Ghost Tree near Alviso Adobe Community Park

Guest post by Frank Dawkins:

A tree that really inspired my father is in a beautiful field across from Alviso Adobe Community Park in Pleasanton. Click "read more" to read my father's narrative about the experience.

California Sycamore: The Ghost Tree

On a recent trip to California in late March 2019 to visit our daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law, we were on the road from Livermore to the Sunol Regional Wilderness, aka Little Yosemite, for a morning hike.

We turned onto Foothills Rd. in Pleasanton heading south, and shortly up the road I looked to my right and was stunned to see this gorgeous white-barked tree out in the middle of this pasture with Pleasanton Ridge looming in the background. I immediately asked, “what is that tree?” and my daughter responded that it was a California sycamore.

I wanted to ask to stop to take some photos but didn’t since there were five of us in the car and we had some way to travel to begin our hike. Later on in the day, I asked my daughter if she could drive me back to the location of this tree the next morning to get photos of it as we were flying out of San Jose in early afternoon that next day to return to Louisiana, and I didn’t want to miss getting photos of this sycamore tree.

The next morning, March 29, 2019, my daughter and I left her home in Livermore at 8AM and drove the 20-25 minutes to the location on Foothills Parkway in Pleasanton, and wouldn’t you know it, there was heavy morning fog blanketing the area, commonly referred to as a “marine layer” there. Still, we parked and I took about 30 shots of this tree in the fog, using the Classic Chrome film simulation. My daughter said we could pass by again on our way to the San Jose airport in a couple of hours, by which time the fog would probably be burned off. So that we did, and when we returned at about 10:30AM, the sycamore “ghost” tree was bathed in the morning sunlight against Pleasanton Ridge. The color shot was the best of the ones I took using the Classic Chrome film simulation on the Fuji X-T3. I then switched to the Acros A Film Simulation and took another two dozen shots of the sycamore in black and white.

It’s funny how something can catch your eye suddenly that no one else notices at the time, and that’s how this came to be. I was stunned at the beautiful white bark of this California sycamore tree contrasted with the lush green grass in the pasture and with the greens of the oak trees on the ridge behind it. The leaves had yet to come out on this sycamore. It looked like a ghost tree standing there in the middle of this spring lushness.

The experience taught me that the opportunity for a good photo can arise at any time, so be ready. So, here are images of this California sycamore in sunlight, in heavy fog, and in black and white.

--Frank Dawkins, Lafayette, LA