The Flickr Wambekeandwambeke Image Generatr

I met Ginger when a friend and I took a trip to Idaho to visit a long time friend in the Hell's Canyon area. My traveling companion liked to visit local shops and urged me to stop at a Rock and Fossil shop on Highway 95, about 120 miles from our final destination. That was when I met Ginger short for Virginia. At that time Ginger was 78 years old and living with her husband behind their rock shop that was located in the front of their country home. I visited her at least once a year for the next decade and one half. After a few years, Ginger invited me into her home that was through a door in the back of her shop. I made this photo of Ginger's cat in the summer of 2008, during a planned stop on my way to Riggins, Idaho. Ginger was a lovely woman, very short, and a great letter writer. Both Melody and I exchanged letters with her often. The last few months before she died, she would write to us a couple times a week.I captured this image using a Canon Powershot A650, one of the cameras I used in those days.Rest in Peace, Ginger.

I made this photo of a group of tiny daffodils growing on the steep grade of the Athens Avalon Greenspace next to the 99 tiled steps in our neighborhood near the end of February 2024. Looking at my photostream, I see that I posted a photo of tiny daffodils taken a month before in a different location during our daily walk. Well, the early year is time for daffodils; and they are out in force – in small front gardens as well as this community garden. Shot using my Canon Powershot SX50.

Though much of John McLaren Park is lush and fertile, having once been hilly cattle country in the very early days of San Francisco, Much of the 313 acres is wild and rocky. I made this photo of a single dandelion flower that was hanging out onto a very rocky path through the park. There were many other of these pretty yellow flowers in the area, but I decided to photography this one by itself at fairly close range, using my Canon Powershot SX50.
Many consider dandelions weeds. They do cover yards and hillsides during a rainy winter without being planted. They are not. The entire dandelion plant is edible, flowers, leaves, and roots. It is also medicinal. Pretty, too.

I made this photo of a fly on Bird of Paradise flower as I was strolling our small urban backyard. I shot this in the summer of 2021, over a year into the pandemic. Took lots of photos in the backyard during that time – still do. Flies can be pretty annoying and disgusting insects. One thing most people do not consider about flies is that they are also pollinators. This is the cropped version of an original image captured using my Canon Powershot SX50.

You never know what you will come across during a neighborhood walk. I made this photo of an outfitted bike during Melody's and my walk through John McLaren Park the summer of 2023. Outfitted was how I first described this electric bike. Closer inspection of the name and a little research discovered this is an Urban Arrow Family Cargo Bike – a E-bike costing around $8,000. Children are supposed to fit in the cargo box at the front of the bike with a low center of gravity. It was parked near a picnic area with lots of people around. But $8,000 is a lot to just park in the open. Guess it might be a little difficult to steal, though, since it weighs 110 pounds. When you do get this baby going, it has a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour with pedal assist.

I made this photo of a bee hovering close to a Yellow Iceland Poppy during a visit to Golden Gate Park in March 2021, the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. This flower was in one of several flower beds in the Conservatory Valley in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. There were lots of bees flitting from flower to flower, making it easier to capture this image using my Canon Poershot SX50.

I made this photo of a squirrel that was at the base of a tree just after Melody and I entered John McLaren Park during our daily walk in mid June 2023. John McLaren Park is the second largest park in San Francisco, covering 313 acres of hilly terrain, mixed between undeveloped and developed. There are many wild animals in the park ranging from water fowl, wild coyotes, to squirrels like this one shot at full telephoto capabilities of my Canon Powershot SX50.

Sometimes things just look too perfect. I made this photo of a succulent that was in a community garden in our neighborhood next to 99 tiled steps leading up a steep hill from one city street to another. The garden is named Athens Avalon Greenspace. This succulent certainly is green; and very clean. Don't often see these plants this clean. Maybe that is why I photographed it using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I made this photo of three trees with Spring blossoms during Melody's and my visit to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in late February 2024. This was the first photo of the visit. The trees were in the park, though we were still across the street that we would cross before entering the park. I shot this using my Canon Powershot SX50.

After shying away from many favorite venues in our lovely San Francisco.during the height of the pandemic, Melody and I are starting to visit them once more. I made this photo of what is left of a fallen tree during our brief visit to the Botanical Garden before heading home for an afternoon in Golden Gate Park. Usually a park or garden will clear out fallen trees. Many the Botanical Garden decided to leave this remnant of a fallen tree because it was in the Jurrasic section.

There are three stores in the South of Market Area of downtown San Francisco within a few blocks of each other that Melody and I shop about once a week. Trader Joe's is one of our regular stops and Melody buys cut flowers besides groceries. Tulips are in season March and April, so tulips it has been for the last couple of weeks. I made this photo of a bunch of tulips that Melody had arranged in a vase on her quilting worktable set up at one end of our kitchen. They were on a table that had lots of distractions; so I managed to capture this image by moving back from the subject and using the blank kitchen wall as the backdrop. That worked better than trying to shoot them from up close.

I made this photo of a young man sliding over the top of a fence of a vacant, newly renovated corner house on the next block from our San Francisco home. There were a group of four around the same age doing various skateboarding stunts. This was the most proficient of the lot, though he took several tumbles as he rode the fence top over and over and over again. Must admit he was as agile as he was game. One of his buddies was farther down the hill recording the action with a video camera. Not much paint left on top of the railing when they finished performing their extreme sport. Shot from a distance using mid telephoto setting on my Canon Powershot SX50.

Since Thursday night is when we put out the carts for recycling, compostables, and garbage pickup Friday morning, that is when I will most likely photograph the moon. I made this photo of the waxing Gibbous moon at 9:40 April 10, 2024 from the front of our San Francisco home. It was just over the top of the house across the street and was no longer in sight when I checked two hours later. This was the second of three attempts to photograph this slice of the moon. Shot hand held using framing assist to locate moon that was dark due to the manual exposure setting.

I made this photo of pigeons perched along the curved roof corner of an apartment building as Melody and I were walking back from our Local Public library located six or eight blocks down the hill from our San Francisco home. Pigeons can be a problem for property owners and many buildings install spiked bird protectors so birds cannot land and perch. However, edges of roofs are still fair game. Shot from across the street using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I made this photo of tiny daffodils during Melody's and my daily walk in January 2024. There are plenty of daffodils in the San Francisco Bay Area; so we are used to them. These pretty white flowers with yellow center were very tiny, though it is difficult to discern how small they were in this photo. Shot at fairly close range with my Canon Powershot SX50.

Golden Gate Park is the largest park in San Francisco at 1,017 acres. Much of it is dedicated groves of trees and bushes with origins from different parts of the world. Many parts have buildings, gardens, and open spaces that attract both international, national, and local visitors. The park recently distributed yellow Adirondack chairs throughout many of the common areas of the park. I made this photo of a fellow reading a book while relaxing in such a chair in the Conservatory Valley. Shot from above with moderate telephoto and spot focus using my Canon Powershot SX50.

For the first 40+ years living in my current home, I can only remember commercial airliners flying over a hand full of times, except for a week or so a long time ago; and that only lasted a brief time before only the sounds of our working class neighborhood again prevailed. That all changed in late 2015 when the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) began their "NextGen" flight patterns. Though it has gotten better in the last couple of years due to community push back, I still hear and see more jets flying overhead in a week than I heard in entirety before 2015. I made this photo of a commercial jetliner from John McLaren Park during Melody's and my daily walk the beginning of April 2023. This is a vertical crop of the original image, as it is difficult to hold even my image stabilized Canon Powershot SX50 vertically when taking a shot at full telephoto.

This was the last photo I made as Melody and I were leaving John McLaren Park on a mid afternoon Sunday at the end of April 2023. Looks like a day at one of the park's playgrounds wore this little guy out. Much of the 313 acre John McLaren Park is crisscrossed with hillside trails or paths and much of it is wooded, even with a redwood grove, much is also developed with sports, playground, picnicking, restroom amenities; a mixed rural environment inside a city. The best of both worlds. I shot this are nearly full telephoto capabilities of my Canon Powershot SX50.

Over the years, I have spread birds of paradise flowers through the small backyard of our San Francisco home. They all started from one plant that I got from my sister years ago. Birds of Paradise are easy to cut into pieces and replant. It is great fun to see these regal flowers when the are blooming right outside our back door. I shot this at moderate telephoto and spot focus using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I made this photo of roses, sculpture, and succulent in the backyard of our San Francisco home in the summer of 2023. Still reeling from the last year and one half of the Covid-19 onslaught, Melody and I were still sticking close to home. Fortunately, we don't have to go any farther than our own back yard to see, and photograph, beautiful flowers, plants, and art. The sculpture was made by our late friend Helen Phillips Pinsky. I shot this at close range using spot focus on my Canon Powershot SX50.