Amethyst Sage
As fascinating as I find the colors of the rocks I have been photographing, sometimes it helps to take the color away to just be amazed by the patterns. This is a macro abstract of Amethyst Sage, evoking thoughts of some fantasy world. I move from seeing a mountain volcano erupting with bats in the night to seeing dragons. I find that geometrical elements can influence the types of images you may see – the sharp points and sharp lines lend themselves to darker responses. What do you see?
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Dawn Redwood cones
These pine cones are from two dawn redwood trees I have in my yard – where I also have a white pine as well. The unique shape to these cones made for a great pattern study. I actually fumbled around for awhile until finally settling on this composition. It was interesting how the single white pine cone changed some of the dynamics. I wanted to position it so it would act somewhat of a barrier to your eyes leaving the frame, and bounce them back up again. I used a soft gold diffuser to bounce some warm light into the patterns to enhance the texture.
These trees have an interesting history as well. Though they are related to the more famous genus of Sequoia redwoods, no one seemed to know they existed before the 1940s except in fossils. Then a small forest of these trees (only about 5,000 supposedly) was discovered in China, some Harvard researchers went to collect seed samples, etc – and so they started to be cultivated elsewhere. There is a preserve of these trees now in North Carolina, Crescent Ridge Dawn Redwoods Preserve, that will not open until 2035 to hopefully re-establish a native forest of them. Their site has a lot of interesting tidbits about these trees, including some photos of the fossils. I am not quite sure how they became ornamental landscape trees, but it seems I have a link between my yard, North Carolina, and ancient China.
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Gray wolf portrait
Hey folks, not much to write about lately – just in kind of a funk. So I thought I would just pull some images from the gallery now and then…more of photoblogging than my babble-blogging. This is a Black phase gray wolf (or grey if you prefer) photographed last winter – I loved the frosty face. Other wolf photos in my gallery. My love for malamutes is probably no surprise given my love for wolves. Read somewhere lately that black wolves have some ancient dog DNA in their history. Guess it isn’t exactly new news – but fitting for the picture anyway. Here are some stories: NatGeo NYT
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