New toy for photographing my garden...and thoughts to Chengdu

Hi all,

Well yesterday was my birthday and unfortunately I woke up to the devistating news that the huge earthquake had hit the area in China which is near and dear to my heart…Chengdu, where the panda I went to adopt in February lives.

I spent all day trying to contact the panda base and finally I got an answer from a couple of dear folks who went through this ordeal. You can read much more about how the pandas are doing at my blog http://graffitigossip.com

To top it off the weather was so miserable that I could’nt even go work off my nervous energy in the garden but there was a high point to the day. My sweet hubby Steve took me out for dinner and gave me two of the coolest presents!!! As you can probably tell I adore my camera and photography….it all started when I wanted to take my own inspiration garden photos for my watercolors years ago

Well this year I upgraded for the 4th time …I now have a Canon 40D and Steve gave me a super “off camera” flash unit to help me get better shade garden images.

That’s not all! He got me a GPS for my camera that imprints the memory on each photo with a Google map location. Anytime you see my images on Flicker you can go to the EXTIF info and find out exactly where I took that photo and zoom in for some amazing detail from the air!!!

Of course then I ended the nite with coming down with a cold so today is serious down time. Will be going to San Francisco this weekend and can’t wait to check out some of the gardens and use the new toys!!!

Hugs Sandra