Macro
Forgotten Embrace
This red rose evokes an entirely different feeling when presented in a monochrome tone.
This started as a color image and I spent a lot of time trying to get this just right. I like it better than the image I started with but…it still seems to be lacking something.
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Beach Bum
Just lounging on the beach, he portrayed an irritating aloofness with his pronounced stubble and unkempt hair continually sculpted by the wind.
A good deal of my photographic endeavor is spent at the beach, watching and waiting for a sunrise. Sometimes the sunrise that shows up is less than spectacular. But, I’m there with my camera; I might as well take some pictures. That’s where images like this come from. I start looking around for something…anything…that might catch my eye. Most of what I shoot at those times would not be worth sharing. Yet, now and then, I frame up something interesting.
For those who look, there are odd items to be found on the beach. This cockle-burr seems to be wrapped in the down shed from some shorebird.
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Sisterhood
These are delicate wildflowers found on an early spring walk through the woods.
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Thick as Thieves
This seems to be an early autumn convention of Boxelder bugs. They’ve congregated at the bottom of a tree.
When it begins to cool down in Wisconsin, these bugs may form large aggregations while sunning themselves in areas near their host plant – usually maple or ash trees. I’ve also seen them gather in other odd places…the corner of a building, around a door way, etc.
They are harmless to humans but considered nuisance pests. When the temperatures begin to cool in the fall, they sometimes invade houses and other man-made structures seeking warmth or a place to overwinter.
People often mistaken them with insects known as Stink Bugs – a different species. However, boxelder bugs will release a pungent and bad-tasting compound upon being disturbed to discourage predation; this allows them to form conspicuous gatherings without being preyed on.
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Wonder Leaf
This is another view of the sumac plant in early fall. This example is in transition. In a short time, all the leaves in this frame will be bright, scarlet red. (As you can see, in the previous post.)
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Scarlet Barbs
It’s bright! It’s bold! It’s serrated! It’s red! It’s sumac in the fall! The slender green leaves of the sumac plant turn this bright red color when autumn arrives in N.E. Wisconsin.
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Soft Allure
I was early for an appointment. While waiting, I pulled out my camera and snapped a few photos of the flowers in a flowerbed outside the meeting location.
This is why I advise photographers to keep their cameras close by. You never know when a photographic opportunity will present itself. You won’t be able to take advantage of an opportunity every time it arrives – I’m always seeing scenes I wish I could pause to capture. So, often circumstances don’t allow it, but occasionally they will. If you don’t have your camera with you, you will always miss it.
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Floral Fuzz
This is a wildflower that I found sprouting among the weeds that grow on the edges of our rural Wisconsin yard. The fuzziness of the edges caught my eye.
I don’t know what kind of flower this is, but I think it is an early version of the type you can see in aother post I titled Sun and Stars.
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Fiery Fungi
This was a great find on the forest floor at Potawatomi State Park, near Sturgeon Bay on Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula. I don’t know what kind of mushroom this is, but it sure stood out among the dead pine needles and other decaying matter.
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