better with age
i love the way hosts leaves turn yellow in fall and then the color seems to just drain right out of them. leaving behind colorless tissue paper leaves. we have a lot of hosta in minnesota. they do well here. so right now, all the boulevards and sidewalks appear to be lined in gold. i have been doing STILL long enough to know that if i leave these leaves on the floor in the corner of the kitchen where i photographed them, they may very well be even more interesting in a week once they dry and curl a bit. don’t be surprised if these fall stars play a repeat engagement soon. stand by.
late october hosta leaves
flawed marbles
i keep combing all of my beaches and sifting all of my quarries for a perfectly spherical stone, and i keep getting close but not quite finding the exact one, and i am torn between my disappointment in not finding perfection, and my relief at having an excuse to keep looking.
round beach rocks from lake superior
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I really like reading an article that will make people think.
Also, thanks for permitting mee to comment!reply
flow
my husband and i teamed up on this assemblage today. i posted a time lapse video of the process on my instagram feed here. the point was to create an interesting assemblage specifically of dried stems and twigs, that gave the impression of a wandering river current, and that also created, as a sort of byproduct, some complicated, consistent, and interesting white space. i find the varied movements of this piece a little bit mesmerizing. i hope you do too.
bits and pieces of found nature
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I love how my eye travels around and through this, never stopping
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I love how my eye wanders over and through this without stopping
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Delightful, and so sinuous!
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leaves, leaves, and more leaves
it is the time of year for brightly colored leaves, which is just about the time i start having second thoughts about all that color. the orange and yellow leaves are ljke the popular girls at school–all showy flirtation, but not really interested in sticking around. these leaves however are the real deal. they’ll be here in january. maybe even in april until the new buds burst and push them to the ground. they’re like your first girlfriend in college–the one who understood you. the one who laughed at your stupid jokes.
dried autumn leaves (unidentified)
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Steadfast in the wind. Full steam ahead into winter
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evolution
i had a STILL blog image all ready to go tonight. it was getting dark and i had photographed a pretty beautiful golden colored fern, laid out more or less flat, but with some parts of the frond overlapping in a way that looked like kissing. i finished post-processing half a dozen images and then happened to go back into my bedroom where i had taken fhte photos, and suddenly, in the process of their dying, the ferns were full of life and personality, curling and cascading toward the ground so fast that i could almost watch the process unfold. it was clear a second photo shoot was called for, and this image is the delightfully unexpected result.
fall fern frond
Hi Mary Jo. Just found you through the latest Better Homes and Gardens. (I won’t use any of those cliche words that your writer husband doesn’t let you use!) I’ll just say I have a big garden and every leaf and pod and stem and bloom is a gift, and so your photos have a lovely familiarity to me, and yet I want to linger and look, and look a little longer. I have baskets of rocks and shells and bark and fungi and driftwood, and I am so inspired to now photograph them. Thank you for your inspiration, and how you draw attention to the details of God’s creation.
Hello Deb, sounds like we are kindred spirits! Welcome to STILL blog. I am charmed that it has inspired you to start photographing your collections! Thank you for leaving a comment, it is motivating to know that people are seeing my work. Fondly, Mary Jo