In honor of tonight’s Solstice, I am featuring a photo taken on the other Solstice, the first day of summer in June. Please enjoy these pink peonies from my garden. In just a few hours, the sun dips to its lowest point in the northern hemisphere, and then begins its stately progress towards more light. We are ready.

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Driving across the 520 bridge towards Seattle the other day, I was wowed by this sunset setting up. I so wished I could pull over and wait for the pink clouds that I knew were to follow. This slice of sunlight is pretty cool, though, even though the photo quality is low. A fitting post for the Solstice, almost here. The sun will return!

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The other night at the lighting ceremony at Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory, there was magical harp music. In that mysterious and romantic environment, it only sounded more beautiful, if that is possible, than harp music usually does. Wish I had a video of it, but I’m a still camera kind of gal, at least so far.

I like the special mood of this photo and I’m calling this my Best Post of the Week.

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I don’t know much at all about orchids other than that the flowers last so long it makes their high prices almost sensible. Here’s one in a florist shop that really excites me. Green and pink is one of my fave color combos, especially in flowers. If only they had fragrance, but I guess with looks like this, who needs perfume?

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When a sunset gets going in the pink mode, it can really get going, but you have to be quick to get it at the peak. This view to the southwest in my backyard was perfect for yesterday’s display of the year, sunset-wise. The photos taken seconds right before and right after this one were great, but this one was oh-my-goodness—to me, at least. I sure love the digital camera thing that lets you take so many, because in the film days, I might have taken only one or two and not gotten this show. And I surely wouldn’t be sharing it with the entire world!

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Since it’s so gray and cold out now as we approach the winter Solstice, let’s take a look at its opposite, a scene from my garden in June. Isn’t the pink, fluffy meadow rue sweet? Looking at the photo data I see that it was taken at 6pm. It’s a long time dark at that time now, of course. But isn’t it nice to know that the sun will return, in all its garden glory?

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Well, sunset comes early now, that’s for sure, so we just have to enjoy it when we can. I missed a really spectacular sunset last week with just a glimpse as I drove along, so I was extra happy to see this sweet one that I could photograph, even if just delicate pink and not red. I’ll take it. And do you notice almost a rainbow reflection in the water? I can’t quite figure it out. I love the mysterious reflection and I’m calling this my Best Post of the Week.

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Happy note: Only 16 days ’til the solstice means just 32 days until days are lengthening and longer than today!

In keeping with my six-month opposite date for blog posts when it’s gray outside (see post below), here is some bleeding heart (dicentra) from my next door neighbor’s garden, taken in May. Ah, the sunshine! Since Seattle is quite north, these lovelies can do all right even with some sun, but when I gardened in Northern California, they needed to be in shade only.

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Sometimes when I get a real desire for photos of flowers and there’s nothing outside looking good, I find that the ones that satisfy are almost exactly six months opposite today’s date in the archives. So enjoy these rhododendron blossoms from May of this year. We’ll get there again, somehow.

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The Holiday Open House at Trudy’s Floral Design in Seattle was so much fun yesterday. I met all kinds of really nice people, signed some books, and of course amused myself with photographing some of the beautiful displays. What a great party. If you missed it you must come next year.

One lovely woman said I inspired her because I created the Flowers book with only my pocket camera, not a lot of fancy equipment. That’s a pet peeve of mine, the idea that you must have super-expensive, complicated (and heavy!) equipment to get great photos. Just not true. If you are interested in learning more about my simple approach to photography, please download the “7 Secrets” pdf to the right in the sidebar. And then please write and tell me if it helped you.

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