Halloween "faces"

When I snapped this photo of a dead tree in the springtime, it made me think of a face, and Halloween - so I kept it just for today.

The seed head of a Datura plant as it pops open to spill its seeds.

Raven

Halloween is coming up shortly, and there are some images we immediately associate with this time of year. 

The Raven is one such image.  I took this photo in Budapest Hungary.  It brought to mind Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven.  -- "nevermore"!  However this is the raven of Matyas Corvinus.  In the 15th century his mother sent for him with a raven with a gold ring in its mouth.  Matyas went on to become one of Hungary's greatest kings.

A day at the zoo

Photography Challenge Week 42: Animals
I used this week's theme as a nudge to take a twice-postponed trip to the zoo.  It was a beautiful morning and a sparse crowd.

Visitors are met by some very co-operative snowy owls.  There is one of these majestic birds that makes a winter home in my neighbourhood.  I see it often, but by the time I stop my car, or walk closer to it, it's gone.  I wish, just once, it was as obliging as this bird.  On the other hand, I'm glad it's not.

Fortunately, some animals are in enclosures that one can reach over to photograph them.

This mom and her baby looked so content together!

 

How the muskox has adapted to its arctic environment is fascinating.

 

Some of the most entertaining creatures were those that wander about the zoo freely.  One has to remember that they are wild animals, and respect them. 

This peahen, one of many in the zoo, seems to be looking for something - a peacock perhaps (which I did not see).  

This little squirrel sat perfectly still on his branch as I came closer.  Perhaps he was glad for some attention in this place where most people only see much bigger animals.

 

Canada Geese are everywhere!

The bison are huge animals.  When I see them I wish I could be transported back in time for just a little to see what the prairies looked like when millions of these noble creatures roamed freely. 

"Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild."  Jack Hanna

Beauty

Today has been a day marred with tragedy.  It is easy to become despondent and fearful, but this evening's sunset reminded me that we all share a beautiful world.

"God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion."

Desmond Tutu

Zinnia

This zinnia blossom was bright red a few weeks ago.  Now it is brown and crisp.  To me, it's still lovely and fragile - like old paper.












"Then summer fades and passes and October comes.  We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."

Thomas Wolfe

Peony

I have had such fun this summer learning how to use my macro lens.  One of my favourite subjects has been the seed heads of plants in my garden.  I have never paid any attention to what plants look like after the petals turn brown and fall off.  The seed heads that form are just as interesting, if not more so, as the colourful flowers.  They look like alien creatures to me.  Next summer I hope to plant many more varieties of flowers so I can photograph them after they bloom.  Some of my family will be wondering about me.

     A peony

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

Edwin Way Teale

Late autumn trees

Most trees by now have lost their leaves.  There are some varieties that keep their leaves long into the fall.  Coming across these when out walking on a beautiful, unseasonably warm day is good for the spirit.

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.  So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Cultivate

Photography Challenge Week 41: Cultivate
This seemed like a no-brainer at first, considering all the photographic opportunities that living in the country offers.  I tried to come up with some other interpretations of the word, and tried some different images, but when the light is perfect and one finds equipment parked in the the perfect spot - might as well go with it.

A row crop cultivator parked for the season.

Tractor and cultivator parked for the day.









"Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man.  When tillage begins, other arts will follow.  The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization."

Daniel Webster

Autumn leaves

"Each golden day was cherished to the full, for one had the feeling that each must be the last.  Tomorrow it would be winter."

Elizabeth Enright

"Indian summer"

"Each day the sun shone, the birds lingered, though the trees were turning, purely out of habit, and their rose and yellow and rust looked strange and beautiful above the brilliant green grass." 

Elizabeth Enright.

Black and White

Black and white photography is not easy for me to "see", but something I'm hoping to practice.  We are so used to seeing everything in colour, that purposely taking a shot in black and white is difficult.  Everything I read says to take the photo in colour and convert to grayscale in post-processing.  But I shot these in black and white because I was experimenting and wanted immediate results.

"A camera teaches you how to see without a camera."  Dorothea Lange

Morning

 



The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that it is too low and we reach it.

Michelanglo

Nests

Empty nests revealed by barren trees and the clearest blue skies are some of fall's pleasures.

Huge wasp nest

Empty robin's nest.













"Notice that autumn is more a season of the soul than of nature."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Frosty morning

Calendula

The first frost of the fall always seems colder than it really is.  Capturing the beauty of it with a camera makes it a little more tolerable.  The colour of plants tinged with frost is worth freezing my fingers.

Lavatera

"Is not this a true autumn day?  Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonize."  

George Eliot

 

Little things

Photography came to me almost 2 years ago and has taught me to see the world differently.  There is an incredibly beautiful and diverse world out there that most of us never see.  Sometimes it’s because our eyes are not (or no longer) able to see the intimate details that a lens can see.  We see the beauty of the mountains, waterfalls, trees, city lights, etc., but we fail to appreciate the intricate beauty of small things.  Often, we just don’t slow down enough to see what’s right in front of us.  That is the greatest gift of photography for me - making me slow down and and really see the beauty around me.  I don’t know if my photos are really any good … it doesn’t matter.  What matters is the joy that overcomes me when I’m outdoors with my camera.  These are some of the photos I would not have “seen” a short time ago.  All were taken within 100 yards of my house.

 
This little frog was only about an inch long.  He did not move, and I thought he had literally died of fright.  I turned away for a few minutes and when I looked back he had turned around and was still watching me.  As I swung the camera around I was glad he hopped away.  I think he was just as curious about me as I was about him.

This particular day was not warm, so little creatures were not too mobile.  Had it been a warm afternoon, this grasshopper would have been long gone.

This is a common brown weed that grows everywhere.  My eyes see a brown weed: the lens captures the beauty.

Photographing dandelions in the morning dew is the best way to start the day.

Photographing golden leaves as the sun sets is the best way to end the day.

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Small town morning

A "prairie giant"

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?

E. M. Forster

Ladybug

So pleased - my first ladybug photo! 


Ladybug Ladybug fly away home
Your house is on fire and your children are all gone.
All except one, and that's little Ann
For she crept under the frying pan.

October woods

But in October what a feast to the eye our woods and groves present!  The whole body of the air seems enriched by their calm, slow radiance.  They are giving back the light they have been absorbing from the sun all summer.

John Burroughs "The Falling Leaves"