Tulip Bed on the Square © 2010 Bo Mackison
We went on a brief foray to the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison this past Saturday. It was a gorgeous day, appropriate for May Day, and evidently everyone else must had the same idea. We began our morning by ducking into a little spot for a bite of breakfast (Bradbury’s — yummy!) and then we ventured forth towards the market.
I was briefly distracted by this beautiful bed of tulips — love that red fringe — and so I had to take a few photos. I liked how there was a streak of sunlight showing off a few of the flowers. Then I dodged a few hundred people in the first half of the first block while trying to check out the asparagus and spinach. We decided to turn around and head home before we’d barely gotten started. Too many people.
I think I may be a rainy day friend of the Farmers Market. It has gotten so popular that the best time to check out the produce and visit with the vendors is either when the market opens at 6 am or when it’s cloudy and chilly.
Might get my chance this coming weekend — rain in the forecast.
Sunny Tulip © 2010 Bo Mackison
This tiny orange tulip in my garden stands only 4 inches high and the flower itself is less than an inch tall. It packs a lot of beauty in a small package.
Together © 2010 Bo Mackison
Detail shot of two yellow tulips, drooping towards the earth.
as Lovely as a Rose
The sun finally peeked out from the clouds yesterday evening, and I insisted on postponing dinner until I could get a few photographs of a tulip bed I had my eye on. Once I was there, the sun played peek-a boo with me, and so it took me nearly an hour of waiting, and on and off shooting, to get the photos I wanted. All 98 of them! But with rain forecast for the next 3 days, it was now or not this year.
I finally took the leap and have started shooting totally in manual (instead of aperture priority which always sounded easier) and in RAW. Why I waited so long is beyond me. In many ways, it’s easier. I found myself always over-riding the aperture pre-sets anyway, so I’m not doing much, if anything, different, but it feels a lot better. And if I can get used to a single photo file being between 10 and 20 MB, then all will be fine. (I can remember when my first computer had 64K–the entire computer–so the size tends to boggle my mind. And fill up my memory cards quickly!)
This tulip reminds me of a rose, unfolding slowly, filled with promise. But I like that the tulip has less complexity and needs hardly any tending. And that it shows up early in the season when the need for flowers and color is heightened and really appreciated.
I’ll be switching between the local color and the photos from the trip to the Southwest. It makes me a bit dizzy, but I have so much I still want to share from the trip, mostly from Arizona. It will take me a few months, but I love re-living my trip through my photography.
tulips? really?
Nope, not from the garden. From the grocery store. Desperation set in!
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to change the world.” ~ Harriet Tubman
Tulip dancing in the wind, laughing in the sun, shaking at the ecstasy of it all – the thrill of a Spring day in May.
These sweet tulips pop out of the ground near my front door every May, but I have no recollection of planting tulip bulbs there nor do I have any idea what kind of tulips they might be.
They are only about 6 inches high and the tulip bloom itself is only about 1 inch in diameter. I love how the orange is fringed with the green. They are a dynamite garden addition in a rather small package.
While I was in Illinois this last week attending to my mother’s care – it was a middle-of-the-night phone call from the hospital kind of trip – my Spring bulbs appeared in all corners of the yard. They were a happy sight when I pulled into my driveway, nodding their ‘hellos’.
(And good news on all fronts – my mother is quite a bit better, too.)
Tulip in stone, a carving in the facade of the University of Wisconsin’s Memorial Union. Building dates from the 1920s.
No tulips of the kind found peeking out of the ground yet. This one will have to suffice ’til then.