today i break my own rules

after six and half years of daily STILL, today i am breaking my own rules. i am repeating an image from two years ago. when i woke up this morning, i fully intended to make at STILL photo today. i had a busy day, but there was an open window of time between 5-7 pm. while my son was at soccer practice and with the sun setting at 8 pm right now, i thought that would work just fine. what i didn’t account for was the weather. at 5 pm sharp, a thunder storm rolled in and turned day into night almost instantaneously. and my opportunity to make a STILL photo vanished in a matter of minutes. the storm was a surprise. but the most surprising thing to me was that this had never happened to me before. 6 1/2 years, and never have i been caught short by disappearing light. i had a moment of panic. and then i realized i would have to break my rules, and repeat an old image. my mind went immediately to this portrait of my son joseph that i made two years ago. it was effortful to make, and i loved how it turned out. so i was pleased i would have a second chance to show it off again and give it a little more visibility. besides, for a rebel, breaking the rules once in a while, even if they are your own, is intrinsically satisfying.

silhouette of my son joseph filled with found nature

mod leaflets

the graphic shapes formed by these nearly symmetrical leaflets of the honey locust tree feel mid-century modern  to me. something orla kiely would design. or perhaps ray eames. i have an affinity for the clean lines of mid-century design. it’s no wonder these leaves in particular, of the seemingly infinite selection i walked past today, caught my attention. simple. graphic. modern. perhaps mother nature will be our next “it” designer.

honey locust leaves

win, place, show

last week, while hiking a lakeside trail, my friend Kristin asked me which trees would turn color first. kristin often accompanies me on my walks. she has witnessed first hand over the last several years my accumulating knowledge of our environment, both the names of the flora and fauna but also the cycles. i can usually predict the change of our northern micro-seasons to within a day or two. so it was not unusual for her to ask me that seemingly innocent question–which trees will turn first? the trailsides, at that moment, were still a suffocating dense impassable wall of green. but the cool breeze had us both anticipating autumn.  the question caught me off guard. i can tell you exactly the order of unfolding in the spring–the swollen buds, followed by pussy willow catkins, followed by the bursting of the elderflower buds, then the first dandelions against south facing walls, etc… but autumn? i wasn’t so sure. i stammered for a bit, and then answered tentatively “sumac, then maple, and then maybe cottonwood”. well, it is only one week later, and i am proud to say i was right on the first two. third place is still up for grabs at the moment, but it is looking grim for cottonwood. if you bet on elms to show, i think you’ll win some money.

sumac leaves in late august

the height of summer

this sunflower is eight feet tall. my neighbor planted several of them in spring along the thin strip of soil between the street and the sidewalk. i just did the math–that’s an average of one inch of growth per day. 90 inches in 90 days. the height of summer. literally.

sunflower in august

more similar than not

after six years of doing STILL, i have an pretty extensive collection of found animal bones. if i wasn’t doing STILL, i would probably never have started picking them up to take home and photograph, and would have never realized just how common it is to happen upon bones in nature. i have found entire frog skeletons, bird skeletons, and even an entire deer. i have found trumpeter swan bones, great blue heron bones, and egret bones. i have found raccoon skeletons, and a sun bleached fox or coyote skeleton along the edge of of the great salt lake in utah. i have found beaver skulls, snapping turtle skulls, and dozens of small mammal skulls. what strikes me most about this collection of calcified animal scaffolding is just how similar we all are. the scale may change, but the designs are surprising similar. we may think we are unique. but we are more alike than not.

vertebrae: pilot whale, deer, coyote?, raccoon?, pike