All the Things I Do Not See

As much as I try to compose my photographs before I take them, I never see everything that's in the frame. Sometimes I shoot too quickly when breezes threaten to jiggle a perfectly lit petal or just as I'm about to squeeze the shutter release, two other photographers walk right into the edge of the shot.  Thanks to digital cameras, I can review the images I just took and catch most of the more blatant blunders.  

However, I firmly believe that the invisible garden imps almost always add a little something just before I upload my day's work to the computer.  Then the nasty little buggers wait for me to start post-processing and have a laugh. Did I take that? When? I didn't take that! Why didn't I see that leaf, person, tree, humungous bee?  What's that stick coming out of Ingmar's head?  Did a bird poop on that David Austin Rosa ‘Ausleap’ Sweet Juliet?  When?  You get the idea.

At least I've made progress. Four years ago, this horse photo gave me a lot of experience in corrective post-processing. Along with other, minor problems, there was a big honkin' fence running across the lower third of the horse. It didn't look rural or vintage. It just looked bad. And it took FOREVER to get rid of while leaving all the horse bits and each bloody blade of grass intact. I learned a lot from that and gained a lot of skill. And when I had the chance to have a sort of well-known photographer give me feedback on my work, of course I included that shot.                   

He said it was nice (oh no, kill me now), he said it had a romantic feel to it, and then he asked, "What's that big wooden bench-like thing on the horse's back?"  Huh? Where? Damn. I looked at every inch of that photograph for HOURS.  How did I miss that?   What IS that? "You've got to look at your images more carefully," was what he said. Yup.

Today I was outside with my macro lens taking pictures, hoping for some bloggy inspiration. One patch of Echinacea was doing well, so I set up a tripod and started shooting. Bright, cheery, colorful, blah. Finally, I changed my angle and tried for a dive into the center of just one specimen. I was concentrating so hard on getting all those little florets in the head of the flower in focus that I didn't look at what else was going on, figuring I'd just crop out everything else. However, the imps  had other ideas.

The only shot with the inflorescence in semi-decent focus had petals from a neighboring Coneflower flopping over a third of it.  When did THAT happen?  Did I want to spend an hour trying to clone out those petals and clone the florets back in?  Not really.  I was just about to head outside to reposition and reshoot, when it hit me:  I like this image.  It's a lot more interesting than the one I'd planned.  Well OK then!

 I also spent time experimenting with these Astilbe chinensis. Unlike their feathery cousins that come up in spring, these nubbly ones really get going by mid-summer. I wanted to emphasize the nubbles, but wasn't having a lot of success. They're pretty and look like what they are, but something was missing.  Not that I had a clue what that was.

Once more the imps had their way with me.  When did I take this shot?  Was I standing above the plant, shooting downwards?  Is this a side-on view that needs to be rotated? 

Maybe, but I like it better this way.  It looks like some sort of deep-sea creature, one of those blind ones that swims close to the bottom of the ocean in the dark.  It also expresses what I like best about these Astilbes.

The most common post-processing surprises are insects.  Unless it flies and is a butterfly or has a stinger, I'm just not seeing it.  Here's a Scabiosa, and, as a photograph, what can you say?  Pretty flower, maybe, but I wanted more.

 Then something caught my eye--most of you probably already saw it--so I cropped in to take a better look.

What IS this green-glowing critter?  I really would like to know, by the way.  And getting in this close, I got to share just a tiny bit of his experience of the flower, fall into another world entirely.  Also,  the common name, "Pincushion Flower" makes a lot more sense to me now.  Post-processing surprises can sometimes be the very best sort.  And, yes, my personal imps don't always mean to ruin my day.

 

Unexpected Garden Glamour: Runway Monardas

I am fickle when it comes to plants. One year it was Polemoniums, the next Astilbes, then Pieris, and Penstemons.  I shopped for them as though I'd just discovered a rare beauty and needed to populate my gardens with my new obsessions before the world caught on.  But soon I'd tire of my favorites and find my eye wandering to a newer cultivar, a more appealing hue, a plant with a truer sense of style.

It never occurred to me that the feathery, bee-laden Monardas happily populating the sunnier patches of my landscape were the stuff of Haute Horticouture.  Too common. Too artless. Too friendly.

 But then I noticed the dynamic pose struck by this young Bee Balm.  One leaf gestures with confidence, arrow-head straight, while the other is gently rounded, pointing earthwards.  The red, tubular flowers reveal themselves gradually, with just the suggestion of a double emerging from its crown.  How could I have missed this!?

Not long after, this other specimen took center stage, and could hardly be more alluring.  Here was a more mature sense of self-possession, knowing how much (or how little) to reveal.  How much stem to show in order to balance out the sly tilt of the double (veiled by the artfully veined sepals).  She even knew which way to turn for the most flattering light.  My admiration knew no bounds.

However, all this flash and attitude has its limits.  I was beginning to ache for a quieter, more subtle expression.  And, on the other side of my propane tank, I found the soft beauty I was looking for.

Monarda didyma 'Blaustrumpf'

These two charming 'Blaustrumpf's glowed with an innocent yet powerful grace.  They drew me to the shade, to the subtlety of flat, even light, to a more natural look.  No artifice here.  A pose without posing.  Naked existence as elegance.  With the tank providing a nice, neutral backdrop, I'd even discovered a new approach to domestic landscape photography:  

Industrial Chic for the Garden

Alas, I find I have a limited tolerance for youth's scrubbed, pretty face and admit to a weakness for the more theatrical side of nature.  (And the propane guy had just arrived to fill the tank).  So this jester's hat of a Bee Balm bloom brought me back into the sun.  No secrets here, just the generous eruption of scarlet petals in a sea of unfocused green.

But I am no shallow photographer.  I can appreciate the wisdom, complexity, and, yes, the prickly peace of age.  This Monarda seedhead has one last red petal hanging on as a reminder of earlier days--a week or so before.  What remains is Nature's ultimate sculpture, the repository of future generations.  Too soon powdery mildew will leave my once buoyant models beyond  even Photoshop's rejuvenative skills.  And, once again, I am left to haunt the nurseries for fresh faces and new inspirations. 

Intimations of Forgotten Worlds: Plant Design Without a Decoder Ring

The Los Angeles neighborhood of my childhood was not my true home; I was certain of it. That's not to say that I felt/hoped/believed myself to have been adopted. No, I was certain I was disguised (against my will) as human.  

So everyday I searched for signs in the garden, convinced my real lineage was seared here and there into the flesh of this earth, in this dimension. And one day those clues would be revealed, and I would know and in that instant be transported home to my real family in my true form.  Sometimes the message would be in a massing of petals in the cracks between middle-class patio stones. 

Other times I'd notice the way bare shrub branches curved against a mossy wall.

As I grew a bit older, the messages became more complicated, the syntax of limbs and lichen, rigid  stone and flowing wood confounding my best efforts to decipher the code surely left for me.

Even simple tree trunks drew yet resisted my attention.

The years passed and the evidence that I was simply a human female gained credibility, while the symbols promising a more genuine sense of myself remained inscrutable.  I didn't even have a superpower; and tree bark became just tree bark.

 

However, once I picked up a camera, plant portraits soon took the place of family vacation snapshots.   Studying these silent images through a lens seemed to bring something into focus. 

Water drops became worlds and leaf surfaces were dark matter revealed.

And even flower petals hinted at an ancient writing system. 

   Or they're just a way of attracting pollinators.  And rain that beads up on leaves says more about surface tension and texture than interstellar mapping.  And tree bark is the skin of tree guts.  I know this.  

But I also know that imagination sometimes feels like memory.  And memories can shape the deepest parts of ourselves.

I'm also someone who if (when?) she heard that distinctive Tardis wheeze, would SO turn around expecting to see Doctor Who. First I'd demand to know what took him so long, and then all those lost languages and unreadable texts would come into focus.  I'd remember who and what I was.  And I would be home.

Go For the Blur

  Photographers can get obsessed with sharpness and with good reason.  Eyes, in my experience, seem to want to concentrate on what takes the least amount of work. Staring at something that's blurry is tiring.  So eyes will search for a focal point (like autofocus in a camera), moving around the visual field, pulling in and out until they can achieve that place where seeing is effortless and the subject is clear.  No matter the depth of field (the distance between the closest and furthest objects that remain in focus), having the thing you want viewers to gravitate to completely in focus makes sense. Also, sharp photos just look nice.

It's definitely easier to get a subject in focus if that subject holds still.  Here's a picture of Bailey (note the shallow depth-of-field--cat eyes and nose sharp while flowers and cat body not so much).  He is not holding still for me; I believe he is focusing elsewhere, like on a vole or a bug.  So he is holding still so as not to scare off his potential prey.  No matter; he stopped moving long enough for me to take a sharp photo.

However, I mostly shoot pictures of plants, and shouting "stop moving" doesn't really work all that well (it doesn't work on cats either). So a crucial problem anyone who likes to shoot plants has is that they have a tendency to respond quite quickly to their immediate environment.  And as much as I enjoy breathing, air makes my job a lot harder. It just takes a whiff for my subject to shimmy. And all the tripods and remote shutter releases in the world won't help. If I can't use a fast shutter speed, I've got to sacrifice the depth of field I want, and if I up the ISO I'll have to deal with noise (sorry for the tech-speak--just trust me; it's a thing). This means I spend a lot of time waiting for the breezes to subside, which is pleasant, I admit. But it can get frustrating too.

Bellingham has been having a very unusual heat wave. And here in my little microclimate from hell, it's been oven-hot. NOT what I moved north from Los Angeles for. So standing outside in a breeze this morning was heaven . . . and then, not so much because I was trying to photograph flowers on stalks. No polite flutters and then the calm. These suckers just wave around like they're hailing a cab in a crowd after an Everly Brothers Reunion concert. After a lot of waiting, fidgeting, resetting settings, and more waiting, I decided toss my plans to the winds, use a slow shutter speed, and see what the blurs would look like.

Here's a Veronica spicata 'Ulster Blue Dwarf', also known as Speedwell.  No wind.  Sharp(ish) focus on the closest stalk.

Now, here comes the wind.  Yes, the focused one was taken earlier in the season, but let's not quibble. 

  This is what is known as "blur."  If you move your eyes back and forth, from the sharp one to the blurry one and back really quickly, the blurry one will start to look more like painting.  Or like a blurry photo.
OK.  Let's try again.  Below is a photo of another Veronica spicata but now a 'Giles van Hees'.

 And here comes the wind:

At this point I'm going to provide some information to distract you.  I did not know that Veronica wasn't the  common name, but the genus.  Although no one seems willing to go on record as being certain, most of the sources I consulted agreed that the name was probably associated with the Veronica who it was said gave Jesus her veil to wipe his forehead on his way to Calvary.  When he returned it, the cloth supposedly bore his likeness: vera icon = true image.  As for naming the plant after her or the cloth, that becomes a little less clear (yes, pun/reference intended here to show that this IS all connected to my topic).  Some sources say that the likeness on the veil resembled the flowers of the plant.  Sharp or blurry, I just don't quite see it.  Now the common name--Speedwell--makes a bit more sense.  As an medicinal herb, it is purported to have several healing qualities--much like an Christian icon might have for some believers.

So what I have taken away from my little experiment:  While some blurs can work artistically or can be used to convey a sense of motion, I think I'd rather wait out most breezes and attempt to catch the moment when my Speedwell holds still. 

Doors of Reflection

Doors are welcoming, forbidding, challenging, simple,

and filled with potential.  Well, not the doors themselves.  It's what they lead to, or might lead to, or might not. And all those possibilities that lie on the other side of that door, all of them live in your head, occupying the same space at the same time (string theory, anyone?). Because you just don't know for sure.  Of course you could simply turn the handle and find out.  However, opening the door and stepping through stops that activity cold. You have your one and only answer.

Sometimes it's better to wait a few minutes, sit in imagination, and conjure up the rooms on the other side.  This lilac painted door below could open onto an elaborate garden shed filled with shelves of hand-painted pots and trays of herb seedlings, or it might reveal a converted barn, furnished tastefully (if austerely) in minimalist Tuscan. 

    

 

I wonder how dark this basement-level apartment to the right is.  All the light seems to be living outdoors with the plants, huddled against the walls of the subterranean courtyard.  I'd guess that the inhabitants might want to spend all their time outside, tending the flower pots, chatting with each other, but there aren't any chairs.

The climbing roses brighten and scent this entry, but the door looks like it would take not just a key but a pretty strong shove to open,  resisting all visitors (unless they came bearing cake).  And yet, the chair on the right might suggest that the owner likes spending time out front, welcoming company, but it could also say, "Wait here while I consider my options."

I've spent a lot of time behind closed doors in my life. I like my privacy. I like to feel quiet and safe.  I like wandering the halls of my mind, uninterrupted--unless someone is offering cake.

When you've spent years indoors, the out-of-doors can be a bit, well, unnerving because the outside, the stuff on the other-side of your side, is always changing. Indoors, unless someone likes redecorating, can stay exactly the same (except for the odd cake crumb). But outdoors changes with the season, time of day, and weather (a subset of the prior two). Open the door twice, three times, fifty times, and you'll always be surprised.
 

Then there are garden doors.

This wooden door on the right looks as strong and almost as forbidding as the one above.  Both have brick walls and plants softening the angles with their green curves.  But when one knows (or at least has a pretty good hunch) that this door opens onto more of the same, well then, the surprise is always a good one.  There might as well be no door at all, as with this archway below.  

Garden doors have this advantage; there is no inside and outside.  There is only this garden and that garden and the narrow space formed by the arch or doorway to huddle in when it rains.

But my favorite really is the heavy door that stands slightly ajar.  There is that moment of expectation experienced from that place of safety and imagination.  Possibilities exist, change, and grow, just a step or two away.

Okay.  Yes, I know this door is wide open, not "slightly ajar," but I like this photo, and you get the idea.