Let’s all take a mental health break and look at some camellias.
I go to the Japanese Garden a lot, but the Washington Park Arboretum (UW Botanic Gardens) is right next door and free, so I headed over there one afternoon to enjoy the sunshine.
Camellias (tsubaki, 椿) used to make me physically angry. They’re one of the only flowers that blooms in winter in Ishikawa, and my backyard in the Noto had a couple trees. I could be digging my car out of a goddamn blizzard or losing feeling in my hands hanging up my laundry in my sunroom* and there they were, all cheery and pink, sticking out of three feet of snow. RUDE.
Now that I live in Seattle and there’s no snow and all winter feels like early spring and the rain isn’t a perpetual torrential downpour (I’m sorry, Ishikawa, but your weather is awful), camellias actually make me happy.
The camellia bushes here grow wild and huge, and the Arboretum has at least ten varieties, most of which are Japanese. The lighting was particularly interesting that day.
I forgive you for mocking my pain, camellias. ♬凍った心溶かす〜。♬
One of my resolutions for this year was to focus on self care by going out into nature more, and I’ve been having a great time going to gardens and hiking with my friends and by myself. It’s a lot like being in Japan again, in a way, and if I want to walk around a garden and spend three hours photographing flowers and enjoying the good weather while listening to Tosca, that’s what I’m going to do!
The camellia grove is lovely, open after work, and totally free.
*That was the worst-insulated, most buggy, hardest-to-care-for apartment I have ever lived in, but I had a sunroom for my laundry/washer AND storage AND a veranda AND a small yard.
I love these photos – the last one is especially gorgeous!
I also want to say that I dig the new watermark. It’s so 1920s chic. ❤
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Thank you! I picked the font for the watermark after my trip to see the Art Deco show at the Asian Art Museum. 🙂
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That first shot is incredible! 神秘的。
Haha, I was also gonna comment on the watermark: it’s a great font, but it’s getting lost in some of the lighter photos. Don’t know how you’re adding it, but I do it with a backgroundless file of nothing but the watermark in white, then when I overlay it unto a photo, I decrease the opacity of only the watermark’s layer until it gets to the point where it’s faded but still visible.
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I have a light and a dark version but was feeling lazy 😉
Thanks!! 🙂
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[…] and wintry mix, when the landscape was no longer a white-out and the first colors (other than the camellias) […]
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