Photo Walk to Long’s Gardens

With the weather threatening from various quarters, Dana Bove and I, along with Supervisor Shauna, headed out today on a nice photo walk with a couple of budding artists–kids from The Source (Attention Homes). The cloudy skies gave us a perfect celestial lightbox for some wonderful, even, lighting…perfect for shooting the famous iris varieties at Long’s Gardens, a Boulder icon since 1905.

One of the young artists in action.

It will be fun to go through the memory cards on the kids’ cameras to see what they came up with. Being young, creative, and uninhibited, they always seem to find unique perspectives or subjects. We will post-process and print off a few of their best and bring them to our next photo “class” at The Source. I think the kids like to see their work printed–something that doesn’t happen often these days in this world of Facebook, Instagram, 500pix, Flickr, Twizzler, Tweeter, and Twang (or whatever). [NOTE: Some of their better photographic work can usually be seen and purchased at the annual spring Attention Homes fundraiser.]

Although the rows of irises at Long’s were quite attractive (that is what they are famous for, after all!), there were other oddities about the farm that pulled on my personal monochrome eyeballs.

All of the following images came from the tiny Sony RX100iv, an excellent mirrorless camera if you happen to be looking for something that is very pocket-portable, shoots RAW, has a bit of telephoto flexibility (24mm-70mm equivalent), surprisingly good low light capability, and enough megapixels (20mp, to be precise) to easily produce 13″ x 19″ prints.

First, there were the two Ford trucks, slowly being swallowed by the spring grasses and the passage of time. Oh, the stories they would tell if only their radiator grills could speak!

Sunken Ford at Long’s Gardens. Boulder, Colorado, 2016

Sunken Ford with Sleek VW Escort. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

Sunken Ford, Detail. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

Sunken Ford, #2. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

Ford Cockpit. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

And, of course, the trucks needed their very own Texaco Sky Chief fuel pump, right?

Sky Chief. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

Finally, a memorial to the many thousands of citizen gardeners who have passed this way over the decades to help work the fields or to harvest and purchase a unique variety of iris for their own backyard garden:

Gardener’s Fence. Long’s Gardens, Boulder, Colorado, 2016

A big thanks to Catherine Long Gates and her husband Dennis for their conversation and fine hospitality at The Gardens!