Month: April 2020

2020 Cherry Blossom Watch – Boston Update

2020 Cherry Blossom Watch – Boston Update

Kevin

April 19 – Boston
At the Public Garden, the flowering plum trees are solidly at peak bloom. Although some cherry trees are beginning to drop their flower petals, color will soon be reborn once the crabapples begin to bloom.

The jackpot of cherry trees is located nearby at the Charles River Esplanade.  Here, multiple varieties of cherry trees are near peak bloom and should be giving a great display all this week.  Of course, the Kwanzan Cherry trees (near the Hatch Memorial Shell) have not yet begun to bloom.

Charles River Esplanade, Boston Massachusetts

April 21 – Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Cherry trees near City Hall have not yet begun to bloom.  Just across the street at Langdon Park, the prettiest tree in Portsmouth is just beginning to display the first few flowers.  Downtown on State Street, flowing plum trees are displaying good color.

See my cherry blossom report from two weeks ago here:
https://www.kevindavisphoto.com/blog/2020-cherry-blossom-watch-boston-ma/

Re-processing Photos for T-shirts & Coffee Mugs

Re-processing Photos for T-shirts & Coffee Mugs

Kevin

 

Recently I have been working through my photography catalog for the purposes of overhauling my website. At the same time, I’ve been recognizing that some images can be repurposed for graphic t-shirts and coffee mugs.  My latest design is shown here; the left version is intended to be printed on light backgrounds and the right version is intended to be printed on dark backgrounds.

My products at Redbubble:  https://www.redbubble.com/people/kevinheaven

For this particular work, I used Adobe Photoshop and multiple plugins by Topaz Labs.  To adjust the color palette and to enhance the details, I commonly use Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail.

Here’s the original digital photo from ten years ago.  This was probably the first time I had ever taken a digital SLR on a backpacking trip. Because I had not yet learned the features of this camera, I neglected one of the most remarkable features of the Canon 5D mark II … the first DSLR camera capable of 1080p high-def video. To this day, I regret that I did not capture any video in this remote unique landscape.

If you look closely (click on the image to see a larger view) toward the top right of the image, you will see blue blazes painted on the rocks; these blazes mark the hiking trail … a very narrow trail with a potentially nasty drop-off.

2020 Cherry Blossom Watch : Boston MA

2020 Cherry Blossom Watch : Boston MA

Kevin

All photos in this post were created this morning in Boston.

Considering that the peak bloom in Washington D.C. is at least a week early this year, I am a bit surprised that the timing of cherry blossoms in Boston is looking to be far more normal.

Washington D.C.

“Peak bloom” of the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. generally pertains to the Yoshino cherry trees.

(According to the National Park Service) This year, peak bloom occurred about March 20, compared to last year when peak bloom occurred April 1.  The March air temperatures this year were about seven degrees (f) warmer than last year.

Several years ago,  I was in D.C. for the cherry blossoms when spring temperatures arrived earlier than normal.  Fortunately for me, I caught the peak bloom just a day or two before a wind storm knocked most of the blossoms off of the Yoshino trees on March 25.

Branch Brook Park, Newark NJ

A 360-acre park, Branch Brook hosts 5000 cherry trees, the highest density of cherry trees anywhere in North America.  With numerous varieties of cherry trees, they do not all bloom at the same time and peak season can last two to three weeks.

As I visited Branch Brook in 2019, the trees were spectacular around April 11.

In 2020, in the interest of social distancing for COVID-19, the park was formally closed to visitors.  I can find no information regarding the timing of the cherry blossoms.

Boston MA

A bit akin to Branch Brook Park, Boston has a variety of different trees such that “peak bloom” in Boston is not a singular period of three to five days.   Furthermore, Boston’s flowering trees include species other than cherry trees.  The Back Bay area is known for Magnolias that bloom at the beginning of April, a dozen varieties of cherries, followed by Kwanzan Cherry that bloom near the end of the month, and then joined by Flowering Dogwood.

In 2019, cherry blossoms along the Charles River Esplanade were stunning around April 22.

Today in 2020, along with the blooming of Magnolias, both Haigan and Weeping Haigan cherry are just now blooming.  While I did see two other cherry trees blooming, most cherry species have not yet begun to bloom in Boston.