waiting for low light and cool weather

in preparation for a very fun photoshoot coming up at our house, we are tentatively making the first changes to the interior since we bought the house 11 years ago from a doctor with impeccable taste and the budget to back it up. it feels strange and almost disloyal to change what was done so well and for which we have been so grateful. but the time has come, and so we were working all day today, in moderate heat, bright light, and high humidity. we are going to pull back into our buds for the night, like this spiderwort, and maybe peek out tomorrow morning, if things have cooled off.

spiderwort (blue Tradescantia)

minneapolis, minnesota

do you want to photograph my garden?

i often get asked whether i want to photograph people’s plants and gardens, because they assume i am a flower photographer or a nature photographer, when in fact what i’m trying to be is a photographer of precisely the things i find on my walks and observations. it’s a difficult thing to explain. so i usually either decline politely, or go through the motions as a form of thank you for such a flattering interest in my work. the other day we were buying a chair from a woman who offered us a chance to photograph her garden and i didn’t know what i was getting into, but wasn’t particularly hopeful, until we started taking a tour, and suddenly there were seven different kinds of native milkweed before us, including this remarkable swamp milkweed with pods like praying mantises. she lives across town, but i may need to include her neighborhood again in a few of my “walks.”

swamp milkweed seed pods

minneapolis, minnesota

the ace of spades

poker. bridge. the shape of this hosta. lemmy kilmister. all united by one thing. the ace of spades. the ace of spades.

drinking gourd hosta

minneapolis. minnesota

punks

when we were kids we used to light long smoldering incense looking rods that would burn down slowly like a cigarette. we called them “punks,” and instead of lighting new matches for every round of firecrackers, we could just touch our punks to  the firecracker fuses and set them off. cattail seedheads look just like those old-fashioned fuse lighters, and i have just discovered that cattail seedheads are called, you guessed it, punks.

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

in the wings

the oranges are gathering in the wings, peering around the curtains at the gathered crowd, waiting for their cue to burst onstage and be the stars of the next few months before the snow flies.

mountain ash and lilies