first fruits

strawberries are a month or so away, but these fruits of the elm tree are in peak season right now. they are not leaves but fruits, and they taste lightly crunchy and maybe slightly cucumber-ish. they go well on salads, or simply stripped from the branch and eaten raw by the handful (as long as they are still light green, soft and tender). many thanks to alan bergo of forager chef for being a constant source of fascinating information about wild land and wild food. my husband and i are both huge fans. you should be too.

elm samaras

king of catkins

we are nearing the end of catkin season with the king of catkins–the cottonwood. very soon the individual pistils on these flowers will explode and release clouds of white fluff carrying tiny seeds on the wind. the cottony fluff will cover our lawns and pile into drifts along the edges of sidewalks like the snow we have just recovered from. but in our northern hearts, we know that cottonwood fluff does not mean the return of winter, but the beginning of summer.

spring cottonwood catkins and leaf

not so special

From wiki: Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. The Orchidaceae have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera. The determination of which family is larger is still under debate because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless, the number of orchid species nearly equals the number of bony fishes and is more than twice the number of bird species and about four times the number of mammal species. The family encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants. Moreover, since the introduction of tropical species into cultivation in the 19th century, horticulturists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids and cultivars.

white orchid

a palette of spring greens

every time i make a STILL blog photo i have a choice: bright light or soft light? sometimes the subject dictates, but usually, it’s a judgment call. Most often I choose soft light. But today I feel the bright sunshine on the waxy leaves gets more to the essence of these sturdy little leaves that rattle in the wind like the sound of rain.

mood. intention. instinct. i think i have used all of them as criteria/inspiration in my creative process. most recently however, i have been trying something new–trying to get at the essence of the thing i am photographing. the fernness of the fern, for example. it is easy to say, but hard to put into practice–it’s a subtle shift away from me and my interpretation of a subject, and toward the subject itself. listening deeper. looking closer. in some way i am trying to remove myself as much as possible to see if the result is more universal and less personal. we’ll see if there is a noticeable change. it will take time i believe.

spring cottonwood leaves

off white

i described this feather as off white, and my son launched into about a 30 minute lecture on the history of streetwear and the absolute and unchallenged mastery of something called virgil abloh, and about 25 minutes in, i realized we were not talking about a slightly dirty egret feather but about a fashion icon and his line of sneakers. perhaps tomorrow, as we listen to hip hop in the car on the way to school, i will understand at least one single reference.

egret (???) feather