Day 14

Last night was the awards ceremony at the Orange County Fair. There were over 1000 accepted photographs this year, and out of all of those, just look at what my two little ones were doing!:

Left: Sown, Purchase Prize

Right: Newberry Springs, off Rt. 66, First Place for Non-Tradition Prints; Purchase Prize

copyright Jennifer Geisert

My photos are now included in the permanant collection of the Orange County Fair, and the hope is that they'll go on to be exhibited around Orange County. I'll be notified of where they'll be on show, places like airports and whatnot. Yay!

Me and My New Friend With the Awsome Moustache

July 2008

copyright Jennifer Geisert

This year's fair theme is "Say Cheese", and in addition to there being lots of cheese-related items (hats, giant blocks of chedder that are being carved...), there was also a whole building dedicated to cameras and the photographic process and history. There was a giant camera obscura set up, and there were cases filled with old cameras. I spotted another version of the Kodak Duraflex I have, as well as my Brownie Starflex that I was taking for a test drive last night. (I'm finding it far more fiddly than my Duraflex.) Lots of awsome stuff.

See more about the Orange County Fair here.

Day 5

Sown
Copyright Jennifer Geisert

In October of 2007, local wilderness areas burned in some pretty horrific wildfires, but you might not know it today. The dry season was followed by an exceptionally wet season, and the abundance of life is unbelievable. Even the oak trees with their blackened trunks and charred branches had new green shoots and leaves springing from them.

Perhaps a Shooting Star

Copyright Jennifer Geisert

Seeing wildflowers and mustard carpeting the hillside, you'd never be able to picture the way the land looked 6 months ago. My guide assured me that absolutely everything we saw today had been burned to the ground. You can still see some evidence, where the trees have burned so completely and hot that they've left ghostly impressions in glassy ash on the ground, the only bare patches among the new plants.

Limestone Canyon

Copyright Jennifer Geisert

I've always loved photographing the local canyons, so today was a special treat for me. I'd been invited to hike through areas restricted to the general public, areas that you can only access with a guide. It was a lot to take in. I need to go away and process today, so I'll leave with a wonderful quote my fiance saw:

"Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints."