Nature
I had been out in our back yard shooting photos of things covered in thick frost, when I encountered this jumble of pine needles growing out of a small, bushy tree. There was something about the exuberant randomness of the needles that caught my attention.Of course the crystals of frost and the way pine needles develop and grow are probably anything but chaotic. But to my photographic eye they seem to be and I like it.
For the last two days it has been foggy and because of the snow cover, it has been mostly white.So I went looking for pictures of summer and this is what I found.I suspect that this is one of those photos that has more meaning to me than anyone else. (Translation: it's not a great photo but I like it.) But you do have to appreciate the pure blues of the sky and water in this photo.And you should have been with me the morning I took this. It was one of those quiet mornings on Lake Oahe that I dream about. It was cool but there was promise of warmth. The only sound was that of birds calling and of distant cattle lowing. You would think that a sailor would yearn for wind but as I'm sure I've said before, there is something pure and spiritual in floating quietly on a body of water in a place that is anything but empty.
I was wandering through the French Quarter and I bumped in to the Louisiana Supreme Court Building. I took several photos but this is one I liked the most.This is an iPhone photo and I'll admit that this photo is heavily doctored. I started in an app called Filter Mania and finished in Instagram. Like it or not, doctored photos are all the rage these days.
This palm left caught my eye as I walked along the narrow path that took to the little beach a mile down from our resort in Mexico last week. I have photographed palm leaves before but I wanted to try again, this time concentrating on the radial pattern and also trying to manipulate depth of field.I'll have to admit that there is a little Photoshop manipulation in the final product, including the application of a couple of my favorite filters in Color Efex Pro 4 and in the OnOne Photo Suite. But I'm not telling which ones. :-)Other Palm posts:December 25, 2009More Natural SymmetryGod's Ruler?More GreenStringy Palm Leaf - CorfuPalm LeafCanon 5DII 1/60s f/4.0 ISO500 40mm
Well, I liked the quality of light so much in the photo I posted yesterday that I went back to the same spot 6 mornings in a row to see if I could get something better. In particular, I wanted more shoreline water to show. And this is my next best effort. The casual observer may see little difference between this photo and yesterday's post. And, in fact, there probably isn't - except that I liked the clouds in the previous post better. But I like the dark, wet shoreline in this one.
"The wine-dark sea" is an epithet that Homer used to describe the Aegean Sea. I doubt that Homer's Odysseus ever sailed the waters off of the Yucatan Peninsula, but if he had, would he have heard the sirens' song as I have? Or the mermaids singing?And now, because I can't stop the chain of consciousness that wells up from my distant college past from time to time, I am compelled to quote "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" by TS Eliot:
"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.I do not think that they will sing to me.I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown."
But I am not Prufrock, nor was meant to be. . . .
There's nothing like a macro photo to give you a look at a little universe that could easily be overlooked.
As fall turns to winter, I start thinking about the transience of seasons. Where did summer go?
I was out chasing the moon and the sunrise a while back and I captured this. I'm not sure I like the composition. Or the title for the blog post. But I do like the purple-hued sky. And I like the full moon, of course, which has faired better over time than the windmill.
Somebody gave my wife a dozen roses, which gave me a photo opportunity. Did I buy the flowers? Nope. Kim did.
I was looking at some photos I took while staying overnight in a picture perfect town in Washington named Gig Harbor. I had passed this one over, in part because out of the camera it looked a little drab. But, thanks to a little help from my friends (Aperture and Photoshop) this photo is filled with color.
I was on the way home after a fairly successful photographic outing north of Watertown. And, once again, lost in thought, I had driven about 50 yards by this scene, which had registered subliminally, before I realized I had passed a photo opportunity.So I backed up and took a few photos. I love backlit thing that nature makes and the sun sets ablaze!