Bill's blooming hobby
Source: adapted from Measure, July-August 1991
It was the mid-1940s--the war years--when gasoline was scarce.
While stationed in Washington, D.C., young Bill Hewlett and his wife spent
many pleasant hours walking through the District's Rock Creek Park.
"I didn't recognize the trees in that area," Bill said recently
in his Palo Alto office, "and when I came back to California, I realized
that I didn't know much about the trees and flowers here either."
The Hewlett-Packard co-founder read stacks of books on the subject and soon
could identify many of the Northern California trees. Then he did the same
with wildflowers--studying, identifying and photographing hundreds.
Today Bill's collection of more than 400 wildflower photos fills six albums.
He took most of the photos near his vacation home in Soda Springs, California,
not far from Lake Tahoe, and at his ranch near San Jose.
"Photography gives you another dimension to being outdoors," Bill
says. "Some of the flowers are very complicated and take an hour to
identify. But that's part of the enjoyment."
Bill has used a variety of cameras during the years, including Pentax, Hasselblad
and Canon. His AE1, a gift from that company's president, was the ninth
camera of that model produced.
Almost a decade ago, Bill began photographing leaves from trees indigenous
to the Bohemian Grove campground area in Northern California. His album
includes life-size photocopies of the leaves next to the photos so that
friends can identify the foliage easily during social gatherings there.
index/list of all pictures
contents selected
Chikering Program
(requires lots of memory to open and view)
