Notes from the Woods

seeing · environment · exploration · photography
A Leaf’s Journey

A Leaf’s Journey

It feels like 27°F (- 2 °C). That's what I woke up to this morning, looking at the weather on my phone. As meteorological autumn wraps up its final days, the record warmth we've been experiencing in Michigan is over as we prepare for another seasonal transition. While...

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Frozen Food

Frozen Food

Yep! This is a post about frozen food. Just what you expected from this blog eh? It's not quite the Salisbury steak dinner or pizza rolls you may be considering now, but indeed frozen food. When I took our dogs out this morning, we had a pretty good overnight frost....

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Nutrients

Nutrients

These are photos I made in my backyard recently. Most of our trees' leaves have dropped, and our metasequoias are dropping their needles. It makes me think about what various people see when they not only see an image like this but basically how we've culturally...

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Leave the Leaves – they may bite

Leave the Leaves – they may bite

Thoughts about individualism and community weave in and out of this Leaf Creature series. While their individual characteristics manifest from the physical isolation of the black backgrounds and unique shapes, they will always be connected functionally to the mother...

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Leaf Creatures – Season 2

Leaf Creatures – Season 2

As a recap of "Season 1," I started a project photographing leaf creatures in my yard last year. It was an attempt not only to see the individual character of each of these leaves but to let your imagination run wild to see them as something else. I really wasn't sure...

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Leaf Creatures, part five

Leaf Creatures, part five

With our first snow arriving yesterday, I am sensing my subjects for this project will soon be retreating into the soil for the season (with or without the help of our electric mulching mower.) 🙂 I have basically completed them over 4 different sessions outside,...

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Leaf Creatures, part four

Leaf Creatures, part four

As I have been accumulating photographs of these strange little beings in my yard, I have been thinking about a good way to group them together. So here is a brief slideshow of some of my work to date. I hope you enjoy it. (Best viewed in HD - you can even turn your...

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Leaf Creatures, part three

Leaf Creatures, part three

Creature Feature was a television series of back-to-back movies popular in the 1970s/80s that was broadcast nationwide and here in Detroit on UHF WKBD Channel 50. (How many of you remember UHF dials on the TV? 🙂 ) I spent a lot of time watching that particular...

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Leaf Creatures, part two

Leaf Creatures, part two

Continuing with my previous post on this new project exploring the shapes, textures, and colors of some fallen leaves in my yard, this post includes a few more "characters" to be found. Working with these reminded me of my time spent in 2017 during the last solar...

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