a focal point

sometimes it’s tricky, when i take 80 or 100 photos of the same arrangement, to decide which one to keep. a lot of times it’s almost arbitrary. but sometimes the winner announces itself because it has a focal point. there is beauty and interest and a nice composition and good color and all that, but there is something else that draws your eye. some spot inside the image that asks you to pay attention to it, and sort of organizes everything else around it. in this case, it was the little dark hollow in the upper third of the image. there are a few fern fronds that point into it, and it is darker than the rest, and it makes you wonder what else is going on down there, and it makes the lighter green ferns around it look sunlit. it’s the thing i look at first, before i move on to all the rest.

understory

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

as fresh as a . . . wait

it really comes down to magnification, doesn’t it? from a distance this looks like a dewy, emerging daisy. from up close it’s clearly a black eyed susan, and just about as hairy as a bear.

wild yellow daisy

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

youth

this turned into an unintentional portrait of my daughter. young, beautiful, bursting with life, about to display her mature gifts to the world. slightly prickly.

musk thistle bloom

minneapolis, minnesota

flags

we occasionally have to trim back the cattails from our dock, in order to have enough walking room to get from our yard to the lake. but we always, always trim around the blue flag iris, so that they will keep coming back every year. they are slowly expanding, like families of immigrants, given a receptive welcome, who have generations of families, and start businesses, and become a part of the landscape. welcome, and thank you, blue flag iris.

wild blue flag iris

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

wallpaper

i still think that repeated still blog images would lend themselves beautifully to wallpaper and seasonal wrapping paper. can’t you imagine a sitting room in an early 20th century house with white wainscoting up to about head high, and this pattern of carnations on a black background filling in the wall the rest of the way up to the ceiling? can’t you imagine someone with a june birthday getting a package wrapped in this pattern, tied up with a floppy pink bow? i can. i don’t have anything specific in the works, but i’m telling you i’m thinking about it. i’m thinking about it.

dusty pink carnations (dianthus)