Places - # 11 – San Diego Botanical Gardens

In the last post, I described a miserable experience at the Milwaukee County Zoo. But this blog is not about miserable experiences…unless they’re the kind that we can look back on years later and laugh…sort of…maybe.

We shift from zoos to botanical gardens…where one can take beautiful images with very cooperative subjects. Plants, especially flowering ones are terrific objects to capture. They are stationary (unless there is too much wind). They are cooperative and (as I have noted when I discussed great buildings) they don’t need signed releases or makeup and wardrobe changes. The only one who has to stop for phone calls or potty breaks is me.

San Diego Botanic Gardens (24 May 2010)

Last month, we visited the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. As we strolled through the beautiful property (which will be featured soon), I recalled a wonderful morning spent at the San Diego Botanic Garden. It was called the Quail Botanical Gardens in 2010. I dropped Beck at her work appointment and was free to cruise a little piece of Paradise with the camera.

Ferns and Bamboo, San Diego Botanic Gardens (24 May 2010)

The perfect, Southern California climate supports 

plants from every continent…and they don’t have to 

keep them inside under glass roofs. Give them the 

soil and water they need and they flourish outside 

with the birds and insects and visitors.

On this day, I arrived just as the park opened, meaning I was essentially alone among wonderful displays of vegetation from all over the world. Even better, I also had my iPod to add music that further enhanced this multi-sensual experience.

Barrel Cactus and Grass, San Diego Botanic Garden (24 May 2010)

Plants offer such a variety of shapes and patterns. 

Sometimes, rather than fill the frame with an entire plant, 

I like to mix portions of more than one kind of 

vegetation to show different lines and textures.

The following is the god’s-honest truth even if it seems contrived for its supreme irony. Just as I realized I was in the middle of a perfect, pristine, personal moment, I actually flashed back 38 years to that awful, aborted photo day at the Milwaukee Zoo. There were a few similarities at play and I was happy to know THIS day, as belated as it was, was going to be better.

At THAT VERY MOMENT, at the peak of realizing my righteous reward, they came. No sooner had that happy appreciation of being one with nature crossed my mind when the gods said, “Not so fast, my friend.” There, streaming toward the parking lot, was a convoy of yellow buses. I was about to pay for my sins again.

San Diego Botanic Gardens (24 May 2010)

Yes, you can still find animals in a botanical garden. 

And yes, they can often be less cooperative and move or

fly away just when you are close enough to snap them. 

This time, I was lucky.

Topiary, San Diego Botanic Gardens (24 May 2010)

I always thought that topiary was about trimming and

training plants into exotic, ornamental shapes. In the 

Mexican Garden, there are mariachi musicians and dancers.

Like great chia figures, they are also topiary, but start with 

forms that are covered with living plants and flowers.

But wait! Here’s the best part about photographing plants. They can’t run away from the screaming hordes. I cranked up the volume on the tunes, stayed one exhibit ahead of the little barbarians and continued to take pictures. It was still a fine day.

Places - # 10 – Milwaukee County Zoo

In the early 70’s, I was in graduate school in Milwaukee. As a zoologist, I have always enjoyed visiting zoos. In those days, the Milwaukee County Zoo was rated as one of the best in the country. Many of its features were new. Large enclosures with natural elements replaced bare, sterile cages. Open-air spaces make for better photo-op’s than shooting the critter through bars and wires.

I can rethink that. In a cage, the animal can’t hide. The bare space ensures you actually see the beast. She will be framed by cement and tile with bars or wires across the entire composition…but the face can say a lot. With the new, improved enclosures, the resident could be curled up behind a rock. Then you have to resign yourself to the fact that this was not your lucky photo day. On the special day you finally do see him romping about, you will truly appreciate the experience. But I digress.

Caged Felines, Bronx Zoo (1967)

I grew up within walking distance of one of the first great zoos in America. The Bronx Zoo opened in 1899 and by the time I was going there in the 60’s, it felt like we were still looking at the 19th century way to exhibit animals. By that time, TV nature shows started to promote a better, more humane way to provide for AND exhibit animals. Enclosures with room to run and climb and bathe became the norm. Cages are jails, as the expression on the two inmates above will attest. Still digressing.

Before I relate a special memory from the Milwaukee Zoo, here are some images from my days there.

Samson (September 1969)

I easily remember Samson in his indoor space. He was the park’s ambassador, the zoo’s iconic, advertising center piece. This lowland gorilla was huge. He liked to sit on this scale. It showed us he weighed over 600 pounds. He also had a habit of sitting against the front glass…as close to his admirers as he could get…very still and quiet. Then, out of the blue, he would slam the glass with a massive forearm, scaring the bejeezus out of folks as he darted over to another spot to sit quietly again.

Hungry No More, Milwaukee Zoo (November, 1970)

Some say snakes make good pets. They need to be fed infrequently and once they’ve eaten, they prefer to quietly digest and be left alone. I have no idea what this big python ate but I suspect it wasn’t going to be active for a while.

Two Cockatoos, Milwaukee Zoo (September, 1969)

Months before moving out of New York City, I visited Milwaukee and took this picture at the Zoo. It may have been the first slide I liked enough to enlarge and frame. After it was scanned into a digital file, I was able to sharpen it and improve the color. Another neat thing about digital images – there was a strand of green leaves above and behind the upper bird’s head. Now, we can clone out undesirable elements by pasting in pixels from other parts of the wall.

Right. There was supposed to be a story here.

I had a free morning. It was a beautiful day…shirt-sleeve weather. Spring or fall, I can’t say. It doesn’t matter. It was that delightful time between the unpredictable summer and frozen tundra winter.

Also, it was a weekday. Most people were at work. When I arrived as soon as the zoo opened, I had the place to myself. The plan was to casually cruise the grounds and linger at promising locations. Take the time to check angles and light and finally compose images worth keeping. My idea of fun. Just me, the camera and the residents emerging from their dens to begin the day by looking good for me.

Common Egret, Milwaukee Zoo, (June, 1972)

Then, all Hell broke loose…disaster in the form of running, screaming hordes of school kids. It was Field Trip Day and the little monsters spread through the park like a plague. I remember the poor critters retreating back into the deepest recesses of their homes. That’s certainly what I wanted to do. So much for my great, quiet morning of picture-taking. The project was abandoned and I went home.

Ever since then, that memory has stuck with me like a wart…which was revived 38 years later.

Stay tuned.

State Capitols – Madison, Wisconsin - Interior

I am fortunate to have this interest in state houses right after a time of serious investment in restoration. Toward the end of the 20th century, many states saw their capitols had been altered and neglected and did something about it. The Wisconsin capitol did not scrimp on materials when it was built. It is all stone and wood and art and cost $7.2 million when it was completed in 1917. Between 1988 and 2002, $158.9 million was spent to return this magnificent space to its former glory.

Rotunda, Wisconsin Capitol, Madison (18 June 2009)

Unlike some capitols that employed great ‘faux’ processes to simulate stone, Wisconsin spent on the real thing. Forty-three different stone types from eight states and six countries can be found in the building.

Wisconsin Capitol, Madison (18 June 2009)

A pendentive is the architectural element that can connect a circular dome with a rectangular space below it. In the center of this shot, one of the four pendentive spaces shows the mosaic that decorates it. Each is made with over 100,000 pieces of colored glass. The figures represent Liberty and the three branches of government.

Above the Door to the Wisconsin Assembly (18 June 2009)

Badgers are everywhere in the building…in paintings, sculptures and here above the entrance to the Assembly. The association with the burrowing critter began before statehood. Early zinc miners who built their winter dwellings in hillside tunnels were called badgers.

Assembly Chamber, Wisconsin Capitol, Madison (18 June 2009)

The Assembly was in session so my wandering and shutter-popping was limited. Visible behind the Speaker’s chair, in the middle of the ledge below the mural painting, is a stuffed bald eagle. ‘Old Abe’ was the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. The bird survived over thirty battles…earning a national reputation and a bounty…the Confederates wanted that ‘Yankee Buzzard’ eliminated. The poor bird survived the war but died of smoke inhalation in 1881. He was preserved and displayed in the capitol until it was destroyed in the 1904 fire. The Badgers felt so strongly about their mascot that another eagle was found to grace the Assembly chamber since it was completed in 1915.

Wisconsin Senate (18 June 2009)

Established artists of the day were commissioned to create paintings throughout the capitol. The three-part mural in the Senate is called ‘The Marriage of the Atlantic and Pacific.’ The opening of the Panama Canal was an important event when the capitol was completed. Though built in a classic Beaux Arts style, this state house reflects the state motto, ‘Forward.’ The state leaders saw significant global developments and believed the future presented opportunity.

Another progressive indicator is the fact that the Wisconsin Assembly was the first in the nation (1917) to install an electronic voting system with ‘Yay/Nay’ buttons on each desk and a tote board on the wall. The tradition-bound Senate continues to use a roll call when votes are cast.

Corinthian Pilasters, Wisconsin Capitol, Madison (18 June 2009)

I love the contrast of the dark stone and gold capitals. Yes, let’s further confuse that word. Madison is the capital of Wisconsin. This fine building is the capitol or seat of state government. Inside the capitol, there are columns with distinctive designs on their upper ends…the capitals. Since they are made of real stone and gold leaf, one can rightly say that it took considerable capital to make those capitals inside the capitol in the capital city...but I won’t.