i love how this globe thistle looks as if it’s in motion. needless to say, it was not moving as my digital shutter “opened” for the analog equivalent of 1/16 of a second. today i got to see the other end of that technological spectrum. we spent an afternoon in the basement of a friend and fellow photographer’s house, as he developed tintype photo portraits of my family. rather than iso film speeds of 200, 400, or 800, we were throwing light onto silver nitrate with an iso of 0.3, and, as a result, staring into the camera with fixed smiles for 5-8 seconds at at time. the results were some serious expressions, a very shallow depth of field, and a childlike sense of how almost frighteningly magical the first photographs must have appeared to the people who watched images of themselves take ghostly shape on wet sheets of metal.

globe thistle

mary jo hoffman

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i wonder, would this wreath be more beautiful if the blossoms were at their peak? or is their just-fadedness a form of depth? the self-possessed beauty of a 40 year old, as opposed to the untried freshness of a college sophomore? is this the kind of earned and slightly weary middle-aged beauty that leads to the later-life beauty of a 68 year old accepting her party’s nomination for president of the united states?

rainbow of dried july blossoms: geranium, lily, sunflower, daisy, black eyed susans, red milkweed, wild indigo, thistle, iris, hosta blossoms, prairie blazing star, bee balm, cone flower, hibiscus

saint paul, minnesota

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i always thought the fleur de lis was a sort of stylized lily or iris. even wiki defines it as a stylized lily. turns out, it’s an entirely realistic depiction of a dried lily blossom. this very dried lily blossom as a matter of fact. i’m just not sure how they got their hands on this back in 13th century france.

dried lily flower

saint paul, minnesota

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this could be a prime example of how different organisms evolve into similar shapes. the scalloped edges of this bracket fungus look just like the edges of the seashell that gave us the term “scalloped.” there must be something similar about the growth pattern of bracket fungus and scallop shells that generates, in both cases, just a little bit of extra material at the outer edge, which is required to fold itself into a pretty kind of ruffle. i could have done some more research on this topic tonight, but, with our trip to france just three weeks away, i couldn’t get past the thought of scallops, known in france as coquilles st jacques, poached in white wine and served in their shells with a cream sauce. in other words, bracket fungus be damned. pass the white wine.

bracket fungi

saint paul, minnesota

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this was a perfectly ordinary grayish-tan duck wing feather sitting on my desk until i got up to pour myself a cup of tea, and from an angle about halfway between sitting and standing, in the light from the glass patio door, it suddenly turned into a multifaceted steel gray, caramel brown, ivory white, iridescent greenish-black gemstone of a wingfeather. by the time i was standing up straight, it was a perfectly ordinary grayish-tan duck wing feather again. it was sort of like seeing your nerdy, greasy haired high school classmate get up on stage for the talent show, and stare through his bangs at the keyboard while he plays a note-perfect rendition of scarlatti’s sonata in d major, before slumping back into his folding chair in the audience. after i got my tea and returned to my desk, i made this feather play scarlatti one more time for all of you.

mallard wing feather

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

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