photography and musings from a Midwesterner
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Gingko on Black © 2010 Bo Mackison
I have always loved the simplicity of the gingko leaf – quite unusual when compared to other leaves, gently formed, a soothing shape. An ancient tree, fossils of gingko biloba leaves have been dated to the time of the dinosaurs.
The gingko. A living relic. A symbol of longevity.
Photographed at the Allen Centennial Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin.
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Green is Beautiful
The sun is shining, the snow is melting. I always think of mid-March as the teaser. Sunny days, almost touching the 50˚F mark. The a dip back into the teens or 20s and frosty again. There are bits of my yard where there are peeks of grass, though much of the yard is under 6 or more inches of crusty snow. But it’s melting. Yes, it truly will be Spring soon.
I still have to find my green in the Tropical Conservatory, but I’m practicing for when those first bits of green shoots pop out of the earth. Ahhhhhhh!
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Fuzzy New Growth on PLant
A first glance, it appears that these ficus leaves have encountered a cold weather frost. Not so. This ficus plant grows in the Bolz Conservatory, the glass greenhouse that keeps the tropics alive in a tiny part of wintry Madison. And the white is the fuzziness of its new growth.
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Winter Ice Storm
I discovered Ken Libbrecht’s book called Field Guide to Snowflakes, a book, yes, all about snow. There is much going on in this frozen world that we are mostly unaware of, and it’s darn fascinating stuff! The book has photos of snowflakes produced under all sorts of weather conditions, including different temperatures and amounts of humidity. It’s a great book that both pleases the eye and expands your knowledge of the natural world at the same time.
Libbrecht suggests getting a black cloth (though a piece of black paper could easily substitute) and placing it on a surface to catch snowflakes. Then one can study them with a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe. (Or maybe a macro lens…hmmm.)
The crystals in the photo, as best as I can identify by reading and comparing, are columns or prisms and were probably formed in temperatures ranging from 18˚F to 27˚F. The geometric shape we think of as the typical snowflake, the thin and flat, six-sided crystal, develops when the weather is a bit warmer – in the 27˚F to 32˚F range – or when it’s colder – from -8˚F to 18˚F. The temps between -5˚F and 10˚F produce the fanciest, most delicate of the hexagonal flakes.
I recently read a BBC article about an early photographer, Wilson A. Bentley. Ten of his pioneering photographs of snowflake crystals – he was the first to photograph snowflakes, and did so over a century ago – were sold in a recent NYC auction. According to the article, Bentley took photographs of snowflakes because he wanted to share their beauty with everyone.
Bentley was quoted as saying, “Every crystal is a masterpiece of design, and no one design is ever repeated. When a snowflake melts, that design is forever lost.” True wabi-sabi, those snowflakes!
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Holding Hands with Nature
On the most basic of levels, this is a photograph of overlapping leaves that I took using a Lensbaby Composer. But when I saw the photograph, it seemed to be much more than a few leaves, it seemed to be another one of those self-portraits I occasionally take that aren’t an actual self-portrait, but a metaphorical portrait of self.
I look at this and see a photograph of holding hands. And I make the connection. I hold hands with nature when I am out in nature, sometimes taking photographs, sometimes hiking or camping, in lots of ways, in close relationship with the natural world.
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second in the series on winter wabi-sabi
The golden coin-shaped leaves of this plant contrast the winter blue sky. And yes, for once the sky was so blue it reminded me of the bright skies I typically see in the west.
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fourth in the series, wabi-sabi
Wabi-sabi is characterized by humility, restraint, simplicity, naturalism, profundity, imperfection, and asymmetry [emphasizing] simple, unadorned objects and architectural space, and [celebrating] the mellow beauty that time and care impart to materials. ~ Introduction: Chanoyu, The Art of Tea
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third in the wabi-sabi set
Greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details. Wabi-sabi represents the exact opposite of the Western ideal of great beauty as something monumental, spectacular and enduring. Wabi-sabi is about the minor and the hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral: things so subtle and evanescent they are invisible to vulgar eyes. ~Leonard Koren
A different way of seeing an Arizona Sycamore tree. Shadows. Leaves. Bark.
Another photograph from my archives, taken in October last year, at Montezuma’s Castle National Monument, north of Phoenix.
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December Fog
Madison has already had 35 inches of snowfall, and until today most of it was on the ground. Then a warm front moved in and a heavy fog settled on everything. Now there are bare patches of muddy earth peeking from the patches of snow. But it made for a fun afternoon of photography.
Until the rain began to pour.
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On Great Sand Dunes National Park Nature Trail
Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.
Arnold Newman (American photographer)
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