Art – Page 29 – Ellis Hollow

‘Awakenings’ gold

Well this took a little of the sting out of both Syracuse (alma mater, frosh team ’75-’76) and Cornell (employer) losing in the NCAA tourney last week. But as Cornell center Jeff Foote told The Onion, even the improbable becomes inevitable with a long enough timeline.

Actually, I thought I stood a chance at getting a mention in this month’s Gardening Gone Wild Picture This photo contest. That’s because I’ve been following the advice that judge Saxon Holt offered in a post about a year ago on Point of View Photographs. Saxon made me realize that if I was going to capture the impact of early spring ephemerals, I was going to have to get down and dirty. Muddy knees, muddy elbows and occasionally a muddy chest are the price you pay.

Thanks to Saxon and everyone at GGW for hosting this monthly event. Congrats to the other winners and thanks to everyone else who contributes inspiring photos each month.

Dragon Day

A Cornell tradition, the last day before spring break: Costumed architecture students parade a dragon past the engineering quad and back to the arts quad. Usually the whole dragon is burned. This year, just the heart.

Arriving late, I missed the costumes. But University Photo has a nice photo montage.

Bloom day scans

Never have I cut such a high percentage of the blooms in my garden, and filled such a small percentage of the scanner bed. Hope you like them anyway. Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting, as usual.

View more bloom day scans.

Try it yourself. It’s easy. Flower scanning directions are here.

February Picture This Photo Contest

Here’s my entry in the February Gardening Gone Wild photo contest.

To be clear, the top image in this post is my entry. The rest are other winter images I like, but didn’t make the cut.

I chose that one based purely on emotion. Nothing beats interest like a Dalmatian in the snow. And given Fred’s recent brush with death for the second time this year, I had to make this one my lede and entry.

I’ll admit that my collection of winter garden images is limited. I think it’s mostly because I get out of the habit of shooting, and the fact that five days a week it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home. The next three are from a freak appearance of January in November of 2008. The light was pretty intense. But I like snowblind on occasion.

Grasses take on a life of their own in the snow.

This next series is actually from an early snow we had last Oct. 16 when the grasses were still green and the leaves were still on the trees. Interesting, but not really winter. (It all melted by noon.)

The closest I’ve come to capturing that winter light Roger speaks of was during this lucky encounter at the winter garden at Cornell Plantations.

Frost on the cold frame is always a good subject for abstraction.

Bittersweet berries in an encounter with ‘wintry mix’.

Frosty heuchera.

But this is my favorite winter image of all time. And it was rendered well before the days of 500-pixel entries.

winter image

February bloom day scans

Apologies for the sporadic blogging this winter, including taking off two months on the bloom day scans. (Life’s been hectic, especially on the doggie front.) Figured February would be a good month to get back in the saddle with some dark, broody bloom day scans of the seeds and stems variety. We’ll get some color back in a month or two. Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting.

More bloom day scans.

Here’s how you do it. (It’s easy.)