Category: Autumn

Day 46 – Water on Grass

GrassStars

“Get close to grass and you will see stars.” – Dejan Stojanovic

I set out this morning to see how things were coming along at the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park. I was thinking if I got a good early start it shouldn’t be too crowded. Imagine my dismay when most of the parking slots were already full and it wasn’t even 8:30 yet. Then I got to the road block and realized that there was some event going on. So I turned myself around and headed to North Mountain Park instead. Most of the flowers were gone and the bird feeders are not out yet but the sun sparkling on these water drops (from the sprinklers I guess) caught my eye. And there were leaves, and the more I walked around the more I found to photograph. That’s what it’s all about….getting out there.

Day 45 – Chrysanthemum

Chrysantemum

The Last Chrysanthemum

Why should this flower delay so long 
   To show its tremulous plumes? 
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, 
   When flowers are in their tombs. 

Through the slow summer, when the sun 
   Called to each frond and whorl 
That all he could for flowers was being done, 
   Why did it not uncurl? 

It must have felt that fervid call 
   Although it took no heed, 
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall, 
   And saps all retrocede. 

Too late its beauty, lonely thing, 
   The season’s shine is spent, 
Nothing remains for it but shivering 
   In tempests turbulent. 

Had it a reason for delay, 
   Dreaming in witlessness 
That for a bloom so delicately gay 
   Winter would stay its stress? 

– I talk as if the thing were born 
   With sense to work its mind; 
Yet it is but one mask of many worn 
   By the Great Face behind. 

-Thomas Hardy

All this beautiful weather had me longing for flowers to photograph so I stopped by the nursery to see if they had any in bloom. Of course, the Chrysanthemums were in peak glory so I bought one for my front porch and of course photographed it before I put it there…with pumpkins of course. Chrysanthemum is one of those words I just love to say, though it is a pain in the rear to spell.

Day 44 – Milkweed Seeds

Milkweed_seeds

Omnipresent

the clear autumn morning
hides nothing from the crow
as the backlit sphere
of the milkweed spore
floats by
tumbling with purpose
take a look
at what fills the air
bird leaf tree debris dust smoke cloud sunbeam
invisible eddies
my intellect

– Jimmy Tee

I was walking to the mailbox to get the mail when it suddenly dawned on me that I had neglected to post an image yet today. I had planned on a photographic outing but then FedEx notified me that I had to be home to sign for a package and one thing led to another. But, I noticed the light on the milkweed pods bursting open was quite lovely so I went back and got a camera and played with it for awhile.

Day 43 – Rescue Barn

Barnsidew

Weathered

Weathered and worn
But oh so proudly
The old barn preened in the summer
Mid-day sun

He had seen her earlier,
Noticed her shape, angles
On the drive to his desk and cube

But now she shown
The aged wood, elephant skin
Or maybe the skin of a Burmese elder
Lit at the edge of the cut field

Tawny, creosote, browns in varied hues
Tingled his fancy, his synapses
Starkness of the vertical and horizontal lines
Breaking the field and forests
Softer edges

Ready for a picture or two
To catch the eye, the imagination
Of the traveler of the byway
Proud in its skin
In the light

 – Raymond A. Foss

One of the many awesome places we visited in Vermont was a farm where they rescue, among other things, old barns. This was just one of the many very cool barns on the property. I am almost done editing images from New England so I felt like since that is where most of my energy went today it was appropriate to dip into those files for today’s post. I reviewed a number of poems about old barns but most of them seemed so negative. I liked this one because it spoke of the majesty of the old barn rather than decadence as I hope my photo does too.

Day 42 – Hydrangea

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas

Dragoons, I tell you the white hydrangeas
     turn rust and go soon.
Already mid September a line of brown runs
     over them.
One sunset after another tracks the faces, the
     petals.
Waiting, they look over the fence for what
     way they go.

-Carl Sandberg

I’ve noticed that flowers sometimes get confused when the day length in autumn mimics that in spring. That seems to be the case with my hydrangea which, after months of fading color has suddenly decided to put out some new blossoms, just in case.

Day 41 Autumn Landscape

Wagner_Fall

Autumn’s Majesty

Sun with his artistic touch,
streaks skies of blue with rosy blush,
trimming Oak and Maple too,
crimson reds with yellow hue.

Birch and Hemlock, purple and gold,
apples, pumpkins bright and bold,
burns by day and cools by night,
cloaking trees in fiery might.

Wispy winds and tumbling leaves,
cypress scents within the breeze,
starry eves and harvest moon,
sets the stage for crickets’ tune.

As spiders spin their tapestry
and crickets sing in symphony,
their final song of destiny,
it’s clear for all the world to see,
Autumn’s vibrant majesty!

-Patricia L. Cisco

The weather is turning back toward summer again so I took myself and the camera out for a walk on the greenway. I don’t think any of the photographs I took begin to capture the vibrance of the colors against the bright blue sky.

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

I drive past him each day in the swamp where he stands 
on one leg, hunched as if dreaming of his own form 
the surface reflects. Often I nearly forget to turn left, 
buy fish and wine, be home in time to cook and chill. 
Today the bird stays with me, as if I am moving through 
the heron’s dream to share his sky or water—places
he will rise into on slow flapping wings or where 
his long bill darts to catch unwary frogs. I’ve seen 
his slate blue feathers lift him as dangling legs 
fold back, I’ve seen him fly through the dying sun 
and out again, entering night, entering my own sleep. 
I only know this bird by a name we’ve wrapped him in, 
and when I stand on my porch, fish in the broiler,
wine glass sweating against my palm, glint of sailboats 
tacking home on dusky water, I try to imagine him
slowly descending to his nest, wise as he was 
or ever will be, filling each moment with that moment’s 
act or silence, and the evening folds itself around me.
-T. Alan Broughton
I’m looking forward to  return to nice weather this week and getting out to shoot again. But in the meantime I am enjoying the chance to revisit older images and think about them in a more creative way. Out of about two dozed frames of Great Blue Herons in flight this is the only way that came out any where near in focus. But the bird was a little too close to the edge of the frame so I did a little Photoshop artistry and came up with this image that I really love for its simplicity.

Day 37 – Yellow Woods

YellowWood2

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
I managed a walk in Lithia Park this morning before the rain set in. I have to say the colors were amazing and the reflections in the lower duck pond took my breath away. I went with a painterly treatment and texture effect on this one and it immediately put me in mind of one of my all time favorite poems… probably because it was introduced to me by one of my favorite teachers, ’round about 4th or 5th grade.

Day 36 – Books and Bakery

BooksandBakeryw

There is no Frigate Like a Book

There is no Frigate like a Book 
To take us Lands away 
Nor any Coursers like a Page 
Of prancing Poetry – 
This Traverse may the poorest take 
Without oppress of Toll – 
How frugal is the Chariot 
That bears the Human Soul –
– Emily Dickinson
I was feeling more painterly today and came across this image taken in Vermont. It had a lot of power lines in the original so I gave it the full Photoshop treatment. And what better combination than books and a bakery, and a poem by Emily Dickinson.