Summertime. Tomatoes ripening on the vine. Purple eggplant flowers have become black globes overnight. Tomatillo husks that began as light paper lanterns are now heavy with fruit, pulling branches to the ground. Peppers begin to emerge, while the last of the spring flowers wither and die. Amid all this cacophony it is sometimes difficult to see. So I sit awhile, and just look around. Soon enough, something catches my eye. The more I sit, the more I see.

Maybe you noticed I didn’t write anything last week. It’s the first week I’ve missed since I started this blog at the beginning of the year. It wasn’t that I was lazy. It’s just that I didn’t have anything to say. Or at least anything that I wanted to say.

The proverbial tail has started to wag the dog. So it’s time for a small reset.

I love garlic. To cook with. To eat. And now, to photograph. The washi-like texture of its ivory skin, the ragged curl of its stalk. Occasionally garlic is the main event, but most often it shines as a subtle accent. A note of interest that complements and elevates the star without attracting too much attention to itself. I’ve found this to be true in photography just as it is in cooking.

I started writing a post about how Spring has arrived. How it was a bit earlier and a bit brighter than usual. How it has always been about birth and renewal, and how this year it seems to mean just a little bit more. All about hope for a new day, the light at the end of the post-pandemic/post-Trump tunnel. How seeing bright new flowers was a sign of our budding hope for the future.

Then some of my creekside neighbors reminded me that we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves.

Lately I have been thinking about what kind of photographer I want to be. I often find myself jumping from one genre to another, with no overall purpose and no specific goal or intention to guide me. Take this week for instance. I had some errands to run up in Sonoma. I heard the mustard grass was blooming, so I thought I would find some backroads to drive to see what I could find. Get in the car and go. I ended up all over the map.

This past week we packed up the car and headed for Big Sur. This was all about R&R. Photography was a secondary pursuit, for the spaces in between. Trips like this can be a great way to expand your vision, or take you back to something you’ve been neglecting. Just out shooting, no expectations, see what comes. You might say the trip went by in a blur.