I really enjoy camping up on the coast above Mendocino and Fort Bragg. One of my favorite things to do in the late summer early fall is to visit the Fort Bragg Botanical Gardens because the Dahlias are in bloom! The entire grounds are magnificent but the Dahlias are my favorite. I didn’t even know what a Dahlia was until about five years ago. Now I am obsessed with them even attempting to grow them in my own backyard. (Incidentally, Sacramento heat and my lack of a green thumb make them slightly less spectacular that Mendocino cool air and sunshine but I grow them nonetheless.)

I love photographing them. It gives me a reason to obsess over them even well after I am gone. I get to go through hundreds of photos choosing some of my favorites for light editing. I took these photos a few years ago but they are still some of my favorites. The vivid colors and strange shapes make them so interesting and alive to me.

On one visit to the gardens you can see that a lovely Hummingbird stopped by for a glamour shot. He hovered for me long enough for me to snap some shots over a bouquet of flowers.