Abstract

The photo above was very amenable to tight cropping - I especially love how the tiny little hole in the petal is placed.

Botanical Bookends

Our property is packed with Cyclamen in the spring and in the late summer/early fall - when the rain returns. Since our dry season has been over for the last two weeks, the fall cyclamen have been popping up everywhere.


Therefore, they "bookend" my most active gardening phase of the year - arriving in the spring when I'm starting seeds in the greenhouse - and popping up again at the cusp of summer and fall.


Groups of Cyclamen always look, to me, like a group of people standing around, or a committee gathered for some special purpose. Look at the photo above - the flower in the middle looks like the one person in the "crowd" that noticed I was taking their picture - and he's looking at me as if to say: "who are you and what business do you have taking my photo?"

Dragon Quest

Snapdragon quest, that is. This year's snapdragons were spectacular. These images are the best I've shot so far.

Summer's Blue Skies

The image above features one of our Japanese anemone flowers against an idealized summer blue sky - with a little help from Photoshop. The original image had too much distraction in the background - the blue sky allows the flower to show itself off a little bit.

Variegated Cyclamen

In the early spring our front yard is blessed with a carpet of fuchsia/pink and white cyclamen flowers. Last year, I spent hours and hours photographing them to obtain a small batch of photos I was very pleased with. Thus, I thought I was pretty on top of the cyclamen population.

Imagine my surprise when I found this speckled, purple and white specimen behind our garbage can. It was the day before garbage pick-up, and I was in the process of cramming all the yard waste I could into the can when I saw this one tiny flower.

A Google search of "variegated cyclamen" yielded some very good examples, but nothing quite like this flower. A genetic freak, perhaps?

Nearly Neutral

The gray August day inspired these nearly neutral photos. The white flower has a nice soft glow, as opposed to the harsh glare I'd get on a sunny day.

The dead leaf was found hanging on the side of a tree that had recently been scorched by fire - it is fair to say this is a "crime scene photo". Our neighbors insist on burning copious amounts of yard waste in their back yard - despite the danger inherent in doing so during the usually dry summer and in violation of city law. Our neighbor's behavior has inspired The Boyfriend to take up the mantle of "Neighborhood Asshole" - a role that had recently been played by our next door neighbor until his untimely death by cancer. Considering our neighborhood is a tinderbox of dry pine needles...I can't say that I blame him. Needless to say, I took some more comprehensive "crime scene" photos.

No Sunday Rest for the Bee

Above: a busy bee hard at work, unaware I've got him in my sights. Clearly, they did not get the memo that Sunday is a day to kick back. If the bee saw my photo, I wonder if he would say: "Does this flower make my butt look big?"

Above: while it looks like the bee is laying down on the job and slacking off, he is really working all six legs! He looks like he's running in place as he gathers pollen.

Above: "Who IS this chick with the friggin' camera????? I'm outta here!"