To avoid feeling stale with my photography I've been thinking about giving myself themes; that is, some sort of keyword or goal to keep my eye engaged on a photo walk. Inspiration struck me earlier this week during a walk in Discovery Park in the form of ripening blackberries. Their texture and repeating form jumped out at me: clusters upon clusters of green fruit, each of them individually a cluster of tiny globes.
So with clusters in mind, today I set out to the park with my camera and found not only copious blackberries but also flowering thistle and young pears growing in clusters. Added bonus: the honeybees were cooperative portrait subjects.
In Lightroom I'm continuing to play around with camera profiles. Most of these shots were processed with Adobe's version of Fuji's film recipes, either Provia or Velvia. Generally these gave smoother results with far less twiddling of the color controls. Speaking of controls, I broke out an old Wacom tablet, which thankfully still works and is a bit easier on my wrist than my Macbook's touchpad when making fine adjustments with Lightroom's sliders.
July 24, 2025 | Fujifilm X-E4 + Fujinon 55-200 f3.5-4.8
