In the sculpture garden to the west of the De Young Museum this afternoon I saw several small magnolias beginning to bloom near Zhan Wang's 2005 stainless steel Artificial Rock (a while back I wrote briefly and admiringly about this artist here).
Leaving the museum I took a shortcut through the botanical garden where other fantastically beautiful magnolias lured me into getting out the camera all over again and taking a great many more pictures.
Today I had some quality time with the new camera, which I had barely worked with at all as a handheld object unsupported by the crutch of a tripod. What I learned was to abandon the slower shutter speeds/narrower apertures that I often had liked with the tripod, and to concentrate instead on faster shutter speeds/wider apertures. (Of course I had already read this and heard this several times, but it didn't start to click properly until I was acting it out for myself.)