More toadstools

The way these toadstools seem to snuggle together makes me think of a protective parent and a child.

Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy tale.

Lewis Carroll

Toadstool

Toadstools are popping up everywhere that are just begging to have their picture taken ... and ... it's a good day to stay inside and play with photoshop.  Toadstools always remind me of fairy tales.  There may be more in the coming days.



"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

C. S. Lewis

Mack

Photography Challenge Week 38: Shiny

I like the Mack truck hood ornament!  The photo of the red truck was taken for the challenge today.  I also like the photo of the blue truck, (taken last fall) because on that model, the word "MACK" is spelled out underneath the hood ornament.

 

 


I also couldn't resist including the opening verse of my favourite trucking song, Dave Dudley's Six Days on the Road.

Well, I pulled out of Pittsburgh, rollin down the Eastern Seaboard.

I've got me diesel wound up, and she's running like never before.

There's a speed zone ahead, all right, I don't see a cop in sight.

Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight.

Forest path

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike."

John Muir

Bug

One of my favourite observers of life is Calvin from the Calvin & Hobbs cartoons.  In my opinion Bill Watterson is a genius.  How can one argue with Calvin's logic: "When birds burp, it must taste like bugs".

Foggy Morning

Photography Challenge Week 37: Slight

On this particular morning I got up early with the intention of being outdoors with my camera soon after the sun rose.  A cloudy dreary sky greeted me.  Before long a slight fog rolled in and I grabbed my camera.  We have had very few foggy mornings this summer, so this slight change of plans was very welcome.

"Derive happines in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us."

Henri Matisse

Paths

When I came across this spot, it reminded me of Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken.  My favourite verse of the poem is the last one.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two road diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Chrysanthemum

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

From The Last Chrysanthemum by Thomas Hardy

Autumnal equinox

"For the fall of the year is more than three months bounded by an equinox and a solstice.  It is a summing up without the finality of year's end."

Hal Borland

City pond

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher indeed than genius, as it needs no explanation.

Oscar Wilde

Lamppost

This lamppost reminded me of the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel.




Hello lamppost whatcha knowin,
I've come to watch your flowers growin.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me,
Looking for fun and feeling groovy.

Outdoor art

The following statement is attributed to a grafitti artist, but it could also apply to all outdoor art:
"Art in a frame is like an eagle in a birdcage."

City skyline

The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.

Roland Barthes

Reflections

Without deep reflection one knows from life that one exists for other people.

Albert Einstein

Marigold

I'm always amazed when I see tiny flowers growing in the harshest conditions, like through the smallest crack in the cement; the biological need within a seed to sprout and grow and reach toward the sun.





Youth! Youth! how bouyant are they hopes!  they turn, like marigolds toward the sun.

Jean Ingelow

Autumn garden

There is something beautiful and otherworldly about seed heads on flowers in the fall.







Behold congenial autumn comes, the sabbath of the year.

John Logan

Creatures

Happily we bask in this warm September sun,
which illuminates all creatures.
Henry David Thoreau

Evening Sky

Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, 

and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.  

                  L. Frank Baum

Harvest

A busy, gratifying time of year.







We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.
But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above
So thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, for all his love.
From the hymn We plow the fields, (words by Matthias Claudius)

Bees and wildflowers

How doth the busy little bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From ever opening flower!

Isaac Watts

An unexpected road trip

Photography Challenge Week 35: Unexpected

The best thing about this holiday Monday was I got to go on an unexpected road trip.  I was reminded of an article I read in the Feb/Mar 2011 issue of Photolife magazine, Shoot Anyway, by Paul Hartly on how to have fun while in the passenger seat.  It involved shooting out of the window, using the highest number aperture possible, as low an ISO as possible, and turning on auto-tracking.  The idea was that the resulting slow shutter speed would yield some interesting abstracts.  So, I gave it a try and had a great time.  These are a few of my favourites.

A row of trees.

I don't remember what exactly I was shooting, I just like the feeling of movement in the resulting image.

A tractor.

"You have to take risks.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen."

Paul Coelho