March 25 -- walking home

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Downtown buildings. I could SO live with this tans-and-turquoise color scheme.....





I love everything about this. The curved corner. The brick details. The decoration.

I hope the people who made this lived long and happy lives, and felt proud every time they looked at this building.





Heading west; homeward bound.





There is beginning to be vegetative color in the landscape, but you have to look for it.





Ah. Intense purple and orange, with a touch of green. That's what I'm talking about!





Poor Michigan has been extremely hard hit by the economic realities of today. First its unfortunate reliance on one industry, then the decision-makers for that industry focusing on short-term unsustainable goals, then the general "FAR too many people also focusing on short-term unsustainable goals" that afflicts the world's economy....

Lots of houses for sale. Here's one on Murray Ave.





I don't know what this is, but isn't it excellent? It is quite small.







Crocus.





Hey! Pussywillow!

I don't believe I've ever walked home on Murray Ave quite this early in the season. This tree is very near the intersection of Murray and Washington, so it has been within sight of hundreds of my walks to and from work, but I never until the 25th realized it was a pussywillow.





I was utterly failing to get the camera to focus on the nearby branches when there were so many tantalizing farther-away branches for it to choose.

I tried something I've never tried before -- I focused it on the ground at a distance about as far away as I thought the branch was that I wanted to capture, held the shutter-release half-way down to hold that focus, then raised the camera up and clicked of the shot. This, of course, resulted in the background (sky) being *way* overexposed (relative to the ground the camera was thinking about when it focused), but hey.

Here is the best of several attempts. Not great, but I kinda like it. I "burn"ed out some of the background branches to make them less obtrusive. That's something I've learned recently -- I can make background stuff less bothersome by "painting" over it with lightness or darkness, depending........





Here's one little catkin, in the wet grass.





Looking back up Murray from Washington. The pussywillow is that very big shrub inside the red fence.





Linden tree.



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