Sacramento Travelogue-Walking the American River Trail - Lower/Upper Sunrise

I love a good little walk on a weekend morning.  To me, it's a form of meditation as well as exercise and, luckily, Sacramento is home to the beautiful Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail, better known as the American River Bike Trail.  

This gorgeous trail is 32 miles of winding river with a fascinating riparian zone filled with gorgeous flora and fauna.  It certainly makes a morning walk a very interesting prospect. 

On this particular April morning, I decided to stick close to home and take a walk along what is known as the Lower and Upper Sunrise area, so named because the access and egress is off of Sunrise Boulevard in Rancho Cordova.  

To get there, take Highway 50 East (from Downtown Sacramento) to the Sunrise Blvd exit.  Turn left onto Sunrise to go North.  You will pass a Bel Air shopping center on your right (about 5 lights down).  Just after, get ready to turn right into the park entrance.  If you cross the river, you've gone too far.  

I decided to go left to the Lower Sunrise parking area to begin my walk.  From the parking lot, you cross a lovely little bike/pedestrian bridge over the river.  If you gaze through the spiderwebs, you'll see the cars going by on Sunrise Blvd. 

Reflections of a Cormorant

After crossing the bridge, you'll find a little meadow that is often home to critters such as the Canadian geese hanging out below. 

I turned to the right to walk towards the Upper Sunrise area as I wanted to get some photos of the Fair Oaks Bridge.  Because of the riparian zone, it's hard to believe that there is a serious drought going on!  

There were quite a few feathered friends hanging around.  Underneath the Sunrise bridge is a prime fishing area for the egrets.

Taking flight

Ahhhh, there she is.  

I just love the contrast of the bleached looking rocks against their mossy, underwater counterparts.  

I didn't catch any egrets snacking, but the evidence of past meals was hard to miss. Did you know that Chinook salmon have mouths full of sharp teeth?  Now you do. 

Duck butts

Shine bright like a diamond! The water reflecting the sun had so many cool textures!

Babies!!  One of the best things about April. 

I just love the silhouette of this sweet family against the sparkling water. 

And the colors and textures of these beautiful creatures rival anything else Mother Nature has to offer.

Overhead, a couple of egrets were circling, impatiently waiting for this intrusive human to abandon their hunting grounds.  

The thing I've discovered about the underside of bridges is that they usually have something cool.  This one has gorgeous colors. 

I walked back by way of a poppy filled meadow.  I couldn't resist trying to get some closeups of our brilliant State flower.

This is the meadow on the other side of the pedestrian/bike bridge.  With more geese.  They should change their name to California geese since we have so many here year round. 

Back on the bridge, I was treated to the sight of a flock of pigeons taking off from the meadow.  Having the little duck family in the background made it more special.

Under the bridge...

I wish this photo wasn't blurry.  I love the mirror image and I just caught the egret at the right moment. *cries* I had my manual lens on and couldn't focus fast enough.

A very common sight around the river, and even miles away from the river, are the wild turkeys.  I was happy to see this guy, because my walk just wouldn't have been complete. 

Walk over and chores beckoning, I reluctantly got in my car to head home.  As I drove out to resume life, two fat squirrels merrily sent me on my way.  Of course I stopped the car to take some pictures of them.  I love squirrels. 

xoxo

Let's Get Random - Everyday Photos & Different Editing Tricks

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.

~~Sidney Poitier

Every now and then I like to take my camera and just take photos at home.  I try to challenge myself into getting some good shots out of commonplace, everyday life.  

It's also interesting to look back a few years later to see what life was like.

Apparently my home life in 2014 was dominated by my two rescue kitties.  Or maybe it's just that they are such beautiful, fun, loving creatures, that I can't help but take photos of them when they're attending to their kitty lives.    

This my Chavy.  He's weird, but I love him. 

Handsome closeup. He loves to pet his own face.  No human can do it according to his standards. 

I like this shot.  Sometimes its okay to not have the complete subject in focus.  Here, I focused on the feather that Chavy was playing with to illustrate that the photo is still interesting and the "focus" is still on Chavy. 

This is another shot that I used an effect to enhance it.  The photo from the outline of the sliding glass door to the right of Chavy all the way to the left is not edited at all.  But there were a couple of things on my patio that ruined the shot, including a dirty gas can. 

In Photoshop Elements 11, I selected the area inside the window pane and used an adjustment filter with gradient to black out everything on the patio while still maintaining the photographic look and drawing the attention away from the bright red and back to my cute subject. 

Another closeup, but this time I cropped in closer to put the emphasis on his paw as he pets himself.

This is a kitty friend that lived right beside our parking spaces.  He LOVED Adie's car and would lay on it at all times.  When she wasn't home, he would sit on the stairs or the sidewalk, but never another car.  

I wanted to keep everything shades of grey, but the window was reflecting and the underside of the stairs was brown.  Again, I selected the areas that had reflections or other color tones and applied a gradient filter to them. 

Oddly enough, the cat looks kind of weird, as if I accidentally selected part of him and included him in the gradient map.  I assure you I did not.  It was just the part of him that was shadowed by the overhang.  I actually tried to fix it, but it was very stubborn. lol

These are the gorgeous blossoms on the tree that overhangs the balcony.  

Speaking of the balcony, we had hummingbird and finch feeders which actually enticed a lot of our feathered friends.  This is not a good picture but I was always to slow to get a picture or had to go get my camera and missed it.  lol  

However, using a "Sin City" affect in Photoshop Elements 11, I was able to get enough definition in the photo, even shooting through a dirty window and a screen.  

Sin City is an effect that I love to use.  It's basically keeping only one or two colors in a photo.  

And now, MOAR Cats!  These photos were taken on a very sunny day and my boys were loving laying on the cat tree in the sun.  The bright, yet indirect light made for some very good shots.

"I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty [cat] can bestow." ~~  Mr. Darcy "Pride and Prejudice"

These two love this cheap lei that I bought at the Dollar Store.

 They only play with the red, white, and blue ones though.  

My patriotic kitties. 

Ellie vetoes my kiss.  haha

In this photo, you can see that pesky red gas can in the background...if you look for it.  I used the Sin City effect again to give color only to Chavy and the cat tree.  

Baby is getting tired of me taking pictures of him.  

Occasionally, as on this day, the camera becomes his play/prey.

I'm going to finish with two different iterations of the same photo to illustrate how the different filters/effects can alter a photo.

We'll start with Chavy's scary claws in Lomo effect from Photoshop Elements II intermediate.

Now the same photo with a gradient filter. 

It's hard, once again, for me to say which one I like better.  

I would probably choose the Lomo because it brings the ball and the claws into focus.  And it's a bit easier to use.

But the bottom line is that editing effects are endless, not just with Photoshop, but there are other good software choices as well, such as Pixlr.  

The fun of photography doesn't have to end once you put down the camera!

xoxo