a different perspective

I rarely use shallow depth of field in my STILL photos. My original inspiration (on the white background) was botanical art prints, so intentional blur didn’t make sense, I wanted an accurate, almost scientific representation. The black background, however, is sort of begging for shallow depth of field. I am not sure how much I am going to heed the call. I want both my white and black work to feel like a cohesive body of work. And the shallow depth of field, just like a full page bleed, feel like something different. I have long felt that the strict constraints of STILL–found nature, minimally manipulated, no manmade objects, natural light only, bright white or pure black backgrounds–are a big part of what made STILL recognizable and ultimately successful. I share this with you to let you see into the creative process (in this case, the kind of decision making I am doing) as I feel my way into working with this still-new-to-me black background.

Out of curiosity, how you feel about the shallow focus?

echinacea/cone-flower close-up

light as a feather

The sandhill cranes are molting like crazy. The colts, which have been receiving flying lessons from mom and dad for several weeks have now both achieved lift off. And today, it appears mom and dad have shifted their emphasis to teaching the adolescents how to call (that crazy prehistoric call). I other words, it appears all their efforts are singularly focussed on getting everyone, including mom and dad, ready for the long flight south in two months: Mom and dad need feather tune replacements, the babes need to finish flying school and how to call to Mom and Dad should they become separated on the long journey. Its a time of preparation, and the stakes are high so it will take all of the next two months to get ready.

downy sandhill crane feather (about the size of my hand from finger tip to wrist)

too good to ignore

I might be the only person in the world who might look at a burdock stem with the leaves lopped off in preparation to put it in the compost bin and exclaim “don’t toss that, I want it for STILL!” I am sucker for repetition. And repetition made as very visible as it is on this stem makes my heart sing. Yes, I am very aware of how weird I am. And the older I get, the more I want to lean into that weirdness. I am not trying to be weird for weirdness sake. I am simply trying to be more me. Mostly for the sake of my art. But it seems a good goal regardless.

burdock stem (Arctium lappa)

PS My son is saving these burdock roots to use as a culinary botanical. Because weird begets weird. LOL.

keeping it fresh

I have been doing a lot of flowers lately. I like to keep STILL seasonal, and that is what is happening up here in the North. But I also like to keep you all a little surprised from time to time. So, today I present apricot pit kernels. We got a flat of apricots recently (no, not native to Minnesota, lol) and my son instructed us to save all the pits. When we were done with out apricots, Joseph sat on the front stoop cracking each pit open with a hammer to extract the kernel and they are now macerating in alcohol, after which they will not smell like apricots anymore, but like almond extract and marzipan, and he and my husband will add syrup to the mixture to make “creme de noyau,” a digestif (and one of the main ingredients in that Wisconsin classic cocktail, the Pink Squirrel). Never a dull moment.

apricot pit kernels

hanging around

These guys were just hanging around on my desk–doing nothin–so I asked them to scooch together for a group photo. The results look quite a bit like our roadsides right now.

july wildflowers: cutleaf teasel, queen anne’s lace, echinacea, pepperweed