photography and musings from a Midwesterner
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Self-Portrait in Metaphor
Do other photographers take photographs like this? Barely aware, do you find in your photograph downloads that there are a few photos that seem to be the sum of who you are at that moment? Not really self-portraits, no people in those photos, but self-portraits nonetheless. Maybe I’m mixing my poetry writing years with my photography years. Can I do that?
So, can photographs be metaphors? My answer is yes.
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Red Foliage of Coral Bells
Not too many flowers in the perennial garden yet, but some of the foliage is quite attractive wearing this morning’s rain drops.
The start to the Memorial Day weekend was a rainy one. I watched the sky for awhile this morning, the gray clouds massing dark and brooding. Then the clouds thinned ever so slightly and a patch opened, a portal of blue sky.
We planted the perennial garden 3 years ago, and we spent a long, hot month digging up grass, adding mulch and compost and more black rich earth, and then choosing perennials according to size and color and blooming time. There was this big plan drawn out on paper, but we’ve lost a a few plants each year, so the plan has gone awry. We started putting in whatever we were attracted to, and our spur-of-the-moment choices were not always the right size or color, or they bloomed all in one area at the same time. But I always pick perennials with foliage I think is lovely, so there are yellow green leaves, deep green shiny leaves, variegated white and green leaves, and dark purple ones all tumbled in with the usual garden greens. Almost like a mixed salad of foliage. Today there were only the starts of a couple of flowers in bloom, so I photographed leaves in swirls and curly leaves, all with rainy bits dressing their surfaces.
It was a great way to begin the long weekend!
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Roosting in the Bluffs Near the Mississippi River
The Bald Eagles appear to be alive and well. A far cry from their story only a few decades ago, when America’s symbolic bird was on the Endangered Species list.
I went to observe the eagles wintering along the Mississippi River. They tend to hang out around the locks and dams which have areas of open water, even during the winter’s coldest months. And open water, to an eagle, indicates the diner in open.
I spent parts of last Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Lock and Dam # 11 near Dubuque, Iowa. Saturday was overcast and cold (6˚F) but the eagles were quite active because it had warmed about 20˚ in the last two days. They thought it plenty warm enough to do a few aerial dives into the river and they were successful in their fishing attempts. I must have seen a dozen birds in the hour I was there.
On Sunday the clouds cleared for a few hours, and I was actually able to get a shot of this eagle with blue skies in the background. But the aerialists were gone, and I had to settle for seeing maybe three or four birds high in the trees along the bluffs.
I spoke to a member of the Army Corps of Engineers who oversees the dam, and also to a member of the local Audubon Society who keeps his eyes on the eagles. They both told me they’ve been doing eagle counts since the 1970s. Thirty years ago, in a counting trip from one dam to the next, in a span of perhaps 20 miles, they saw a total of one Bald Eagle. This year, same span, same time of year, and they reported seeing more than 200.
Soaring above the Mississippi
Yes, quite a comeback. It seems the Bald Eagles are doing quite well.
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This is the time for New Year’s Resolutions, but I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Too many big ideas for big changes, too little follow-through. So I’m not adding anything new to the list I already have written in the front of my journal. But I will do a review as an end of the year ritual. Actually, I do a review nearly every day. This list has been around for the last year or so, and they are the basics. So, in no particular order:
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Sunlight Caught in a Spider's Web
The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. ~~ Pablo Picasso
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Queen Anne's Frosty Lace
Here’s the Queen with a bit of decorative hat. There is beauty even in the changes of the seasons, though I am fond of autumn’s color and mildness, and haven’t yet had my fill. I will have to keep autumn’s memory close by being satisfied with the photographs that stay – no matter how wild the weather gets outside.
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I have collected seed from these columbine plants and grown them every year since I have had a home of my own. The original plants were cultivated by my grandfather in Illinois. I gathered seeds from his plants beginning in 1979 and have grown them in several gardens in Milwaukee and Madison.
They bloom from late May through early July and are a favorite with long-tongued bees and the hummingbirds.
Even the bumblebees get in the act to get the nectar, though they cheat. Since they can’t reach the nectar because of the columbine’s long slender tubes, they bite holes in the ends of the spurs to get some of the sweet stuff. More than one way to beat Mother Nature . . .
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