During our first year of marriage, David and I invested our limited funds into two sleek, 10-speed bicycles and a used Pentax 35mm camera. Both purchases provided us with endless, low budget possibilities. With our bicycles, we could explore the entire San Antonio area by either heading into town or riding to the outskirts. If we had a little money, we rode down to the San Antonio Zoo, purchased two tickets to spend the day on hunting the perfect shot of a snow leopard or howler monkey. On weekends when we were truly penniless, we traveled to parks or headed down Loop 1604 to duck under I10 and loop through small towns like St. Hedwig. We took our camera everywhere. At that time, every click of the camera cost money for developing photographs. We diligently wrote down F-stops and ISO numbers in a small notebook as a record to compare to the final print. We strove to make every click of that camera count.
One March morning, we biked over to St. Hedwig and discovered vast fields of spring wildflowers. I remember kneeling down into the dew drenched grass to take my first shot. That picture started an annual tradition for us. We broadened our journey when we shifted to driving our car. We welcomed a digital Cannon Rebel Ti into our lives. It took months before I embraced the freedom of firing off as many shots as I wanted after so many years of hoarding my film, but I grew to love the abandon I feel on these new creative quests.
Once I began blogging, my tradition of taking wildflower pictures shifted to sharing the results with not only friends and family, but with readers from Europe, Australia, and even Asia.
This year, we did our usual trek to St. Hedwig and to our Live Oak Park. However, we added a new location to our tradition with Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://www.wildseedfarms.com/)
I think you’ll love the newest flowers that I can now share!
Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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