welcome to flower mode

Hey, kids! Here's the latest installment in my interminable series of fruit-n-flower photoblog posts. I realize I promised to post about North Korea before posting any more silly photos, but I still haven't solved the geopolitical situation on the Korean Peninsula. It'll be any day now, I promise.

Updated 1/18/2011: Still haven't solved the North Korea thing. Thus, still no post about said topic. I've posted a few (ok, more than a few) additional flower photos in the intervening time though, the latest being some sorta-decent hibiscus photos from Honolulu. FWIW.



Since this day is not that day, here are those fruit-n-flower photos instead. Photos #1, #2, and #4 are from South Waterfront Park, #3 is from Printing Press Park (on 1st next to the Morrison Bridge ramps), and #5 is near SW 2nd & Ash, in downtown Portland.



I think I've said this before already, but before I had this here digital camera I'd never really noticed all the bushes putting out little red berries this time of year. It seems like a strange time to be putting out fruit; maybe it's for the benefit of passing migratory birds or something. In any case, I'm starting to think I'll look back on 2006 as the year I took all those dumb nature photos. I'd like to take more credit for these pics than I really deserve; what you see is mostly the work of the camera's fancy auto-closeup mode, signified by a cute little flower icon. Turn that on, hold the camera reasonably still, and make sure the camera autofocuses on the right thing, and you're 90% of the way there.



It's not that I'm arguing that these photos are capital-A Art or anything, just that this is way better than anything I ever did with my crappy old film camera. Maybe I'll have to go dust the poor thing off one of these days, for old times' sake, just to be retro -- although I'm not very anxious to do that, any more than I am to dust off the old Atari 400 and try to grind out some Java. It just wouldn't be up to the job.



As usual, I have no idea what any of these plants are. I expect that all of them other than the white berries are non-native, and I'm not 100% sure about the white berries either. Feel free to chime in if you know what any of this stuff is, because I sure don't.