My Rainy Birthday

The single most important thing I learned in Japan is this:

… how to walk in the pouring rain, carrying an umbrella and holding my camera crooked in my elbow with the lens pointing down so that it doesn’t get wet.

I highly recommend this for budding photographers — to practice in the rain.

Go out for an hour on a rainy day…

…take pictures of trees and leaves and people hurrying with their umbrellas.

In this case, all the pictures you’ve seen up to this one are of the Forest Pansy Redbuds at St. Francis Cathedral in Metuchen.

Aren’t they pretty?

Did you know that my little green “jws” leaf logo is based on a leaf from a redbud tree? I drew that leaf from a photograph that I took of an eastern redbud leaf. The leaves of the ‘forest pansy’ cultivar are generally red in the early part of the growing season, but the species tree has green leaves.

So the challenge on a rainy day is to learn how to hold your gear so that you get good pictures and no rain spots on the lens.

Also a good idea to practice so you know how to keep your camera from getting wet.

It was really pouring today, just like it was for several days while I was in Japan.

My Japan pictures are still in the works. It’s a huge job to organize them and pull the ones I want to present, so it’s taking a lot longer than I had planned. There were several days when it rained, and I had to be ready to photograph my subjects anyway. It was awesome! I got some really cool rain pictures there.

In the meantime — newsflash — today’s my birthday!

So I took the day off, and went for a walk in the rain!

I had a great time.

Want to know the best part about going for a walk on a rainy birthday?

If you get soaked, as I did…

…you can always come home…

…and change into dry clothes, pretending the sun has come out! (I took this picture of hydrangea leaves yesterday, when the sun was shining.)

Isn’t that hydrangea so pretty? I love it even before it’s blossomed.

Mint mocha coleus, from Ball Horticultural Company, are new this year. They have this awesome variegated burgundy and chartreuse color with deeply lobed leaves. Ours is growing well since we planted it a few weeks ago in full sun.

The rain falling down the sycamore tree appeared to be running down the tree like a river…

… but the photograph shows that in reality, the “river” was actually made from drips. Duh.

The samaras from my Japanese red maple are almost ready to fly. I can’t even tell you how excited I was to see Japanese red maples IN JAPAN!!!

The rain gives the leaves a nice spring bath.

I like how shiny and clean they look.

I also like to study the leaf structure.

My street trees, the Armstrong maples, are really growing tall! Click over to the Tree Grower’s Diary journal page to see what these trees looked like when they were planted in 2000.

Gregory’s Tree, the purple leaf plum, is still going strong too.

The plum sure is pretty in the landscape on a rainy day.

What a great birthday I’m having! Out to dinner with my boys tonight. I love my life!