The Flickr Wambekeandwambekephotographyandquilting Image Generatr

I made this photo of geraniums on the metal balcony over a garage as Melody and I were coming back from climbing the 99 tiled stairs in our neighborhood. M old time community friend always kept his home in nice condition. Looks like current residents are keeping it up nicely, also.

You don't have to go to a formal rose garden or a nature conservatory to find beautiful flowers. I mad this photo of flowers right in the backyard of our San Francisco home in September of 2022. I planted this rose bush in the mid 1990s after purchasing it from a warehouse story. Go figure!
Shot with moderate telephoto and spot focus suing my Canon Powershot SX50.
I love roses.

The Jerry Garcia Amphitheater is an outdoor concert venue located in McLaren Park in San Francisco, California, opened in 1971. Its maximum capacity is 1,200 people. It is named after Jerry Garcia of the rock band Grateful Dead, and is the site of the annual Jerry Day event, at which various musical groups perform. I made this photo during Melody's and my walk in the eastern most park of the 313 acre park on the last day of February 2023 using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I made this photo of a bromeliad during a visit to the Conservatory of Flowers at the end of January 2024. The COF is a Victorian Greenhouse in Golden Gate Park, that largest park in San Francisco. It has five galleries of mostly tropical flowers, plants, and trees. I shot this using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I made this photo of two women during a visit to the Japanese Tea Garden in the summer of 2021. Though there are many places in the strolling garden that would be difficult to navigate with a wheelchair, you can see here that this popular place in Golden Gate Park is accessible to handicapped visitors. It is one of Melody's and my favorite places to go in our hometown of San Francisco. Shot from above using my Canon Powershot SX50.

I must have been energetic this April afternoon in 2019 when I made this photo of a San Francisco Fire Department ambulance heading toward me on Mission Street since I shot this using my Canon EOS 80D. 2019 was about the year I preferred to only carry my Canon SX50 that I can tuck in my vest pocket rather than cradling a DSLR in my arm. SF has all types of Fire Department emergency vehicles. The boxy ones like this are usually ambulances that first respond to medical emergencies, San Francisco also contracts with private ambulance services who may also transport a patient from the place of incidence to a nearby medical facility. Though we probably think of this street as relatively flat, you can see by the background that it is not. Not as hilly as many other parts of the neighborhood or the city.

I made this photo of a Madagascar Day Gecko at the California Academy of Sciences during a visit to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in the fall of 2019. The CAOS features a three story rain forest dome, planetarium, aquarium, and live exhibits and dioramas. This little reptile was in the rain forest exhibit.
"The Madagascar day gecko is a diurnal species of gecko. It lives on the eastern coast of Madagascar and typically inhabits rainforests and dwells on trees. The Madagascar day gecko feeds on insects, fruit and nectar." (Wikipedia)

I made this photo of a crude, but effective, fence during Melody's and my daily walk in the summer of 2023. This fence is located at the top of the Peru Avenue Stairs on the step hill between Athens St and Valmar Terrance. You can see there is quite a sharp decline on the other side of the sturdy fence. This view is to the west, with mostly residential housing to the Pacific Ocean we could see in the far horizon were it not for the hills. HFF.

Before San Francisco closed several main roads to vehicular traffic in its largest park – Golden Gate Park – Melody and I used to park near the Dahlia Garden, as the Conservatory of Flowers is just up the stairs from there – also to look at the dahlias. These two young women were sitting on a bench in the Dahlia and Arizona Garden area. Just had to photograph them for two reasons – their distressed jeans and their preoccupation with their cell phones.

I made this photo of a pretty garden alongside a home in a neighborhood close to ours in San Francisco's outer Mission. My guess is I stopped and got out of our car to capture this image, as this area is not somewhere we would normally walk, even back in the summer of 2017 when I made this photo using a Canon Powershot SX50.

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.

Melody and I never know what treasures we will uncover during our daily walks through our neighborhood. I made this photo of Melody posing in front of a Rooster Mosaic that is part of a much larger mosaic project on the walls surrounding a corner residence a few blocks from our home. The homeowner , Tom, saw grant offers from the Arts Commission of San Francisco and applied. They came to his home and saw some of the art previously created and approved a grant for further mosaic work. Tom and others are helping mosaic artist, Dana Albany, fill the outside wall and short retaining walls surrounding his large corner property in San Francisco's Excelsior District. Melody has been checking out the work in progress since we saw Dana, Tom, and others working to create the mosaics. More later. I captured this image in the late afternoon, after overhead utility lines were not casting shadows across the work anymore.