Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Things Unseen

                       
                         
Home of the Wounded Healer

This is my beloved quarry. I began photographing this place in February 2010 when it was a fresh, raw gash on the face of the earth. It draws me back again and again. It reminds me that all of creation bears seeds of reconciliation with and within The Creator.

    

Monday, July 15, 2013

Photographer's Journal

                         
                             
In Memorium

Although I love photographing flowers and landscapes and machinery and more, things that fill my viewfinder with colors and shapes and so forth, I also enjoy challenging myself to put as little in the frame as possible and still have an interesting photo. It's called "minimalism," and minimalist images are often--not always--rather abstract. By my definition, "abstract" means the viewer is not quite sure what it is. An online photographer acquaintance coined the term "ministract" for those images that succeed at both. I think this one does! What do you think?

       

Friday, July 12, 2013

Summer Solstice Safari

                                      
                                     
Spider Butt Surprise

One of the most fun things about doing macro photography in natural habitats is what you do not know is in your image until you see it big on the computer screen.

This surprise came from a photo hike in the Kisatchie National Forest with friends from the Louisiana Native Plant Society. I should be able to identify the flower, but right now I'm not sure where my notes are!

       

Thursday, July 4, 2013

New England Adventure

                   
                                
Untitled (Pink)
After a day and a half of hiking in the Berkshire's, I needed an easier photo assignment! So I went to the Berkshire Botanical Gardens, where I walked on wide, gravel paths and mowed grass, mosied through greenhouses, stood in the shade and never once broke a sweat or saw a mosquito. It was great. And this lovely being was in a greenhouse full of amazine cacti, most of which I had never seen the likes of before.

    

Monday, July 1, 2013

New England Adventure

                             
                                        
Rain Approaching Monument Mountain
                         
I just returned from several days in New England. My first stop was Enders State Forest, just west if Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, and my last stop was my grad school friend Lisa's wedding in Amherst, Massachusetts.

In between, I spent a day hiking with a photographer friend and his family. I met Chris online through the Google+ photography community; he's the third photographer from the G+ community I have met in real life through my travels. Chris' wife and two of his teenagers joined us and we had a fabulous time. As I told Chris, I don't think I would agree to meet anyone I have met only online through any other social network than the G+ photography community--which is really quite special.

So..., here we are at the top of Monument Mountain near Stockbridge, Mass. when a rain storm approaches across the valley. It had been a serious climb and it was a hot, humid day so getting rained on was a pleasant prospect. However, the storm broke up in the valley and did not reach us. Indeed, seconds before this photo, it had been much darker and more threatening in appearance. By the time I got the proper lens on my camera and had framed and focused, it was already fading and breaking up.