is blue.

Small amounts of regular ice appear to be white because of air bubbles are inside them and because small quantities of water appear to be colorless. In glaciers, the pressure causes the air bubbles to be squeezed out, increasing the density of the ice. As it absorbs the colors other than blue, a large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, would appear blue.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(glacial)

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Iceberg

As we look around the lake, we saw many pieces of the iceberg. Iceberg is a large floating mass of ice detached from a glacier or ice sheet. It floats until it’s carried out to sea. When we see “the tip of the iceberg,” we only see 10% of its mass. We saw one piece of blue iceberg, the mass below the surface must be a large body of ice.

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May is the beginning of summer in Alaska, the snow water gushes down countless twisting creeks. If we had gone back in two or three weeks, we would see the beautiful blooms.

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Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo: Tuesday Photo Challenge – Ring

Weekly Photo Challenge: Twisted

Weekly Photo Challenge – Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

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My husband and I spent Mother’s Day weekend with Mercy, Will, and Autumn. Autumn is now seven and a half months old. She started crawling fast on Mother’s Day. What a joyful Mother’s Day gift she gave to her mom. She also learned to clap her hands and feet. Yes, she curls up her legs and claps her feet. She pinches something smaller than a piece of rice with her index finger and thumb. I was impressed with her fine motor dexterity.

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We arrived Portland on Wednesday. Mercy took us to different gardens on Thursday and Friday.

For this post, I include several photos of Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. It is a botanical garden located near Reed College in southeastern Portland, Oregon. The garden covers 9.49 acres (3.84 ha), is named for the numerous springs within the garden. Crystal Springs Garden features more than 2,500 rhododendrons, azaleas, and other plants in small lakes, fountain, and small waterfalls.

Many kinds of ducks, birds, and geese are residents in the Garden. My favorite is Wood Duck. This time of the year, Canada Geese have a whole bunch of offspring. It was fun watching the goslings running around eating seeds.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Liquid

Photo Challenge – A Day at The Huntington Library

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We had an outing to The Huntington Library today. We made this plan last week. The weather was getting warmer and I packed things I needed to protect me from sunlight and the heat. My skin is still sensitive to the heat and the ray of the sun, so I need to be careful. When we got up this morning, I saw the unusual hazy sky. As I looked north, the mountains were disappeared.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and located in Los Angeles County in San Marino, California. In addition to the library, the institution houses an extensive art collection with a focus in 18th- and 19th-century European art and 17th- to mid-20th-century American art. The 500 acres property includes approximately 120 acres of specialized botanical landscaped gardens, the “Japanese Garden”, the “Desert Garden”, and the “Chinese Garden”, along with the Rose Garden, Australian Garden, Herb Garden, Shakespeare Garden.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington_Library

The haze in the sky blocked the heat from the sun. It turned out to be a better day for me. We walked for three hours and visited some of the Exhibits and several Gardens. The structure for the climbing roses in the Rose Garden is beautiful.

 

 

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Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo: Tuesday Photo Challenge – Heat

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines

Photo Challenge – After the Rain

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My plum tree is four years old. In March 2017, the tree was full of blossoms. Thanks to the hard-working bees, we had a prolific harvest in the early summer. I took photos of the plum tree in March this year, the blossoms were scattered. I was puzzling about the difference between the two years. Then I remembered that the rain came late this past winter. The air was still cold in February and early March. As a result, there was not enough sunlight to call out the blossoms. Only after the rain and a couple weeks of warm weather, the blossoms started to appear. The harvest this year may not be as bountiful as last year.

We are thankful for the rain!

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Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo: Tuesday Photo Challenge – Rain

 Weekly Photo Challenge: Prolific

Photo Challenge – The Call of Spring

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We planted some Date Palm Trees in our front yard fourteen years ago. They are now mature and leafy. I enjoy sitting on the front porch, breathing in the cooler air, and watching the flowers in my garden. They are awakening to answer the call of spring.

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Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo: Tuesday Photo Challenge – Breathe

Weekly Photo Challenge: Awakening

Tuesday/Weekly Photo Challenge – Baby Birds in the Summer

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Frank’s Tuesday Photo Challenge the prompt for this week is: Future

Weekly Photo Challenge is: Smile

I hope to see some baby birds successively hatched in the near future – summer 2018. Watching and feeding these birds put a smile on my face.

I have been feeding many kinds of birds. The Mourning Doves came back to my garden for the third year. The first year, the female dove laid eggs, but the eggs were stolen. 1) Last year, the female doves laid two eggs and both the male and female took turns to incubate the eggs. The eggs were successfully hatched to two healthy baby doves. I’m hoping the mourning doves will have chicks again this year.

I also have many House Finch in my garden. They had the same misfortune two years ago and lost their four eggs. 2) Last year, the female Finch laid three eggs and hatched four eggs. One must be twins. 3) The birds watched their chicks from the nearby tree. There are many pairs of House Finch in my garden. One pair checked out the old nest. I hope they would use the same nest to lay eggs again.

I feed them bird seeds every day to get them to be healthy and ready to be parents.

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I bought a new Hummingbird Feeder. The Red Throat Hummingbirds seem to like the feeder. There are not too many blooms around yet. So, the Hummingbirds come every twenty minutes for feeding. They seem to be a pair, I don’t know where they would build a nest.

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I just identified the White Crowned Sparrows in my garden. They may have been coming for years, but I didn’t pay attention to their features and I just googled and identify them as White Crowned Sparrow.

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White Crowned Sparrow

I may not see the Hummingbird babies, but I do hope to see the Mourning Dove’s chicks and the House Finch’s chicks. That is my hope for the near future – summer. In the meantime, I’ll feed them well.

Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo: Tuesday Photo Challenge – Baby Birds in the Summer

Weekly Photo Challenge: Smile

Weekly Photo Challenge – Sunrise/Sunset

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I don’t get up early enough to take many sunrise photos. I did manage to take some last year on Easter Sunday. Mercy and Will hiked to the top of Mt. Adams in Oregon to watch the sunrise. The first photo is credited to Mercy.

I love taking sunset photos. When I travel during sunrise or sunset hours, I make sure to have seats where I could capture the scenes. Sunset is beautiful everywhere, such as in the cities of my neighborhood, which is also fascinating.

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Sunrise on top of Mt Adams, Oregon

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Sunrise on Easter Sunday, Fullerton, California

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Sunset view from airplane, west coast, USA

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Sunset in La Habra, California

Weekly Photo Challenge: Rise/Set

Weekly Photo Challenge – Favorite Place

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There are many places in the world we have traveled once. Some of them are my favorite places and I don’t mind going back to visit. I just want to be practical and choose somewhere accessible to be my favorite place. We are not too far from beaches. Among the several beaches, Newport Beach is my favorite beach, whether it takes a cruise for whale watching, or walking on the beach, or going to seafood restaurants, or watching the sunset, it’s beautiful. It’s half an hour driving from home, so we go there often.

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Favorite Place

Frank’s Dutch Goes the Photo – Tuesday Photo Challenge

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