Blossom Walk

A dispatch from my annual neighborhood photo stroll.

All photos from Portland, Oregon on April 4, 2026.

Hi friends,

Every once and awhile, I need to recalibrate my attention. The best way I know how is to take a long walk with my camera.

Yesterday, I went on my annual blossom stroll through my neighborhood, in search of flowers and good light. I brought along my weirdest lens, one made by a Portland company called Lensbaby, which manufactures special effects glass that bends and softens light in unusual ways.

The lens I own is intended for portraits, or whatever you want to use it for, truly. (A glance at Lensbaby’s Instagram feed suggests many people use the lens to photograph flowers, too.) Not to get too nerdy into specs, but it’s a manual focus lens. At its widest opening (f1.8), the images result in a beautifully blurred, very shallow depth of field that, nonetheless, appears sharp. It’s a refracted view of the world, one that results in images that, to me, seem dreamy yet focused. I like how the images feel—the same way it feels to wander the neighborhood in search of beauty on a warm spring day.

Sometimes the lens gets maybe a little too weird, like waking up bleary-eyed after an afternoon snooze in a sunny, purple meadow:

Lavender haze.

Photos with this lens never quite turn out quite like I think they will, which allows me to focus on the process of capturing an image, not the outcome. This is useful if you need a reminder to let go of any outsized attachments to the outcome of, say, upcoming events. Or when you’re hoping to refocus your literal and metaphorical gaze on the fun of making things, not just their final form.

Three of my favorite photos yesterday were of human-made objects that caught my eye: a yard flamingo placed in front of rainbow-colored porch steps, an American flag and a lichen-covered lounge chair. It wasn’t until I saw all three photos together on my computer screen that I realized they were actually photos about stripes, too: stairs, the U.S. flag, and the appealing aqua wooden siding.

In fact, I only stopped to photograph the lichen-covered chair because its texture intrigued me. I did not notice the tree shadows on the wall behind it until I lifted my camera to my eye and saw it through the viewfinder. And it was not until later that I realized all three photos were thematically linked. But I was pleased I ended up photographing so many stripes on my walk. I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of stripes in my spring wardrobe, so many that I have to remind myself not to wear them multiple days in a row!

Just a church parking lot in southeast Portland!

Another pleasing attribute about this lens is how it elevates ordinary scenes. I stopped at this parking lot, seen above, because I liked how the sunlight was shining in these otherwise undramatic iris stalks. Pollen dust on the lens created the light bubbles, which is a delightful outcome.

You don’t need a weird camera lens to recalibrate your attention, but it’s what works for me. I always feel like when I go on these walks and pay attention that I’m being let in on a secret way of seeing the world, maybe in the way insects experience it: pollen-tinged, a little unfocused, but dappled with light.

Yours,

Erika

I appreciate how the pink feels like too much, almost menacing!

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THE NEWS

All the links…

For Portlanders: My short film, The Elk, premieres at noon on Saturday, April 18 in Portland. It’s at the McMenamins Kennedy School theater. Tickets are available at pdxpanorama.org under “The More You Know: PNW Docs Block.”

Also: I’ll be on a Design Portland panel this week to talk about the return of the elk sculpture. Tickets to the event are kind of pricey, but it looks like the Elk Cove wine is free!

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