Month: January 2014
Overexposed
Yesterday’s photo was the sun setting over the Tahoe Basin. I thought, I’d overexpose the photo (5 seconds) to show you the rock outcropping in the lake. The lake level is down but the water here is still relatively deep here (about 5-10 feet).
Sand Harbor Sunset
One of my favorite shots of 2014 so far. Sun setting over the North shore of Tahoe basin as seen from Sand Harbor Overlook.
Beach at Sand Harbor
One of the many things I enjoy about the Tahoe Basin is the stillness of the water during certain times of the day. 
Sand Harbor Overlook Trail
California is having a drought. I thought I’d head out to Sand Harbor in the Tahoe Basin to see how low the water was. In years past, the rocks are underwater. We need some rain soon. 
Zen Garden
I walked over to the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden looking for Spring blossoms. It’s late January on the West Coast but the unseasonal warm weather has trees showing color early. When I got there, the Tea Garden itself didn’t have much to offer in the way of colorful blooms and I was disappointed. I walked towards the back of the garden and the sun was peeking through the trees. It added another texture to the Zen Garden.
Japanese Tea Garden
After the conclusion of the 1894 World’s Fair, Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant and gardener, approached John McLaren with the idea to convert the temporary exhibit into a permanent park. Hagiwara personally oversaw the building of the Japanese Tea Garden and was official caretaker of the garden from 1895 to 1925. He specifically requested that one thousand flowering cherry trees be imported from Japan, as well as other native plants, birds, and the now famous goldfish. After San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition closed, he obtained the two large ornamental wooden gates, and probably also the Tea Garden’s prominent five-tiered pagoda, from that fair’s Japanese enclave.
Consequences
Yesterday’s photo was the Black Pool hot spring in Yellowstone. The temperatures within the pool can reach as high as 70`C (160 `F). I noticed something in the water and got a closer look. It was a bones of an animal that must have met its untimely death. 
Black Pool
This is a portion of the Black Pool at Yellowstone National Park
Black Pool is a hot spring in the West Thumb Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
The pool was cool enough up until 1991 for dark orange-brown cyanobacteria to grow throughout the pool. When combined with the blue of the water, the pool appeared to be an exceptionally dark green to almost black, hence the name.
An exchange of function took place in 1991, shifting thermal energy to Black Pool and nearby Abyss Pool, causing them to heat up. Black Pool’s temperature became hot enough to kill all the cyanobacteria in the pool, turning the pool a rich teal blue color. The pool also had frequent boiling eruptions on August 15, 1991, doming the water to 3 feet and causing heavy runoff. Black Pool remains extremely hot, and is now one of Yellowstone’s most beautiful and intensely blue pools. The name of the pool remains “Black Pool.”
Snapshots by Kats 