I find that many of my images look better if you click on them. This one for instance looks a bit washed out until your mouse hovers over it or you click it.
Tag Archives: flower
Daylily
Cleome
Yellow iris
Image and short poem 4
What are your phylum, order, class, family, genus and species? I don’t know.
What is your name? I just am.
Image and short poem 2
fresh-petaled iris
weathered and swollen door
both planted a century ago.
Letting go
I was out in the front yard yesterday morning shooting some small yellow iris that have been blooming lately.
I was fairly pleased with what I was getting.
The light was diffuse and that saturated the colors.
Then the light changed and that was the end of it at least until later.
I didn’t get back out until this morning and I really wanted to do better with those iris. I knew I had missed something but didn’t know what it was.
The light was different and even though I didn’t know what it was, I was farther from what I wanted than I was yesterday.
I headed back to the house and near the back door was this cleome (I think that is what it is).
The iris yesterday were nice. The iris this morning were OK but the real gem was this flower.
I think I have part of the lesson now – going out with a tight agenda (I need better iris shots than I got yesterday) isn’t going to work if the conditions aren’t there. Sometimes it’s better to let go and just look without any agenda at all. The lesson yet to be learned is when is it time to give up one and go to the other?
Autumn evening
I was thinking about going out to shoot this morning but then I put it off until afternoon. That didn’t work either so I went out to the backyard this evening. I think it was worth the wait.
We’ll call this plant ‘flowering-whatever-it-is-2. I don’t know what it is but I like it, especially backlit.
Here’s another shot from the same plant which some would call a weed.
According to the definition ‘a weed is a plant growing in the wrong place’ this is not a weed.
Probably pretty insect-resistant too.
Now here is a more ‘legitimate’ plant. This is an American Beech tree. We’ve enjoyed this tree for 30 years. It is beautiful in all seasons and when a light rain falls on its leaves, it is musical.
And it has a dazzling array of fall colors.
Hard to beat that around here.
Wondering around
Mom patted me on the shoulder and said to the aide: ‘He’s a good boy.’ I turned 71 last week and I’m a good boy. Well, Mom is 94.
This ‘boy’ doesn’t walk as fast as he used to and that’s good. The faster you walk the more you have to treat the rest of the stuff in the world as potential obstacles to be avoided. Walking slower, moseying, means you can see what else is there and perhaps appreciate it more.
One’s eyes don’t have to be old to see what is nearby though. I ran into a librarian friend of mine this morning who had a young teen-age girl with her. While we were talking the girl spotted a dead mole and a six inch garter snake and who knows what else within a six foot radius of where we were standing. My friend tells me the girl is interested in photography. She indeed has a good eye.
The cycle of the year is approaching its last quarter and if the year is aging it doesn’t appear to be slowing down. We have defined time in an objective way in hours, minutes and seconds counted off by an atomic clock. But the experience of time is anything but objective. It does seem that days rush past faster as we get older but walking more slowly helps bring a bit more sanity to it.
And we can see more interesting stuff.
It’s a time for wondering.
Life beyond butterflies
I went over to Fort Harrison State Park this morning and instead of heading to the area where I’ve seen the most butterflies, I went in another direction. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect to see butterflies in the old location, the question was whether I could find happiness in subjects other than butterflies (soft plaintive violins in the background).
A leaf in the water. Not bad if all we want to do is aim the camera away from butterflies. But not too good either. Try again.
Jewelweed is nice, very bright and I can’t say I have ever noticed an insect like that before; one of the benefits of macro photography.
Now I like that. I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked by little beauties like this. Once again, a benefit of going out with a macro lens. I’ve noticed that when I have a telephoto lens on the camera, I tend to see more telephoto opportunities. Today I was using my 100 mm macro lens. This lens works as a moderate telephoto but I tend to think of it more in its macro application.
Here’s the high point of the morning.
I love back lit shots. A very important lesson came out of this morning’s jaunt. I was headed east on the Fall Creek Trail because I picked up the trail at its western end – walking toward the sun, accidentally creating the opportunity for back lit shots. There were many opportunities. I went a couple of hundred yards past the area of this shot and turned around looking for what other opportunities I could find. There weren’t many. If you like back lighting try going east in the morning and west in the evening. Writing this down is a little embarrassing. Of course that is what we would do to get back lit shots. This is one of those points that is so obvious it needs to be stated.
And yes, there is happiness beyond butterflies.
Spirit and Seeing 