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Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

Green bee and aster

Posted in Bees, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Uncategorized, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2020| 14 Comments »

My eyes were attracted to the pinkish-colored asters when I spotted them last Friday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge and I moved closer to investigate them more closely. I was delighted to see several green metallic sweat bees (g. Agapostemon) busily gathering pollen. I have always loved the coloration of these sweat bees that are so much smaller than the bumblebees and carpenter bees that I am more used to seeing.

The sweat bees were in almost constant motion and I got a little dizzy as I tried to track their circular movement around the center of the little flowers. I was happy that I was able to get a few shots in which the speckled eyes of the bees are visible—you may want to double-click on the images to enlarge them and see this cool little detail.

Asters generally appear in my area in late summer and early fall, another sign that the seasons are starting to change. I am not ready to let go of summer, though I must confess that I enjoy the somewhat cooler weather that we have been experiencing, especially during the nighttime hours.

sweat bee

sweat bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Glad it is August

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Inspiration, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on August 2, 2020| 21 Comments »

July was a crazy month no matter how you look at it. Who knows what the new month will hold for us all? When I checked the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer a few days ago, I was thrilled to see that some of her gladiolas are now in bloom, symbolic of the new life and growth that is still possible in our own lives, even in these troubled times.

gladiolas

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Double tiger lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 26, 2020| 18 Comments »

I was a little shocked when I first spotted the newest flowers blooming in the garden of my neighbor Cindy Dyer—they looked like some mutant variant of a lily, with octopus-like tendrils coming out of the center of the spotted flowers. Cindy had previously told me that she had planted some tiger lilies that she had bought at a half-price clearance sale, but it is safe to say that these are not like any tiger lilies that I had ever seen.

Yesterday I learned that these are double Tiger Lilies (Lilium Lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’), a variety that has double the normal number of petals. Wow. It looks like only one set of petals had opened for the lily in the first image, with more to come soon. The flower in the second and third photos is at an ever earlier stage of growth, but I was intrigued by its exotic shape, colors, and patterns. Every time that I look at the middle image, I see a dragon’s head with an open mouth, but perhaps my imagination is simply in overdrive these days.

While taking the photos, I noted the two little gray things on the stem in the second and third images. I did not investigate more closely, but Cindy believes that they are insects of some sort.

 

tiger lily

tiger lily

tiger lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Pink lilies in July

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 21, 2020| 6 Comments »

The garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer continues to provide me with an almost inexhaustible supply of subject matter for my photography. Among the flowers currently blooming are some beautiful pink lilies. The first image shows a pair of pink lilies blooming in a container in Cindy’s backyard garden. One of the coolest things about that part of her garden is that there are all kinds of decorative elements scattered everywhere, like the copper-colored butterfly in the background of the image.

The world changes and is often abstractly beautiful when viewed through a macro lens, as you can see in the second photo below featuring an extreme close-up view of a lily. I am utterly entranced as I explore the shapes, colors, and textures in the image, unconstrained by practical considerations like figuring out what it is.

pink lily

pink lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Sunday color

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2020| 22 Comments »

It is early Sunday morning, almost two hours before sunrise, still dark and silent outdoors. What shall I post? Some bloggers prepare their postings well in advance, but I tend to select photos and decide on an approach only when I am ready to begin composing the actual posting. I do keep a mental catalogue of candidate images that I have shot recently, but my final selection is frequently influenced by my mood and feelings.

This morning I am thinking of color and composition, a consequence perhaps of my recent efforts with watercolor. As many of you know, watercolor painting often forces you to mix your own colors, a critical factor if you want to create a mood or match something in real life. So, for example, to paint the flesh of a watermelon recently, I had to combine two different shades of red and to paint some gray stormy clouds, I had to mix a blue and a reddish brown.

I was thinking of colors when I spotted these beautiful daylilies on Thursday in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. I was struck by the deep red of the flowers and the yellow-tipped stamens that reminded me of flickering matches. I also really liked the triangular arrangement of the three flowers that presented itself. It is so much harder to compose an image with multiple subjects than one with a single subject, which is why you will rarely see me photograph groups of anything.

I hope that you enjoyed this little burst of color as you start (or continue) your Sunday activities. Have a blessed day and be sure to keep an eye out for the wonderful colors in your life.

daylilies

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Hidden garden

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 9, 2020| 15 Comments »

A little over a month ago I did a posting entitled ‘Flower wall’ that featured a hanging panel of flowers and plants on the interior portion of the fence that encloses the back yard of my friend Cindy Dyer. At that time the plants were just getting established and one of my viewers asked me to do a follow-up post when they all fill in.

As I went into Cindy’s backyard garden this morning to take an update photo of the hanging garden, I decided to try to capture the atmosphere that she has created in this small space. We live in a townhouse community and each of us has a tiny space behind our houses that is enclosed with a privacy fence. Cindy lives in an end unit (as do I) and her yard is slightly larger than the inner units, with a neighbor on only one side.

The first image shows the current state of the hanging garden. Some of the plants have grown more quickly than others, giving the wall a slightly wild look that I really like. I deliberately framed this shot wider than necessary to show you part of the rest of the garden that Cindy has decorated with statues, figurines, and all kinds of plants and flowers. It feels like a secret refuge, a world apart from one of the main streets in our neighborhood that is barely visible through the slats of the fence.

The second image shows a portion of the fence that separates her yard from that of her neighbor. Here she has created an almost meditative space featuring a wall hanging and a spectacular bird bath that rises up out of a bed of hostas. If you click on the image and examine the details, you will see that Cindy had decorated the blue grid with dozens of colorful dragonflies.

As you can readily see from these two images, Cindy is amazingly creative and is an incredible gardener and designer. You might have thought that I was a little over the top in yesterday’s blog anniversary posting in which I expressed my admiration and gratitude for all that she does to inspire me—here is visual evidence of why those words were well-deserved.

cindy's garden

cindy's garden

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Almost tropical

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 2, 2020| 11 Comments »

The lilies blooming in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer are so lush and the colors so vivid that they seem almost tropical.

lily

lily

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Finding love in June

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 29, 2020| 12 Comments »

The alien-looking plant in the first photo is a seedpod of ‘Love in a mist’ (Nigella damascena), one of my favorite flowers, that I spotted during a short visit last Monday to Green Spring Gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. It was a little late in the season, but I managed to spot a few flowers still in bloom, as shown in the second image. This flower is typically blue, but love-in-a-mist also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender.

When I did a little research on-line, I learned that the striped, balloon-shaped object that I call a seedpod, is actually an inflated capsule composed of five fused true seedpods, according to an article by Wisconsin Horticulture. I also learned that the thorny-looking spikes that make up the “mist,” which are not sharp, despite their appearance, are technically bracts, a specialized kind of leaves.

This is one of the few local places where I know I can find this exotically beautiful flower. If you want to see love-in-a-mist yourself, you should probably go to a large garden. Otherwise you could waste a lot of your time looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

love in a mist

Love in a mist

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Peruvian Daffodil

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 22, 2020| 14 Comments »

When I spotted this strange-looking flower yesterday in the garden of my photography mentor and neighbor Cindy Dyer, I had no idea what it was—she informed me that it was a Peruvian Daffodil (Hymenocallis narcissiflora). This flower, according to information at gardeningknowhow.com, is native to the Andes of Peru and is a member of the daffodil and amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae.  Its flowers resemble a “spidery” version of these flowers, as you can see in my photos. The elongated, sometimes curved, petals have led to the plant’s alternate common names, “spider lily” and “basket flower.”

Further exploration on the internet led me to wonder if this is actually the hybrid version known as Hymenocallis x festalis, a hybrid of the aforementioned Peruvian Daffodil as the female parent and the Hymenocallis. longipetala, another Peruvian flower, as the male parent, as detailed in an article by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.  Fearing that I would get sucked deeper into the world of plant ancestry, I stopped my research there.

Personally, I think that the name “spider lily” fits best and maybe that that is the name I will use in the future to refer to this crazy-looking flower.

 

Peruvian Daffodil

Peruvian Daffodil

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Lilies in early June

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2020| 7 Comments »

It is lily season now in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Here are a few photos that I took yesterday morning of some of the lilies blooming in her beautiful garden. It is always reassuring to know that I do not have to travel far to find colorful subjects to photograph—as a photographer and graphic designer, Cindy chooses flowers to plant that she know are photogenic.

lily

lily

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Flower wall

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on June 4, 2020| 19 Comments »

How do you grow a lot of plants in a small space? My amazingly creative friend, neighbor, and photography mentor Cindy Dyer decided to take advantage of vertical space and created this incredible wall of flowers and plants on the interior portion of the fence that encloses her back yard. Wow!

I do not know all of the details about how she set it up, but I think that the material, which Cindy describes as “felt-like,” has sewn-in pouches into which she inserted all of the plants and flowers. She mentioned to me that she had mixed some water-storing crystals in with the potting soil to reduce water stress and plans to water the wall regularly.

flower wall

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Stargazer Lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on June 2, 2020| 12 Comments »

We have started a new month and new flowers are blooming in the garden of my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Iris season has almost ended, but more lilies are opening each day. Today’s featured star is the bold, fragrant oriental hybrid known as the Stargazer Lily (Lilium ‘Stargazer’). Wow—there is nothing subtle about this flower that overwhelms both the eyes and the nose.

The words “star gazer” bring to mind some words from one of my favorite songs, The Rainbow Connection as sung by Kermit the Frog. “What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see? Someday we’ll find it, that rainbow connection, the lover, the dreamer, and me.” Now more than ever, we all need hope.

I want to share with you the concluding portion of a prayer distributed to us by our local Episcopal bishop yesterday, a National Day of Mourning and Lament for those who have died of COVID-19. “God of all hope, God of all goodness, we are a people hurting, lost and divided. Our world seems a strange and foreign land, our days a blur of separation and isolation. Gather us to your very heart as we pray for our nation, receive all who have died into the fulness of your heaven, guide the hands of all who serve others. Bless our efforts to love all people in concrete action and, in your powerful ways and in your perfect time, make us whole for the sake of a world so desperately in need of You. Amen.”

Stargazer Lily

Stargazer Lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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First lilies of the year

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 30, 2020| 19 Comments »

The irises in the garden of my neighbor Cindy Dyer have mostly faded, but her lilies are starting to flower. I believe that this beauty is an Asiatic lily, the second lily bloom of the season in her garden with many more to follow.

I captured this image late one morning this week as the rain was beginning to taper off and the colors were wonderfully saturated. I also love the multiple raindrops on the flowers—these are a few of my favorite things.

Asiatic lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Studio-like irises—take two

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on May 16, 2020| 18 Comments »

A week ago I did a posting called Studio-like irises that featured photos of bearded irises shot against a background of a white foamcore board. This week on Thursday my photography mentor Cindy Dyer and I photographed some more of the irises in her garden, this time against a black background. Cindy had obtained some black velvet-like material with an adhesive backing that she affixed to the back of the white foamcore board. Normally this material is used for jewelry displays, but it worked perfectly to highlight the forms and colors of these beautiful flowers.

Here are a few selected shots from our little photoshoot. Although we had a consistent background, we were moving in and out of the sunlight and shadows and I had to constantly change mycamera settings—we even had a few raindrops fall on us while we were taking photos. Cindy and her husband have three cats and when I opened up my images in Photoshop I learned that velvet serves as a magnet for cat hair.

If you like the look of these shots, you should check out the posting that Cindy did on her blog that features seven fabulous photos, including several colorful iris species not shown below.

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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A few more flowers

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on May 14, 2020| 21 Comments »

I often feel a bit overwhelmed when I visit a public garden—there are so many flowers all around vying for my attention. I am rarely attracted to large clusters of flowers, but instead tend to gravitate toward individual flowers that I can photograph up close with my macro lens.

Here are three of the flowers that I photographed during a recent photographic foray to nearby Green Spring Gardens with my friend Cindy Dyer. The first is a spiderwort (g. Tradescantia), a flower that I love for its simple geometric shape. I am not sure if the plant in the second photo, some species of allium, counts as a flower, but I love the way that the partially open “bud” reveals the complex structure inside. The final flower is a simple viola that I spotted amidst a bed of green ground cover—like pansies, violas always make me smile.

spiderwort

allium

viola

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Bleeding Hearts in May

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2020| 8 Comments »

I spotted these beautiful Bleeding Heart flowers (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) during a brief trip to Green Spring Gardens last Tuesday with my friend Cindy Dyer. The colors of the pink ones are stunning, especially against the lime-green leaves in the background. However, I was particularly struck by the white ones, a variant that was new to me.

Bleeding Hearts

Bleeding Hearts

Bleeding Heart

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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‘Bewilderbeast’ bearded iris

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2020| 27 Comments »

Although I have grown to know most of the irises in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, I don’t know their individual names. One iris that recently started blooming is so unusual and outrageous in appearance that I suspected that it was a special hybrid. I was bemused to learn that it is called the ‘Bewilderbeast’ bearded iris.

I love the way that Claire Austin described this striking hybrid iris on the Heritage Irises website, “This flower is a psychedelic mixture of colours, including maroon, mauve, and cream. These colours sit in rivers across the white background. The standards are muted in tone, and the thin beards are dark yellow.”

I tried photographing the iris with a natural background, which I prefer, and also with a piece of foamcore board. Do you prefer one image over the other?

Bewilderbeast iris

Bewilderbeast iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Columbines in May

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 9, 2020| 12 Comments »

Columbines are one of my favorite spring flowers and I was excited to have the chance to capture images of some different varieties during a short visit to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historical garden, this past Tuesday with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. When I started working with Cindy almost eight years ago, flowers were often our target subjects and this garden was our favorite location to photograph them.

columbine

columbine

columbine

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Red pollen

Posted in Bees, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 4, 2020| 21 Comments »

I tend to think of pollen as yellow, but it comes in other colors too. This past weekend I captured this shot of a bee covered in bright red pollen from the Purple Deadnettle flowers (Lamium purpureum) on which it was feeding. Earlier this spring I did a posting with a somewhat similar shot, but misidentified the plant as the closely-related Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule).

Purple Deadnettle is in the mint family and seems to be everywhere at this time of year. I was in a fairly remote area when I took this shot, but I have seen large patches of it in gardens, where it is considered to be a weed. According to an article entitled “Foraging for Purple Dead Nettle: an edible backyard weed,” the plant is not only a wild edible green, but a highly nutritious superfood. The leaves are edible, with the purple tops being even a little sweet. It can also be used in combination with other “weeds” like chickweed and dandelion greens to make pesto and can also be added to soups, salads, or blended into smoothies.

But wait, there is more. Purple Dead Nettle also has purported medicinal benefits. It is known in the herbal world as being astringent, diuretic, diaphoretic and purgative. It’s also anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal and can be used to make salve, poultices, and teas.

As an interesting aside, in Great Britain this plant is apparently known as Red Deadnettle. Why is there a difference in names? I do not know why, but it is not all that surprising considering the number of different words the British use for common objects and the different spellings for common words.

bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Some iris attractions

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 3, 2020| 9 Comments »

A short while ago I did a posting of iris buds that offered a preview of coming attractions. Today I wanted to give you a quick look at some of the attractions that have already arrived. I like the yellow bearded irises that have started blooming in numbers, but I have to admit that I have really fallen in love with the violet one that is shown in the first photo below. It is the only one of its color that has opened so far, but there are several dozen more that should be appearing in the next week or two. I can hardly wait.

iris

iris

iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Love Bites dwarf iris

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2020| 10 Comments »

This beautiful dwarf bearded iris was almost hidden by the weeds and the undergrowth when I first discovered it early in April. Cindy, my neighbor in whose garden I have been taking flower photos this spring, recalls planting it a couple of years ago, but was a little surprised when I alerted her to it—she does nor remember seeing it bloom last year. The iris never grew very tall and was repeatedly been beaten down by the rain, but it was still strikingly beautiful.

There are so many different irises that specific cultivars are hard to identify. I looked through a lot of photos on-line, though, and think that I have identified it as a variety called “Love Bites.” Stout Gardens at Dancingtree described its characteristics in these words, “Rosy red standards over rich, dark carmine red falls with lavender beards” and added “Velvety carmine red falls with big lavender beards make this one a standout.”

I am curious about the name of the iris, because in my mind it can be interpreted in at least two different ways. Perhaps it refers to romantic little nibbles between lovers.  Maybe, though, it is a bitter commentary on love, an homage to the song by the same name by Def Leppard that ends with the words, “If you’ve got love in your sights, watch out, love bites. Yes it does, it will be hell.”

dwarf iris

dwarf iris

dwarf iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Preview of coming attractions

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2020| 22 Comments »

How much longer must I wait? That question has become a familiar refrain for most of us as our days of isolation and quarantine drag on endlessly. Sometimes it seems like time is standing still, yet there are hopeful signs that things are slowly improving.

I visit the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer, almost every day, checking to see what has changed. Over the last month I have observed the growth of the leaves and stalks of a new crop of irises. A few of them have flowered and withered, but most of them are still buds, offering only a hint of their beauty that is yet to come.

Here are a few images that I captured on Thursday of iris buds of different shapes and colors, a preview of coming attractions.

iris buds

iris bud

iris bud

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Early yellow iris

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on April 21, 2020| 10 Comments »

Most of the irises in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer have not yet bloomed, but this one beautiful yellow bearded iris decided to jump ahead of the others. Most of the iris buds are on stems several feet high, but this blossom is only a few inches off of the ground—perhaps that is why it was an early bloomer.

If you look closely at the two shots, you will immediately notice that I took them on separate days. The light was quite different on each those days and there were raindrops present on the petals when I took the second shot. Additionally, I chose a very different shooting angle for each image and processed them to emphasize different aspects of the photo. I have a slight preference for the overall feel of the first shot, but love the raindrops in the second shot—I think the pair of images work well together in tandem.

 

yellow iris

yellow iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Thinking of peaches

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2020| 12 Comments »

The color and texture of this tulip reminded me of a ripe peach when I first saw it yesterday morning. Alas, it will be months before peaches will be in season and the canned cling peaches that I remember from my childhood can’t compare to the fresh ones.

Like so many of the wonderfully colorful flowers that I have featured recently, this beauty is from the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Thanks again, Cindy.

At this time of the year, I tend to shoot most often with my 180mm macro lens. With my APS-C crop sensor camera, I get an equivalent field of view of almost 300mm, which gives me some standoff distance for shooting live subjects like dragonflies. However, for shooting subjects like flowers, I found it difficult to frame the images because I was shooting from so far away. For this shot, I switched to a 60mm macro lens and shot with the aperture wide-open at f/2.8.

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Joyful expectation

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Inspiration, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 6, 2020| 18 Comments »

What are your feelings about the future? For me, they are like this tulip bud, full of the promise of new life and beauty that is yet to come. The challenge for us all is to be patient and wait with joyful expectation.

As with all of my other recent tulip shots, I photographed this bud in the garden of my neighbor and friend Cindy Dyer. Thanks, Cindy.

tulip bud

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Orchard spider in April

Posted in Arachnids, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 4, 2020| 8 Comments »

This week I did a pair of postings in a single day that I called “beauty and the beast” that was so well received that I thought I would do it again. Earlier this morning I did the “beauty” part with a shot of some crabapple blossoms in my front yard. For the “beast” part, I decided to feature this shot of a little orchard spider (Leucauge venusta) in the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer and blogger Cindy Dyer. The spider was hanging in the midst of a group of irises that have not yet bloomed and I was happy to be able to be able to frame the shot so you have a sense of the spider’s environment.

As always, I offer my apologies to those who are creeped out by spiders, and recommend that you check out the crabapple posting if you have not seen it yet. As for me, I find spiders to be always fascinating and often beautiful.

orchard orbweaver spider

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Crabapple in my front yard

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , on April 4, 2020| 27 Comments »

Beauty is everywhere. Thursday afternoon as I walked out of my suburban townhouse, I glanced at the crabapple tree in my front yard, now covered with blossoms. Realizing how beautiful it is, I captured this simple image.

You don’t always have to go to distant locations to find beauty—you can often find it in your back yard or, in my case, in your front yard.

crabapple

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Fiddlehead

Posted in abstract, Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on April 3, 2020| 14 Comments »

Nature is full of wonderful shapes, like the spiral of this curled-up fern—at this stage it is know as a fiddlehead—that I spotted on Monday while exploring in Prince William County. A few days afterwards, Gary Bolstad published a photo of a fiddlehead in New Zealand in his blog krikitarts.wordpress.com. Gary is an amazing photographer and you should really check out his wonderful blog.

In replying to a comment I made about his posting, Gary explained that “The Māori name for a fiddlehead is Koru, and the spiral shape is an essential part of their culture and probably the most common shape used in the design of their carved greenstone (jade) jewelry. It can represent creation, perpetual movement, return to a point of origin, equilibrium/harmony in life, and new life.”

I think we could all use more equilibrium and harmony in our lives during these unsettling times.

fiddlehead

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Grape hyacinth

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on April 2, 2020| 28 Comments »

Beauty is everywhere. A few minutes ago I walked over to the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer and captured this modest image of a little grape hyacinth (g. Muscari). I just love that vibrant violet color.
So often, taking photos is a multi-hour endeavor for me. Normally I pack my gear and head off to remote locations and walk and walk, watching and waiting for opportunities to arise. It definitely is not normal now, so I am relearning the joy of taking photos in small doses, a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Perhaps I won’t capture stunning action shots, but I am convinced that the words with which I began this posting are true—beauty is everywhere.
grape hyacinth
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Tulip geometry

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on March 29, 2020| 25 Comments »

The Lady Jane tulips (Tulipa clusiana “Lady Jane”) in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer are now fully in bloom. In a recent post called Two tulips, I featured a side view of a mostly closed flower, highlighting the tulip’s unusual shape and reddish-pink color. This time, I shot almost straight down from above and was struck by the geometric shapes in the petals, the stamen, and even the stigma (the little three-lobed part in the very center of the flower). For the middle shot, I shot from a slight angle to give a somewhat more natural perspective.

I hope that all of you are staying safe and healthy. I am remaining close to home most of the time and it has been a blessing for me to be able to find such beautiful subjects to photograph almost literally across the street—Cindy and I live at opposite sides of a suburban semi-circle.

 

Lady Jane tulip

Lady Jane tulip

Lady Jane tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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Tulip kaleidoscope

Posted in abstract, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on March 27, 2020| 17 Comments »

Need a blast of bright color? Here you go, a shot I took of the inside of a gorgeous red tulip blooming this morning in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer.  This view straight down into the tulip reminds me of the kaleidoscopes that fascinated me endlessly when I was a youth. I managed to frame this shot almost exactly as I had envisioned, so I decided not to crop it at all, which is pretty unusual for me.

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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