by Gary Gardiner | Apr 22, 2013
The only thing I didn’t like about Earth Day was how my knees suffered at the end of a day of bike riding around and through Westerville.The good news is it’s a great day for being on your bike. The bad news is that you will hurt at the end of the day.
I didn’t mind the pain even if my photos were not extraordinary and somewhat pedestrian. I was on my bike, outside for hours, breathing spring air and taking in the earliest of green sprouts on the trees.
A small project I’ve been working on includes the Church of the Master at Otterbein. Usually it’s very difficult to get a good photo because the two large trees out front cast great shadows across the front of the church in summer or it looks stark and uninviting in the bleak look of winter.
In early spring as the trees begin to show the chlorophyll greens of summer and the white blossoms of apple trees border the church my photography is a little easier.
That day was Earth Day this year.
by Gary Gardiner | Apr 21, 2013
Tomorrow is Earth Day and I didn’t want to wait until then to show shoot the tree in a yard near my home where there are two different blossoms.
One is the white crabapple blossom so popular in Ohio yards. The other is a Japanese pink willow with its iconic drooping limbs festooned with flowers.
Both grow from a single trunk at a fork where a graft intending to make one of the two trees the predominant growth split forcing both trees to grow.
I’m not sure which is the root stock and which is the flowering stock but it appears the crabapple is the fork that formed from the trunk below the grafting point.
It really doesn’t matter which one was planned. They are now one tree with two different flowers. I love this tree.
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by Gary Gardiner | Apr 20, 2013
Twice a year I spend Saturday morning on the shores of Hoover Reservoir watching small groups of athletes compete in a display of their prowess with narrow boats, long-handled broad oars, and youthful enthusiasm in a Westerville Crew sponsored competition.
Such was today with a crisp cold greeting for the first race scheduled at 8 am on morning forecast for temperatures barely above freezing and a strong wind out of the southwest to blow broad clouds cross the sky to hide the warmth of the sun.
Despite the less than perfect weather, these athletes, their families, coaches, and friends had a spirited day of competition.
I had a great time and didn’t get too muddy.
See more from the Hoover Regatta in a Photo Gallery
by Gary Gardiner | Apr 20, 2013
Twice a year I spend Saturday morning on the shores of Hoover Reservoir watching small groups of athletes compete in a display of their prowess with narrow boats, long-handled broad oars, and youthful enthusiasm in a Westerville Crew sponsored competition.
Such was today with a crisp cold greeting for the first race scheduled at 8 am on morning forecast for temperatures barely above freezing and a strong wind out of the southwest to blow broad clouds cross the sky to hide the warmth of the sun.
Despite the less than perfect weather, these athletes, their families, coaches, and friends had a spirited day of competition.
I had a great time and didn’t get too muddy.
See more from the Hoover Regatta in a Photo Gallery
by Gary Gardiner | Apr 19, 2013
I’ve got a beat. It’s Westerville.
In the days when newspaper news rooms were filled with reporters, most were assigned specific beats. Today, with smaller staffs, reporters often are assigned to several beats making it more difficult, in my opinion, to create a news report with depth and representing the daily lives of a newspaper’s readers.
I see that in not only the daily newspaper with much smaller news holes and the weekly that appears to be filled by formula rather than reporting. Don’t misunderstand. The quality of what is being reporting is great. Almost all of the news reporters I know are great reporters. It’s a shame they don’t have more space in which to show their work and more staff to allow them to isolate on important stories instead of covering areas outside their expertise.
Several times a week I visit merchants in Uptown Westerville just to keep myself apprised of the latest happenings with their businesses, to see what is different about their stores, and to learn about what might be happening in the near future.
One of my regular stops in Old Skool skate shop where I am always warmly greeted. Often there is an opportunity for a good photo of young skateboarders and their families. Sometimes it’s just me and Wally worrying about politics and the weather. One discussion this week centered on the mud tracked through Westerville’s skate park by bike riders who left trailed of hardened muck on every smooth surface at the park.
Wally isn’t usually in the shop of Fridays, but I still visit. Today it was very slow so I took the time to shoot some of the well worn wheels and gritty bearings removed from repaired and replaced boards. My skateboard still-lifes. Shot with my iPhone
