From the category archives:

travel

Twirling in Blues

by Bo Mackison on 09/01/2010

Blue Lupine at North Cascades National Park in Washington

A blue lupine, so much detail to see in a flower when you stop and really look. I didn’t know blue lupines had all those sumptious shades of purplish blues. I didn’t know they had rows and rows of tiny blossoms, twisting up and down the stem. Photographed in late June is North Cascades National Park in Washington state.

{ 12 comments }

Red Poppy

by Bo Mackison on 07/20/2010

Macro photograph of red poppy, taken at International Boundary Park on the British Columbia, Canada/Washington border.

{ 9 comments }

Lilies in Shadow

by Bo Mackison on 07/19/2010

Most of the lilies at the Chicago Botanic Gardens are front and center in the main garden, framed in multiple square ponds, and offset by summery plantings. There are purple water lilies, pink ones, blue ones, even bright magenta water lilies. But I found these lilies on a lesser traveled path, up and beyond the conifer plantings. Not many people wander this far off the main paths.

These lilies offer a different feel compared to their brightly lit cousins. I love these pale lilies, quietly dressed in shadowy reflections. My favorite of all the lilies I photographed that day.

{ 14 comments }

Tiny Fountain

by Bo Mackison on 07/12/2010

This fountain is in a very long straight line, but the individual water spouts are very short – only a few inches high.

Did you see the fountain in the photograph when you first glanced? As you looked for the fountain, did that encourage you to look deeper into the photograph?

That is what photography – the actual act of taking a photograph – does for me. It makes me take a longer look, a deeper look. It allows me take the time to make meaning from what I see.

Photographed at Chicago Botanic Garden.

{ 7 comments }

Glowing Water Lily

by Bo Mackison on 07/10/2010

Purple Water Lily at Chicago Botanic Gardens

This purple water lily, photographed in the water gardens at Chicago Botanic Garden, seemed to have its own light source from deep within. The lilies were a lovely treat at the gardens, four formal pools, all filled with different colors of lilies – deep purple, yellow, light pink, and this lily, a lovely deep pink.

It’s a bright sunny morning in Wisconsin-land. In a bit, Sherpa and I are packing the U-haul and car with our show tent set-up and my photographs. We are traveling to Oshkosh where I will have an art booth at Faire on the Green at the Paine Art Center. Booth 70. The show is on Sunday, July 11, and runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

If you are in the area, come visit! Look for the Seeded Earth Studio sign and be sure to say hello!

{ 10 comments }

Yellow Lily

by Bo Mackison on 07/05/2010

It’s a cloudy day in Wisconsin, a good day to share this bright bit of yellow – a day lily photographed at the Chicago Botanic Gardens this past weekend.

I sooooo wanted to call this photograph “Lello Lily” in honor of my youngest who pronounced the word ‘yellow’ by substituting ‘l’ for the ‘y’ — and did so long after she could easily say the word ‘yellow’ correctly. She simply loved the way it sounded. Often another family member would call something ‘lello’ also — it always brought on the giggles.

She will so love the sound of these two words combined — ‘Lello Lilly’.

{ 5 comments }

Washington Tidal Pool

by Bo Mackison on 07/04/2010

Tidal pool discoveries from our visit to Tongue Point on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

While we were climbing on the slippery, blue-mussel and seaweed mixture that is exposed on the shoreline rocks at low tide, we did see quite a few tidal pools. No star fish or hermit crabs or sand dollars, but there was quite a lot of floating yellow rockweed in the pools of water.

We also saw three pools that had green sea anemones. Even though they look like underwater flowers, they are animals. As prey moves past the anemone, it shoots a tentacle or two out from it’s hidden place and paralyzes its prey, typically a small fish or crustacean, with a deadly sting. Pretty, but not such pretty manners — if you’re a sculpin swimming by.

{ 6 comments }

Two Roses and the Tale of a Trip

by Bo Mackison on 06/30/2010

Pink Roses at University of British Columbia Botanical Gardens in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Still wading through many photograph files, pulling out special ones from my recent trip to Seattle, Vancouver and the Olympic Peninsula. There are so many photographs that I would love to share — why take photographs if you don’t share, right?

While we were on the Pacific coast, my younger daughter and I visited our 47th (Washington) and 48th (Oregon) states. Sherpa and I always believed that we should introduce our three children to the wonders of their own country first. Then they could take on the world when they were ready to explore further. When our youngest child turned 5, we started going on three week summer vacations, pulling a pop up tent everywhere we traveled.

We concentrated on the sites in the National Park System, but we balanced our trips with visits to some of the major US cities, too. (A few of our favorite National Parks — Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon, Acadia, Padre Islands, Glacier. A few of our favorite cities — New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Chicago.)

When we stopped our travels – yep, the kids grew up and moved away and got jobs and took on other commitments — we had all visited (not just flown over, but visited) 46 of the 50 United States. Well, for the sake of full disclosure, Sherpa was at 47 because of a quick business trip to Seattle, but the rest of us had yet to see Washington, Oregon, Alaska or Hawaii.

When I offered my daughter an after-graduation-before-starting-big-job trip, she immediately proposed a vacation to the Pacific Northwest to capture States #47 and 48. And so the trip we just completed was planned.

I’ve posted photographs from Washington state – we traveled over 1,000 miles in Washington — but nothing from Oregon.

Nothing against Oregon, really! But we only had 10 days and we couldn’t see everything. Especially after we added a few spontaneous stops to our original itinerary. In order to visit our 48th state, we crossed the bridge from Longview, Washington to Rainier, Oregon on the last day we were there. (We had intended to go to Portland, but that was still miles away and we had a plane to catch in Seattle later that night.)

To make the state “count” according to family rules, we had to eat something while there and we had to do an activity, preferably something unusual.

We stopped at a little place not far from the bridge and ordered ice cream cones. I had blueberry cheesecake ice cream, delicious, one of the biggest single dip cones I’ve ever had, real blueberries, of course. We were in Oregon, right? Manda had pumpkin, a solid choice, too. Then we bought a lottery ticket and played lotto. (It was only the second lottery ticket I’ve ever purchased, and Manda’s first, so it counted as something unusual.)

Then we checked off #48, turned around and headed for Sea-Tac.

{ 10 comments }