The Delicacy of Nature

I try and remind myself to always look for photographs of things seen up close.  I am amazed at how often I don't think to do that!  My Nikon camera has a special lens called a "Micro-Nikkor" which will photograph things at their exact size.  So a 1" wide object will fill the frame.  But I don't have a lens like that for my Canon T7i, the smaller, lightweight camera that I bring with me all the time on my walks.  So I did a really old fashioned thing I would have done when I was in high school - I bought a glass closeup lens that screws on the front of the camera's lens.  It's not very sophisticated but it works!  This is one of the remaining stalks of ornamental grasses by the front steps.  This part of the plant is called a seed head, and it is such an incredibly delicate structure on the plant.  

 

The Electric Tree

I photographed this tree, standing on a lawn down the road from our house, as I returned from a late afternoon walk.  I am coming to love the trees decorated this way.  I have seen many trees in shopping center parking lots illuminated this way.  I think this is more interesting all by itself.  It is interesting, that when I took the picture, to my eyes, the sky was black.  What a surprise to see it in a beautiful dark blue in the photo, which only makes the photograph more beautiful.

 

Red, White & Blue

I just found this photograph that I took with my iPhone back in the middle of November.  Sometimes I lose track of some of my photographs.  I took this with my iPhone because I went to the wine store without a camera!  Then I saw this horse, which has been there for a long time, but usually it is standing in tall green grass.  So I thought it would make an interesting photograph with the straw color of the grass and the horse against the blue sky.  I did not post this today for political purposes, but it did occur to me which part of the horse was painted red...

 

Modern Art Painting in the Back Room

Late in the afternoon on a sunny day, I saw this composition made up of things, of shadows of things, and of reflections of things!  I was sitting reading and looked over to the wall where this long thin table with metal legs sits against the wall with a green glass top on it.  On the table is a clay pitcher with a handle that I got in France years ago.  And then we are seeing the shadow of that pitcher.  And, we are seeing the shadow of a small stick with a star on it from a wooden Santa that sits on the table as well.  And because of the green glass table top, all the light on the wall below the table is green.  I keep thinking it looks like some kind of modernist painting.  I think of the work of Piet Mondrian, but his paintings are bursting with bright colors and my abstraction is not.  Oh well...

Snow Capped Mountains

For years I have seen this concrete wall that is leaching either salt or lime.  I keep looking at the wall and trying to see if I can see a photograph there.  For some reason, the other day, I thought that I was seeing snow-capped mountains!  Now that I have told you that, you should be abele to see snow-capped mountains as well.  Such is the way the power of suggestion works!  You're welcome!

 

Birds of a Feather...

"Birds of a feather, flock together."  That was what came to mind when I was trying to think of a title for this photograph of two birds sharing a rock for a moment.  The big one is some kind of Heron - sorry that's the best I can do - and the small one is a Herring gull.  Actually, they are not of the same feather, becuse they are two different types of birds, but I was desperate for a title.  I am not sure why I thought this was interesting but I don't normally see two different birds sharing a rock.

 

What a Difference a Day Makes!

Yesterday afternoon I took my walk along the shore and I was a bit late in getting started.  The sun was close to the horizon when I arrived at the water.  Lucky me!  Look how beautiful this scene is right at the bottom of our street.  The beautiful warm light from the setting sun, down low, leaving long shadows.  How lucky we are to live this close to such a beautiful place!

Today's walk, and view, was entirely different!  I took my walk earlier in the day because rain was forecast for the late afternoon.  It has been overcast all day as well.  So when I got to this spot, I thought of how beautiful the light made everything yesterday, and thought I would take the exact same photograph again, in this soft gray light.  I suppose there is beauty in this light, but I prefer the more dramatically beautiful image of the day before.  Please click on each of these photographs to see them in more detail.