Holy Macro!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by artsifrtsy

I have been out taking a very close look and am happy to report that spring is springing. It’s not busting out all over yet, but if you look close, very close – it’s all there to see.

Yesterday after work I took a walk with my macro lens. It’s a Leica 45mm f2.8 so I can shoot in overcast conditions or in low light – that pretty much describes the conditions. I love the tonality of evening shots – past the golden hour, but early enough to keep the ISO and noise at low levels.

The remains of our glorious autumn are still around. I snapped this by accident, I was not even planning a shot – stupid trigger finger. Sometimes a great lens makes a decent shot out of a misfire.

I was beginning to despair. The heat last year did so much damage and until yesterday I saw no buds. They are higher up, I’m hoping they fill in. These are edible and quite tasty in a salad.

I don’t know what these are called by my “lawn” is full of them. This shot focuses on the center of the plant…

…while this shot focuses on the outer blossoms.

These flowers appear to float in the woods. They are about a half-inch across…

…and resemble very tiny roses. These are tough to shoot because the are on very thin branches that move with any breeze.

This inch-long bundle of feathers is suspended over a limb on the lilacs…

…another view of the debris from the impact – the breeze makes the lower portion blend together.

This is a hole in a large rock I have on the patio – it fills with rainwater and the birds drink from this crystalline cavity.

Springtime is about exploration and discovery for me. It’s the perfect time to take that macro lens out for a walk.

Cardinals Celebrate the First Day of Spring at the Stone House

Posted on March 25, 2013 by artsifrtsy

Spring in the Ozarks – redbuds, dogwoods, bluebirds, snow…SNOW? You heard me right, snow.

Tonight we are under a freeze warning for the 3rd night in a row. I am heating the cellar to keep the pipes from bursting, I am wearing long-johns, I am stoking a fire – yeah, feels like Spring.

My driveway on the first day of Spring.

I suppose this view beats the bare trees, if it was warmer I would be out shooting macro shots of snowflakes on my daffodils. Before we get a mob together to take out that lying groundhog – there is an upside. My snobby cardinals come out in droves in the snow. They must know that the contrast makes them look amazing.

There’s nothing more classic that a shot of a cardinal in a tree in the snow – makes me feel like Christmas, well, maybe next Christmas…

Ignoring me in a tree…

Puffed and posing in the branches…

Ignoring me behind a bird house…

Avoiding my glance in the crepe myrtle…

Of course, they can ignore me all day out there on the limb – but when the snow stops for a minute, they feed like there’s no tomorrow.

Stomping in the snow, looking for seed…

Digging through the ice for his next meal…

Doing his best impression of an Angry Bird…

Out on a ledge feasting on cracked corn…Is it just me, or does he look inflated?

Once the snow starts again, it’s time to take cover and wait for that next meal…

No superstition here, he’s taking refuge under a ladder.

Spring is supposed to return sometime around Wednesday. I’ll probably keep putting out that expensive songbird food they like so much. They will likely continue to ignore me. Ungrateful snobs, beautiful ungrateful snobs. I love them.

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Posted on December 9, 2012 by artsifrtsy

You know the song.

Since Thanksgiving you’ve heard it a hundred times. Listening to the lyrics it’s not explicitly about Christmas, but it is from a movie we watch during the holidays. The list in the song is not my list. I’m not big on whiskers – I prefer the rest of the kitten. I don’t think I need mittens when using a kettle – it’s all a bit disjointed. Lyrically it’s genius – in practical use it’s not my cup of tea.

So what would my list be? I decided for my 100th post to share the list of things that inspire me behind the lens.

Raindrops on…

Anything.

Naked Lady in the rain.

You can see my house inverted in this raindrop.

A newly opened dogwood drenched in the rain.

Lilac buds shining after a shower.

I love redbuds – the first color of spring.

I’m not so much into bright copper kettles, but I am fascinated with…

Rust.

This is the rust and patina on my copper fire pit.

This hay rake was in my woods when I bought the house – every surface is beautifully rusted.

This padlock was on the jail in Midas Nevada. The lock spoke to me more than the shack it was attached to.

I don’t even know what schnitzel is – it sounds odd to me. I know it’s odd to love…

Dandelions.

I like the delicate structure and I like to find a way to look at them in new ways.

The structure of the actual flower is pretty amazing even before it goes to seed.

The substructure is so intricate. I shot this with a manual macro lens from the 70s.

I grew up in the desert so the idea of sleigh bells is foreign to me, but door bells make me think of home. I have a strong bent towards…

Sentiment and Kitsch.

I love kitsch and I love it unusual places. I have had lawn flamingoes in the front lawn of every home I have ever owned.

These are my Grandpa’s keys. I love shooting things that belonged to someone special.

My Grandma taught me about purple glass, I love to shoot things that are transparent and have color.

My great-grandfather carved this out of a peach pit. I love the surfaces of handmade things like this.

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes. I like snow, but not so much for its photographic opportunities. I prefer…

Spring Flowers

Crocus – the first color on the ground, often before the grass starts to green up.

Cherry Blossoms opening skyward captivate me.

Daffodils have amazing color before we even notice them.

Lilacs open as the sun hits them – here for too brief a time.

Hyacinths – My garden fairy planted a few of these a couple of years ago in a spot were there was once a cistern. I love them.

Cream colored ponies and dogs biting. I’m not too far off here. I love the company of…

Dogs.

Sunshine is my Goldendoodle. He’s a lovely goofball and is a bit camera-shy, I like to catch him when he is unaware of me.

These are my brother’s pointers – I shot this one Christmas when Vegas had a rare snow. I loved the sheer joy the pups exuded as they ran in the frosted desert.

These are my two female terriers. They hate each other’s guts unless they are sleeping – they are precious when they sleep.

This is a pup I met on a trip – I love that he was interested in my camera. Curiosity is a favorite thing to capture in an animal.

Zipper was my first Kayak dog – he was so relaxed on the water.

Brown paper packages, blue satin sashes, silver white winters – there’s a lot of color in this song. I love color and am drawn to vivid colors. One color draws me more than all the others.

I shoot anything that is…

Orange.

The color of this car drew me to it – hundreds of cars and this was my favorite.

I’m pretty sure I chose this hard drive for that orange bumper.

In the shop where I work I see lots of color, but this set of mixers caused me to go get my camera.

These Tiger Lilies grow wild around the Ozarks. I have them pretty thick in the springs right at the edge of the woods

These Tiger Lilies grow wild around the Ozarks. I have them pretty thick in the spring – right at the edge of the woods.

This sunset was so vivid that I missed an appointment when I stopped to shoot it.

Now that winter is here and it’s a grey day, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so … bad.

My Mother’s Favorite

Posted on June 29, 2012 by artsifrtsy

What’s so special about dogwoods? I grew up in Las Vegas and I remember my mother making a sprig of wood pulp dogwoods when I was a kid. It sat on the top of our TV. She always told me how lovely they were – her favorite flower. Me, I thought they were boring. Just a white flower with 4 petals, nothing special. That lonely sprig in a vase on the TV did little to convince me that they merited the awe in my mother’s voice as she recalled her childhood among them in the woods of Virginia. Just another thing my mom and I disagreed on.

About 10 years ago I relocated to the Ozarks. The first spring was amazing to me – the variety of wildflowers, the shades of green, the wildlife, the water – and the dogwoods.

A canopy of delicate blossoms afloat in the understory of the forest – serenely suspended between heaven and earth. Glorious – and another thing my mom was right about.

Wish I had the chance to share these with her.

This one’s for you mom – miss you…

Thistles and Cones

Posted on June 9, 2012 by artsifrtsy

There may be 4 seasons on the calendar, but here in the Ozarks our days and weeks are filled with micro seasons, one following another. It’s a part of the rhythms of this place – redbuds, rains, dogwoods, whippoorwills, tiger lilies, fawns – that’s just three weeks in April and May.

Right now one of my favorite seasons is drawing to a close – thistles and coneflowers – both grow wild along roadsides. Both can be a rich pink, both reach skyward, and both wither leaving just a round silhouette that lingers for a few weeks.

The coneflower is actually echinacea. This one is a part of a group that grows near the bottom of my hill. This group mostly have very thin petals.

There is a thistle patch right across the parking lot from my office. The city cut a drainage ditch and the turning of the earth has created an amazing garden of volunteers.

The patch is shot here seems to grow in groups of two or three. The soil on the roadside is rocky and steep, still they thrive.

Last year we had some very heavy spring rains and a hillside below a spring gave way – the trees on the hill were destroyed. The city planted some wild grasses to stabilize the slope, it looks like the thistles have volunteered to assist in the process.

On the steepest hillsides the cone’s petals dangle and sway with the wind.

Both flowers have a distinctive radial geometry to their centers.

This one makes me think of an umbrella frame.

This one reminds me of a lampshade.

The center of both flowers dominate their shapes.

My 99 year-old neighbor, Mary Jane, introduced me to thistles a few years back. She asked me to go on a hike with her down into a hollow one Saturday. I thought we were going to see a waterfall. We got to the bottom and she sent me up the other side to a vantage point. I scouted a path for her, thinking we must be headed to an amazing place. She took the lead and we ended up in a completely desolate path on the side of a mountain. It was a spot that the local electric coop had treated with herbicide – cheaper to use poison than to employ some guys with chainsaws anyway, we had climbed to this place with a purpose. She took off her pack and handed me a stack of envelopes. Each was full of wild thistle seeds. We scattered them and hiked home. When we got back to Mary Jane’s place she took me out to a spot in the woods behind her house – we could see the spot where we had just been clearly in the distance. That hike was not about a waterfall, it was about resurrecting the ground that progress had destroyed. Mary Jane could no longer bare to look at its deadness so we planted thistles. Years later they thrive.

The thistles are fading, that can only mean that the season of air conditioning cannot be far behind.

Lunas in the Porch Light

Posted on May 22, 2012 by artsifrtsy

I moved to the Ozarks about a decade ago. I no longer live in the city and have a neighbor 10 feet away. I bought an old farmhouse on 7 acres about 5 miles from town. Close enough to be able to get the things you need to get by, far enough away to see stars at night. My first year was all about learning the rhythms of nature through the seasons. Peepers and whippoorwills start talking in May, tree frogs in June, cicadas in July and August – it all goes quiet again in October.

My first spring here I noticed that if a light was on in a room at night that flying insects would congregate on the windows – sometimes lots of them. If ladybugs get into the house they will hit their shells against the table lamp or TV looking for the light. One night I heard a very loud flutter against the living room window – it sounded like a bird crashed! I heard it again and saw something the color of a tennis ball swirl in the light and heard the window shake. I went outside and thought it might be a great green parakeet or something – but the flight pattern was so circular and random.

The next morning I went outside and saw the culprit – it was a Luna Moth. Now at the time I had no idea what that was – it’s color was amazing, but it was huge, larger than the palm of my hand! It was so beautiful that I watched for it to arrive the next night and it did. It only visited me for a few days and it was gone – until the next spring.

What follows is my photo study of this years visitors. Typically a moth lasts for 10 days and dies. A new generation arrives about 10 days later and after it dies they are gone for the year.