It’s funny what you don’t see when it’s right in front of you – for years, I stayed in Park Lane across from Buckingham Palace and never entered the park preferring to stay on Piccadilly and use the Underground.  This summer, I finally took that walk in the park – St. James’s Park in London (it helped that I was staying at the Sofitel St. James, across the street from an entrance to the park).  Entering mid-way near the hotel, I walked through the park toward the Thames and London Eye on my walk up to Tower Bridge.  On my way back to the hotel, I walked up to Buckingham Palace admiring the flowers of St. James’s Park along the way.

For my walk in the park, I may have taken a few hundreds photos of all the trees, flowers, water, animals and people.   I can’t remember the last time I just enjoyed a park without a care.  It was very fun to experience the park and then see it through the camera lens.   It was a sunny June day and the colors of the blooming flowers just made me happy.

The happy flowers gave me an opportunity to practice my nature photography and try to see things differently.  Photographing flowers is now one of my favorite ways to practice and St. James’s Park gave me a lot to work with.  I should, however, figure out the names of all the flowers at some point, right now, I call them pretty, happy, sunny, makes me smile, etc.

Admiring the flowers of St. James’s Park on the sunny Saturday in London was a pretty cool thing to do.  Time to slow down from a week of work, time to just walk and take things in and not worry about having to be here, there and everywhere.  How often do you take the time to slow down and enjoy the view?