Found A Tiny Little Treasure
I found a tiny little treasure in my backyard. A ladybug settling in for the evening in my backyard.
Ladybug
It was all covered in pollen.
Waking Up
This was all I found to photograph in my garden tonight.
Patterns
On today’s installment of my neighborhood walk, I decided to look for groupings and patterns in nature. My first grouping of flowers is these fluffy little puffballs that have obviously moved onto their next stage of life. I have no idea what they might be but they are soft to the touch.
Fluffy Balls
I guess that they may have been a type of thistle or something.
I then came across this Queen’s Anne Lace whose pattern was broken by a little petal from the sumac.
Sumac petal on Queen Anne’s Lace
I don’t know if they call this little nub a petal or not but I’m going to refer to it that way.
Zucchini leaf
Walking back home, I noticed these leaves poking out from a backyard fence into the creek area. I think they either belong to the zucchini plant or possibly a cucumber plant. Either way, I was intrigued by the veining in the leaf. I created a black and white image to accentuate the contrast between the veins and the rest of the leaf.
There are a lot of patterns in nature, and when you make an effort to look for it, you’ll find it everywhere.
Vertical Ways
The creek is split in two until it reaches the high school. One arm of it flows from behind my house while the other flows from the train tracks about 1/2 a kilometre away. As you know I walk the section behind my house a lot but sometimes I venture to the other arm of the creek for a slightly longer walk. On the walk over to this second arm, someone has planted some gorgeous irises in their front yard.
English Iris
Walking down the creek path to the high school and over to the other arm I noticed this tree/bush covered in these starburst-shaped things. I believe these are the remnants of the flowers after the petals have fallen. Or maybe they are seed pods that have opened. I can’t seem to find anything to tell me what they are.
Starburst
Whatever they are, they are interesting enough to photograph, and sometimes that’s all that matters. As I explored a little further down the path I came across this snail slowly making his way up a very large leaf.
Snail on Leaf
Snails are so darn weird. Their eyeballs are at the end of what would be antennae on an insect. So odd and so very cool.
Another Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
At the beginning of my walk today I noticed a couple of birds flying in and out of this very tall birdhouse. The macro lens is not the tool for this job but I thought it was an interesting viewpoint from way down below. With a little cropping and adding some clouds to the cloudless sky, I created the photo below.
Bird House
From here I focused on finding macro shots, that is what my challenge to myself is after all. I have been taking lots of macro photos but they haven’t been that great so that’s why you are seeing such a mix of shots photographed with the105mm macro lens.
Seed pods
I keep coming across interesting seed pods and I wonder what the heck they look like in full bloom. The seeds in the photo above reminded me of these creatures from an original Star Trek episode (Operation–Annihilate). I wonder what kind of plant it is and what it looks like in summer. Hopefully, I’ll be able to recognize it to take a photo.
Leaf in BW
I found this dried leaf that has somehow wrapped itself around its stem and still kept curling in on itself. It really popped when I decided to change it to a black and white image. Sometimes taking the colour out of an image can make an image you thought was too busy or just not that great into something that you love.
Falling Leaves
On my way home from my friend Brad’s place up north I decided to drive back to that country road from the previous post to do more of a lifestyle-type shoot with me as the model. It always feels a little weird to photograph yourself and then add in the walking back and forth to the camera in the hopes that a) you got yourself in focus and b) that the angle/position was what I truly wanted.
Autumn Walk
Let’s just say that the above photo took many, many tries before I decided I had enough photos of myself and that one had to be good.
After all that “fun” running back and forth to camera I decided to take some detail shots of the area before I ventured home. One of the things that caught my attention was this leaf sitting on the fence and with a little tweaking I took the photo. It’s one of my favourites from the day.
Fallen Leaf
After leaving this particular back road I continued my drive along some other back roads when found this old shed that had me pulling over and reversing to get a better view.
That late day light looked so good I could not resist stopping for this shot. Today’s backroad adventure has been one of my favourites of the year. There are so many photo opportunities driving along country backroads. I need to do these drives more often.