simplicity

I only had a few hours to shoot today, but the weather was agreeable enough… wonderful overcast skies with an intermittent breeze.  The delicate nature of these flowers might fool most people.  They belong to Colocasia esculenta and are attached to giant elephant ear shaped leaves spanning 2-3 feet across.  Even the slightest breeze today made the entire ensemble move.  So I patiently waited and took many frames over the course of about 30 minutes with this one composition.  I took others, but I’m attracted to the simplicity of this cluster hiding the white spadix visible from the other side.

I converted the image to black and white to further accentuate the forms as the flower color transitions from green to white.  But I thought you might like to see the color version for your own comparison.

hot papaya

With tomorrow’s solstice and the official beginning of summer, I thought I would post this image of a relatively new coneflower introduced by my friends at Plants Nouveau, Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’.  I found it blooming last night in the entrance garden of the Scott Arboretum.  And although I took the typical portrait shot with as much detail as my 105mm macro lens could capture at f/45, I quickly found the sultry petals luring me in for a closer look.  So I recomposed and found f/7.1 to capture enough detail that you can still infer it’s a flower, yet with a shallow enough depth of field to soften the flow… an image more reflective of the plant’s name!

summer is here

Since we’ve had exceptionally high daytime and soil temperatures in SE Pennsylvania this late spring, many perennials are sending out flowers earlier than I expected.  I found this Penstemon pinifolius (pineneedle beartongue) blooming on the hillside at Chanticleer Garden last weekend backed by Stipa tennuissima, or Mexican feather grass.  I intentionally blurred the grass out of focus to hightlight the form of the penstemon.  I first explored the symmetry of the individual flowers along the inflorescence.  But soon I became more fascinated by the leading lines of the flower parts and created this off-center image.

I am excited to see these blooming along with Clematis texensis and other nectar food sources for hummingbirds in local gardens. But I have not seen any hummingbirds yet in the garden this year.  Sure hope they arrive soon to feast upon these wonderful plants.

spring in a parking lot

After spending much of my time in my home garden this spring cultivating new ground for a vegetable garden and building a protective fence of harvested bamboo from the edge of the property, I am getting back to posting new images taken this spring. Although it doesn’t feel much like spring today in Pennsylvania with temperatures reaching 91F today.  But the tomatoes are enjoying the heat and I am hoping for a nice crop of heirlooms later this summer.

I’ve seen several posts from fellow photographers on the west coast of dogwoods in bloom, so I thought I might also post a dogwood I found this spring, Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Chief’ in a parking lot.  The amazing red bracts caught my attention from over 200ft away as they popped against the fresh green lawn on the hill behind it.  This was one of those moments when I know I’ve found something special. Maybe not a spectacular image, but something that resonates with my creative spirit that will influence my life and my art.

spring 2011

Every day is different… and this past week spring has decided to keep things moving at a furious pace.

I walk a mile every morning and night for my commute to work; and every walk I notice something else popping out of the ground or coming to life from a branch.  I prefer a slower spring, one where I can savor the transition and slow down enough from our culture’s work/life expectations enough to notice the magic that is happening in a continual flow before us.

On my walk last night, this native Pachysandra procumbens captured my attention enough to stop the furious pace of my day; and before I knew it I had spent 30 minutes wondering at its tiny blossoms.  I try not to think about anything during this time… Oh sure I think about technical aspects of taking the image with the given conditions, but then I set myself free.  I just allow experiences to be noticed and they in turn help form my approach to photographing what I see.

I’ve been struggling to make time for a meditation practice beyond yoga.  And I think I’ve finally realized… I’m struggling because I already have a meditation practice I enjoy.  I just need to spend more time practicing and allow that practice to flow in the direction it’s meant to.

gratitude

Today I found myself grateful… grateful for the flowing water from the tap of my bathroom sink; grateful for this gift from nature that landed on the leaf of an evergreen tree in the mountains, nourished the land and travelled through a myriad of her waterways and human plumbing systems to allow me to splash some tepid water on my face as a greeting to the day.  I found myself grateful for sunshine… solar radiation to warm my body while working in the below average temperatures today. And grateful that even though the weather has been chilly, spring is continuing to push forward with new delights for our senses most every day.  The Puschkinia scilloides, or striped squill, popped open today; they bloom shortly after Scilla siberica and Scilla mischtschenkoana in southeastern Pennsylvania.  And while I enjoy all the spring bulbs and the way they cheerfully greet spring and attract the early season pollinators, I especially enjoy the striped squill.  It’s a little less abundant, a little more delicate, and requires a little more attention to notice it’s unique morphology from Chionodoxa sp. and Scilla sp.  Tomorrow will bring another day to be grateful and surely more sings of spring…

finding beauty

Today I decided to revisit a plant I photographed last week; the turkish filbert had the female flowers out today along with the male catkins!  I have a few good captures I’ll post later on my website.  But close by another plant caught my attention… not because it was in spring bloom, but because all the ingredients to capture a fleeting moment were just right.  Needles on a dead branch of Pinus uncinata, damaged from the difficult winter we had here in Philadelphia, were radiating a warm glow against the blue sky.  Other branches were also broken, needles past this stage of luminosity and a much drabber brown.  But this branch was at just the right phase of compartmentalizing off, giving me the opportunity to capture the fleeting beautiful burnt orange color… finding beauty in this moment of a conifer’s decline.

gentle inspiration

As you might already know from following my blog, I’ve been patiently waiting on new eyeglasses for several weeks now. And I’ve been using this excuse for not getting out and shooting some macro work; I almost always focus manually since the auto-focus jumps around so much.  But I was gently inspired by a friend of mine who is taking beautiful images with a dislocated shoulder… So I needed to figure out a way to keep shooting too.  Last Friday the weather was unbelievable… nearly 70F here in Pennsylvania and luckily I had scheduled a half day off from my day job.  So I got out my camera and shot all my macro work hand held and with auto-focus.  Surprisingly, I came home with eight or more keepers in two hours of shooting.  I found the expected witch hazel and winter aconites.  But I also found some other marvelous signs of spring including this Turkish filbert, Corylus corluna, sending forth these catkins.

shadows

I’ve been unable to make new images for several weeks.  Not for a lack of motivation…  tonight was a beautiful sunset with bright purple, orange and red and we’ve had several amazing ice and snow events.  No, the reason I’ve not been able to photograph is I’ve been waiting on my new eyeglasses; the toric lenses are giving the optician some troubles and I’m getting a lesson in patience.  When I photograph up close, I focus manually.  And since I’ve been in the suburbs of Philadelphia this winter, I’ve been limited to the more intimate landscape.  The image for this post was made last year after an epic snowfall.  I really like the contrast of the tree trunk with the tree’s shadows on the snow.  The way the snow melts around the tree trunk is also an amazing piece of science in the wonders of nature.  As the temperatures start to nudge well above freezing this week I am promised those eyeglasses… just in time to see some signs of late winter flowers?

bitter winter

Just posting an image from last week.  It has been bitter cold here in Pennsylvania this weekend and I’ve been busy indoors processing images and catching up with the rest of life.  So enjoy this image of Echinacea seed heads from the photo walk last Wednesday afternoon!