Merry Christmas to everybody who reads this fine little photo journal. And if you don't read this fine little photo journal, tough luck.
Since I only had today off, I was unable to travel beyond the narrow confines of the Bay Area. In the early afternoon, after eating every edible present sent to me, I took a long walk to work the calories off and to find some photos. Walked about three hours. Should have walked about a dozen hours, with all that I ate. At least I squeezed through the door.
The Christmas Animal Is Not A Camel. It's a cat that lives around a house on my block. The owners of the house had a lot of work done, and then they apparently abandoned it. They had the entire house lifted for new foundation work, but they never finished the job. They stripped off the walls, so you can see inside all the empty rooms. Haven't seen the owners in months. Doesn't look like the cat will have to vacate the area for quite a long time. Maybe it's the new owner.
The Christmas Flower for 2007 is the California Poppy. It's the state flower, it's probably my all-around favorite, and it was in bloom a block away from home on Christmas Day. If flowers have emotions, the poppy looks like a happy flower, sunny. If memory serves, I bought my Canon digital camera in April of this year, and a bit later when I was looking at some website, discovered that I'd bought my camera on the same day in history that the California Poppy had been declared the state flower.
The Christmas Tree. A few blocks from home, I found a bare tree that was casting shadows upon a building next to it. The skies were azure blue today, so I constructed this abstract view of blue and white.
The Christmas People. Readers know I generally don't photograph people. They're never as good-looking as they believe they are. Even Brad Pitt is starting to lose it. I came upon a bocce ball match a few blocks away from home, and decided I could go ahead and put these people into the photo. They had nice feet. I'm not sure who won the competition. Had to leave after the second half started. The halftime show -A Musical Tribute to Donald Rumsfeld- was a disappointment.
The Christmas Wrapping. There's a condo/apartment building in Berkeley called Oliver Lofts, maybe it's in Oakland. I thought the work was finished long ago, but somebody has covered much of the building with a huge white tarp. Guess the builders have to do some repair work or painting. These shots were taken at eye level. You're looking at pieces of wood that are used to fasten the white plastic tarp to the walls by the sidewalk. I admired it for the abstract symmetry of the image. I hope they keep that white covering up forever. The Oliver residents might feel otherwise, but some people just don't appreciate abstract art. These people are living inside an art installation, I hope they feel some gratitude.
One of the buildings owned by the University of California-Berkeley has an American Flag over the entrance. I know some Americans would expect a Soviet Flag or some Marxist banner overhead, but those days are over. These days, Cal-Berkeley is 100 percent American. They even have a football team, a good one, that has gone to bowl games. Their fight song is "The Internationale." Anyway, I cropped the picture so the flag is in the upper right corner.
The Christmas Solar Panel. I was watching Zeitgeist last week, that inventive independent movie that has become very popular on the Internet. There's the point made in the first third of the movie about the solar myths through history. Many cultures have created stories about gods who have died on the 22nd or so or December -just before the winter solstice. The sun then goes through a period when it appears to stand still. There's a kind of wobble to its path. Finally, around the 25th of December, the solar wobble ends and the nights become a bit shorter, the days become a bit longer. The sun is reborn, you might say. Well, today is Christmas, when the Sun is reborn, so here's a solar panel I found during my walk. I dragged it from its position in the shadows and propped it up against the fence. Nice lines, yes? The vertical orange lines of the fence, the diagonal white, the parallel shadow lines from an unseen fence to the right.
The Christmas Close-Up. This is a self-portrait, hard as it might seem. The solar panel was dark blue, but it reflected enough light to capture me. The solar panel was warped, probably the reason somebody trashed it under a water tower. That's why I look like a saxophone player. In fact, I was standing upright and strong, in my best digital snapshot posture. Call this photo a Photo-Voltaic Photo-Mosaic.
The Christmas Steps. I was walking through the empty parking lot near Orchard Supply Hardware and found these steps. Nice lines, again. We get good shadows when the sun is this low after noon.
Christmas Air Lines. I was walking home and came upon this mixture of photographic elements. There's a cloud on the left, a sapling in the center, a power line overhead, and a contrail to the right.
I was a few blocks from home when I discovered a red circle made of felt on the sidewalk. It felt like felt, but maybe it was an industrial fabric used as a washer or seal. At any rate, I held onto it for a few more blocks. They're supposed to bring good luck, like rabbit feet. I then came upon a deserted playground that is "all soft." They've covered everything that could hurt a child with plastic or rubber or foam or cardboard. There was a big rubber mat next to the sandbox, so I photographed the red felt circle there. Not sure how the rubber mat can help kids near the sandbox. Parents should be looking at that sand. Don't they realize how deadly sand is?
And here is where we finish the Christmas Day walk, where it started. The sun had dropped low. I expected all the California Poppies to have closed up, but one flower was still in bloom. After this final Christmas Day photograph, I walked a block farther and concluded my Christmas sojourn.