One morning after one of our first frosts, I went looking for interesting things to photograph. In the alley behind our house I found a 1950s era Chevy parked near our neighbor's back garage. What drew me to this subject was the soft, rust color or the car's body (which is barely visible in this picture) and the cool, blue-tinted frost on the front window.
This shot is almost an abstraction in that the eye may not know exactly what is pictured here. Frost is also "almost abstract." It seems random in many ways; though if you look carefully, there are patterns. What is the cause of the patterns? You'll have to answer that question yourself.
5D 1/200s f/4.5 ISO400 105mm (Canon 24-105 f/4.0L)
This is a good example of something as prosaic as wild grass growing in a country ditch becoming more interesting with the right lighting. In this case I was heading to an old farmstead I like to photograph when I noticed how the low sun seemed to bring the heads of the grass to life.
I'll let you in on a secret: I sometimes play the role of Mother Nature. In this case, I misted the flowers with a spray bottle. The beads of water add interest and I'll bet I'm not the only photograper who does this.
I took this photo in Mexico a few years ago. I don't have much to say about it other than I like the the geometry of the palm leaf. The paradox of nature is that there are so many things that seem random and chaotic. And then there are things that are precise and ordered - as in this leaf. Scientists and philosophers have certainly written about this. I just took a picture.
One oak leaf back lit by the morning sun - it doesn't get much simpler than this. Since I was shooting into the sun, the challenge was to find shade for the lens to avoid lens flare. From the sunny side, this leaf looked dull. But with the sun shining through it, the leaf came to life - which is a bit of an irony for a leaf about to fall.
The first line in the poem by Dylan Thomas "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. . ." came to mind when I took this photo. Chives about to bloom are pretty mundane but I caught them at the right time, with their soft purple color contrasting nicely with the deep green of the foliage.
