Wordless Wednesday: netted moon

 

Night and Day*

Much as I would like to visit distant planets more than just in my imagination, the pictures here were not taken in a galaxy far, far away...even as it might look like it. No, it's in a location familiar to you, my faithful readers: just our local Botanical Garden. But, a Garden transformed.

A couple of weeks ago I took one of my now frequent strolls around this wonderful place, making note of some special installations. Then, just a few nights ago, Henry and I got to appreciate the purposes of that hardware, as we attended a Lightscape tour of the place. I thought it would be fun to show you some of the sights from both perspectives. (My little camera doesn't do super-well in low light, but some of these shots turned out better than I had expected.)

Here's the Garden's lovely lake, a peaceful oasis with a nice walking trail around it, during regular business hours...

...and here it is, transformed by laser light...

This array of colorful strings was arresting enough in daylight...

...but with clever lights applied, it became quite magical...

I was curious about this display during my morning walk...

...never guessing what it would become after dark...

You can look down upon this area from a raised walkway, which I often like to do on my walks...

But the view was totally transformed by the Lightscape folks:

A quirky display that I was particularly taken with on my daylight walk was this collection of plastic waste made into art:

I didn't realize at the time that it was part of the Lightscape, too. But it would be eye-catching on its own, as you can see in this closeup:

isn't it clever?

But, yes, it does light up!

The glass-walled conservatories, which you can see in the background of some of my photos (and which I wrote about, 'way back in 2015!), are pretty impressive all the time, but with the shifting colors of light, they really look spectacular...

Perhaps our favorite display was one that I read in our paper was especially designed for our Lightscape show. I saw the setup during my morning walk, thought it looked impressive, and wondered how it would be transformed...

Wow! Was it ever transformed! A field of flickering bluebonnets! We stayed there quite a while, admiring the artistry, and this was my best photo:

Another big, spectacular display was this one, covering all of a large, grassy hill. Unfortunately, I don't have a daytime shot to compare it with, but it was an amazing light/music show, coordinated with color-morphing floodlights on the gazebo at the top of the hill:

The show's "finale" is the archway that appears in most of the ads for the experience. Here's the way it looks in the daylight:

And here it is, all lit up, from the side and from within:

It was a great way to really turbo-charge the holiday season for us. We hope yours is just as spectacular!

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*Sorry for the Cole Porter earworm!

Wordless Wednesday: the ants go marching two by two...

 

Wordless Wednesday: run for your lives! it's the Protomolecule!