Fall in Manito Park

 

Manito Park, October 26, 2013

 

Manito Park, October 26, 2013

 

Fall colors this year are so intense, it seems like they can’t be real–lurid beyond belief.

 

“No Commercial Photography” here…

Japanese Garden, Manito Park, Spokane October 7, 2012

From this morning–my wife and I were taking a very short walk in a park not far from our new home in Spokane–there is a lovely Japanese garden that someone has been working on for the past 50 years–it is quiet, balanced, beautiful. I love to walk in the garden.

But it also is an example of the Asian ideal of beauty–every tree, every shrub, every rock, is carefully chosen, and allowed to participate in the visual beauty of the place–but nothing is wild–it is all controlled by some plan bigger than the individual, everything is kept in it’s place…

There is a sign on the front of the park I love almost as much as the trees and the bridge–“no commercial photography–no tripods, no reflectors”–something that made me nearly laugh out loud–I can see how this place could be overrun by eager wedding photographers–and I’m glad they need to be fast and discrete…

There was a brief rain shower–this photo was made while waiting out the rain in a small shelter–which may be why there were no other visitors in the garden during our visit–a stroke of luck–part of my gratitude for the garden.

With the government shut down over a certain group of people angry about paying taxes, I’m grateful I found a place to live in a community where some of our taxes go towards the maintenance of beauty.  Oliver Wendel Homes once noted that the only bill he didn’t resent paying was his tax bill–“our bill for civilization”–and I’m happy to contribute to the keeping of this garden.