Japanese gardens

Spent a couple hours in the Japanese Gardens at Manito Park. It was a bit of a cool out but it was japan week and there was an Aikido demonstration that was going on as well as some other demonstrations like Japanese flower arranging, bonsai trimming and brush painting. (note no pictures of any of these because i didn't get permission to post them need to remember that next time)

The gardens are full of beautiful scenery and peaceful feeling. Created many years ago with the help of a sister city any stop to Spokane is not complete without visiting there or at least some of our Manito gardens.
The waterfall is on of the most prominent features as any true japanese garden would have.


The Bridge is another feature that is very striking in the gardens.


Below the bridge is a pond full of beautiful Koi.



There are many other features to this garden that I will have to share later when I can get some shots without so many people there.

Palouse falls

It was a pretty nice day on Saturday so we headed out on a little adventure. About 2 hours away is a place called Palouse Falls. If you didn't know it was there you would never know because its hidden behind many vast farm and open range land. But its gorgeous. And in the spring its awesome because it is a bit cooler in the summer it gets very very very hot.

here is a link to the national Parks official website:
http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Palouse%20Falls


the pictures aren't the best I broke the golden rule of taking pictures when you are not suppose to during the middle day but well thats when we were there. would have been awesome to say for sunset but it was a long day. We had a great picnic listening to the sound of the roaring falls.


this is a view from the observation spot. Note the outcropping of rocks to the left of the waterfall and from the left of that and up an area as well.

To get closer to the falls you have to go around the large rock that was to the left of the falls this is shown to the right here about 2 miles. and to get to this spot you have to climb down....


this !!!!!!

this is a view from the outcropping of rocks scene from the observation point which is seen here to the left on the cliff , well barely seen.
we got as close as the edge of the rocks

view of the out cropping of rocks up close
my husband thought this was the funniest sign and took a picture of it. but then he took a serious of shots at different telephotos of me taking pictures and hmmm I guess I was pretty close to that edge.



all in all great day of hiking and its so beautiful. Now to sort through the 250 photos that the two of us took to decide which ones we will actually print for the scrapbooks.

photography and scrapbooking

Duncan one of my favorite photo subjects

Saturday and sunday was an all day long seminar by George Lepp ( http://www.geolepp.com/ ) an awesome photographer and speaker. Had a great time and learned lots. One of the biggest things I learned was I know nothing Seriously though it did inspire me to learn more.

I have always loved photography but never knew more then just point and shoot. Even as a child I liked taking pictures and loved keeping them. As an adult I took some but it wasn't until I had a child that they became even more important to me. about 10 years I discovered scrap booking and then I started to take even more pictures. which has put me about 10 years behind in my scrap booking as well. Then came the digital camera a couple of years ago and well then I took even more pictures.




two of my scrapbook pages from when I was in the Air Force and received an incentive flight on a F-16






All of this has lead me to the point where I want to not only take pictures but take good pictures and share them. I don't necessarily want to make it a job because well that'spretty competitive and I would rather just enjoy the art.

So off to learn more I go. Taking this seminar was my first step. Next I will take a two day class this month. then I think I need to find more about adobe photoshop because it seems that is about as important as a darkroom would be to a film photographer. Someday I may have time during the day to take classes but unfortunately my job is during the day and that currently supports my hobby.



A couple of my favorite shots from Canada near Banff.