My title for this post isn't so much about the fact that we don't see rain, or rain-drenched leaves in our normal experiences. Though most people rarely stop to study a leaf as closely as I'm asking you to do it here.
What I mean is that the camera "sees" things very differently than humans do, including color, contrast and focus. And for sure the human eye can't see unfocused areas* as the lens does because when we look at another point in a scene, our eyes automatically focus there.
And discovering the unexpected is one of the reasons I find so much joy in making a photo.
And speaking of joy, welcome to 2014! I will be celebrating five years of "A Photo A Day" soon and I do appreciate you, the viewers, who certainly provide another source of joy for me.
*The unfocused areas are called bokeh. In this photo, the blurred circles in the background are other rain drops hanging on other leaves like the one you see in focus here.
Canon 5DIII 1/100s f/4.0 ISO400 102mm
When you look closely at the amazing details of a frosty window it's not hard to understand why someone chose to personify the creator under the name of Jack Frost. Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by the seemingly random yet ordered patterns of the kind seen in this photo.
We arrived back in Minneapolis last night from a week in Mexico. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees F. But in Watertown, SD, it is -14.
When Deb and I paid the entrance fee for the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, a few weeks ago, we weren't expecting much given that the gardens were past bloom and prepared for winter. But we were surprised by what we found. And even if we hadn't found anything worth seeing, it would have been good just to stroll through a largely deserted landscape on a nice November day.
It occurs to me that in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where this photo was taken, the ponderosa pine is visual white noise in that there are so many of them and, unless they are fallen or bug infested or on fire, they are rarely seen.
Deb and I took a hike through a nature area on our visit to St. John in the US Virgin Islands this past June. I spent quite a bit of time photographing the plants that grew on plants here, much like this air plant is growing on the side of a small tree, which is also host to a vine that is curling upward. Are these plants friendly and helpful to each other? And is that what symbiosis means? Or are we seeing evidence of parasitism?
I suppose I should be posting something slightly more seasonal, shouldn't I? But perhaps these purple iris are blooming somewhere in Australia, where summer is about to begin. So I would suggest they are seasonal.
Here's another capture from the Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska. As I was working on getting this photo ready for this post, it occurred to me that the photos you see here fall into one of about three categories: photos that demonstrate a process, photos that attempt to show a unique or new view of things, and photos of things, in which process, art and uniqueness are not primary considerations.