Wishing that you take time to slow down and enjoy the life around you – get out for a walk and see what nature has given you.
The making of Thanksgiving pumpkin soup photo exposition
First Snow
Snow had gracefully dusted the ground and trees like powdered sugar on a donut reminding me that winter would again return to northern Wisconsin.
The lakes had not yet iced over but small puddles did and they trapped air in geometric shapes on their surface.
Snow landed on the tops of brush that high water had broken off to give the manifestation that snow mushrooms had sprouted out of the lake.
The snow filled in the spaces around needles of the white pine turning them into tiny winter Sputniks that orbited their planet trees.
Birds nourished themselves on suit and seeds preparing for the long winter.
Shapes and reflections materialized on the surface of the lake on this cold and cloudy day that had chaperoned this first snow.
Boo! blog
This Halloween when you find yourself on the road to nowhere
And you cross the boundary from real to surreal
You happenstance on the oracle of past and future
Who guides you through the windows of actuality
Remember to brush and floes those teeth after eating all that candy.
Courting the Muse
As a photographer / artist inspiration is all around me but I cannot always find it and as the saying goes – I can’t see the forest because of the trees.
I must open my mind and my camera lens and court my Muse appreciating that I might not find the picture I am looking for but discover the photo that opportunity gives me.
On a recent fall day driving aimlessly the back roads in the western part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula I crest the top of a hill to discover a phantasmagoria of falls delight.
I park my car and ramble around this panorama camera at the ready.
Also in my drive I find an old mining town now a museum and photo the fall colors mirrored in the old windows.
I enjoy the trees around me as I thank the Muse for allowing me this happenstance of life and beauty.
Fun with fall
“They” say it’s October and if it weren’t for the trees turning colors I would say “they” were wrong. Traditionally in northern Wisconsin this time of year can be an abrupt transformation from summer but not this year. The temperatures have been the 70’s and low 80’s and the temperature of my local lakes has been at 70 degrees and I have been having fun with fall like a Lab happily searching for a stick lost in falls reflections in a lake.
You can have fun with the 2 photos bellow taken of the same spot, on the same day but from different distances – can you find the blue boat in the first photo? And do you see the circle of minnows in the second photo?
In the next 2 photos bellow how many fish are in each photo?
After all that hard work my reward to you is that you take time and enjoy the kaleidoscope of colors and life that I have been encountering and photo’ing.
Top to bottom
Summer has decided to spend more time vacationing in the Northwood’s of Wisconsin and me and my eight year old self are grateful and we hop on the bike and head to the beach for a swim.
I swim in the reflection of the clouds that mirror the sky above
The undersurface of the lake mirrors the world underwater like the surface does the sky above.
Do the clouds, sun, fish, plants and I occupy two planes of reality at the same time?
My Reality
I was swimming through a parallel universe chasing cosmic dust bunny’s – that’s the best I can explain it to you without using sock puppets.
I knew I had to change the backdrop of my everyday existence to something more basic … I needed to go camping.
My timing was perfect for camping on the Keweenaw Peninsula’s east side, 4 days of sunshine, temperatures in the mid 70’s, lake Superiors temperature a balmy 64 degrees, no bugs, the nine site rustic campground I was camping in only had 3 other campers that I never got close enough to talk to.
Dreamlike sun rises and sun sets filled the space around me with ever changing colorful possibilities of light and motion that I hope my photos can convey to you.
In the mornings Lake Superior would be calm and I would snorkel out to photo the sunlight refracting through the ever-changing surface on the sand waves that form on the bottom and I would try to capture with my camera their reflection on the underside of the surface.
By the afternoon the wind would pick up and the waves would roll in and I would hop on my bike and ride to the modern ancient ruins and pictographs of a mining operation long but abandoned.
On my ride I stopped for a complimentary lunch of free range apples.
There was also wildlife to photo.
At night when the sun had disappeared bellow the horizon I would watch the stars slowly reveal themselves as I sat by the fire.
My last day I packed up my camping gear and headed over to the west side of the Keweenaw Peninsula to see the monks at Poor Rock Abbey and purchase some of their jams and baked goods before touring there gardens.
I spent the night in a quaint motel in Eagle Harbor enjoying a hot shower, sleeping in a bed and preparing myself for reentry back into my reality.
Impermanent Wave
The heat of summer rises out of the plains and joy rides with the jet stream and they cross Lake Superior spawning disturbances on the surface of the great lake from a mild wrinkle to a hell storm.
On this day it’s just the commonplace wave on Lake Superior that is colliding into the prehistoric land mass that I am snorkeling around.
The water temperature is in the high 60’s to very low 70’s the mass of brown rock welcomes the heat of the sun to warm the water around Point Abbey.
The sprawling fields of rock around Point Abbey contain no fresh water aquatic plants and I can find no fish to photograph hiding around the erratic car sized boulders.
My attention is then amused with the waves as they roll in and plow into the rocks turning under and over the water mixing with the air before heading back out and become this day’s photo’ing subject.
Flowers for Helen
August 13th would have been my mother, Helen’s 96 birthday. In August there is an eruption of colorful flowers and as children my brothers and I would pick wild flowers for her birthday and now I photo and share them with you – for Helen!
The plans of fools and photographers
My camera was fully charged. I checked the weatherman’s forecast and confirmed it by standing out in my front yard searching for signs of severe weather. My snorkeling gear was cleaned and ready and my attitude was open and optimistic.
All the indicators pointed to it being a great day to venture out and try to become photography’s next Ansel Adams or capture a photo that gets put on the cover of National Geographic … if the photographic gods concur.
Too many influences and random happenstance’s make thinking today was that day is a fool’s errand but you learn to take what is given. Sometimes what is given to a photographer by the forces that be – whatever they may be – hard work, luck, talent, expensive equipment, divine intervention – occur only in a fraction of time in an unexpected place and your unprepared. This will be about one of those days.
10am I arrived at my snorkeling spot for the day put my camera bag and snorkeling gear on the dock and got in the water. Before I could even start getting set up I noticed something coming down the shore towards me. It was a muskrat. Excitedly but calmly I get my camera out of its case trying not to interrupt the muskrat’s mission.
The muskrat takes no notice of me passes with in a foot of my feet and just keeps on its route.
I watched as the muskrat disappears from sight. I regained my composure and gear up for what I had planned a fun day of snorkeling and photo’ing of fish and plants but with no luck of taking that one amazing photo. After 2 hours in the water I got out put away my equipment and lay in the sun on the dock to dry off. The warmth of the sun was mesmerizing and I may or may not have engaged in a slight nap.
Warmed and rested I guessed I had time for a quick swim. I swam out a 100 yards from the shore bobbed around and swam back to the dock. I had the feeling I was being watched I clambered back on the dock and as I stood up I noticed an immature bald eagle watching me from a nearby tree.
I’m not sure how long the eagle was sitting there? Was he there when I was out in the water the first time? Or did he show up while I was resting my eyes?
Camera in hand and ready I sat patiently and waited … and waited some more to see what this immature eagle was going to do. Appeared like it was just going to sit there and enjoy a sunny summer day and maybe take a nap (I may be a bad influence). I lost my focus and turned to see what else was going on around me and my movement made the eagle finally get tired of me and it jumped from its perch and I got a couple of photos as it took off and headed off across the lake.
Not the day I was expecting and no mind-blowing photos simply a day of a photographer.
Familiarity breeds contempt
My narrative if you have not experienced it you will have to believe me as I re-count my latest snorkeling adventure. The summer solstice has recently passed and the sun lazily traverses the sky, the days of norther Wisconsin seem to never want to end and the short daylight hours and cold of December never to return. The long daylight hours warm the many lakes and this brings all types of life into to the shallows of the lakes to do what the kids might say “getting busy” reproducing to continue the cycle of life.
The first thing I came across is a bass taking cover in the branches of a sunken downed tree perhaps taking a break from the obligations of being a bass?
Working my way south down the shore I find a bass aggressively defending its nest of just recently hatched fry
from being eaten by a horde of ravenous minnows.
If the bass is somewhat successful and some of its fry grow into bass-hood those same bass will have the advantage in the game of eat or be eaten taking exception to the song lyrics “summer time and the living is easy”
Pan fish excavate fields of craters in sand, gravel or just about any material in clusters of 5 to 25 or more in a group on the bottom of the lake bed that they use as nests to lay their eggs.
A male pan fish (the smaller one) bumps the belly of the female as she circles their recently dug nest so that she will lay her eggs and he can fertilize them.
Like the bass the pan fish will protect their nest of recently laid eggs
from all comers charging at them opening out its fins to look bigger and more menacing even trying to intimidate a lone photographing snorkeler who just wants to chronical there life’s struggles.
To be a witness of the things going on around us that familiarity can breed contempt for I am given the chance to show existence is not easy for anyone.
We’re Surrounded!
Living in city or hermetically sealed bubble, our own personal world or someone like me who lives in the north woods of Wisconsin we may not recognize that we’re surrounded … by life.
Animals, fish, insects, organisms and more surround us, help us, annoy us, and share the world with us if we notice it or not.
Algae forms a cotton candy like wisp on the tip of a broken tree branch that has fallen in the water and frogs hang their eggs off a different fallen branch, death and life collaborating.
A tree toppled in a formidable storm its exposed roots appear to be reaching out trying to right itself and get back on the path.
Spring and the aquatic plants are growing and in bloom so enjoy the tour along my photographic path.
The Old Man and the Hippy of fresh water.
Anthropomorphizing wildly while snorkeling the 62 degree water of Star Lake I come upon what I perceive as the Old Man and the Hippy of fresh water.
The Crayfish in my observation is the cantankerous old man with its pincers out and in your face cranky appearance of “stay off my lawn you damn kids!”
The Tadpole the exact opposite, the happy go lucky “dude it’s all good” Hippy shapeless and fluid to what is ever going on around it.
These may just be the thoughts going through a brain of a man spending 90 minutes in body and mind numbing 62 degree water speculating with which one of these he more identifies with?
The Season in Between
Spring and summer mix in the air being agitated by the warmth of the sun and zephyrs of newness fill your senses making you forget about old man winter.
Winter like weather held its control over northern Wisconsin; the weather did what it always does not concerned about what we wanted.
Free range puffy clouds roamed the vast blue sky and surreal reflections were revealed on the surface of Star Lake.
Taking my shoes off I wadded into the 56 degree lake water trying to capture colors, swirls, reflections and patterns that lasted seconds of the season in between.
Return to Stillness
“They” say that life is a circle. I took that to mean that life went in a circle like a race car on a track all life ended where it began a form of cosmic redundancy. I think I may have misinterpreted that thought after examining the growth rings of some recently cut down trees. The growth rings of the trees radiated out from the epicenter of the trunk and ended when the life the tree did.
You can see the same thing on a calm day when you toss a stone into water and watch as concentric rings of energy spread out until the momentum dissipates and events return to stillness.
Like the tree, the ripples in the water, the universe and life we start at one point and radiate out from the beginning until our energy ends and we return to stillness.
Beauty?
What does beauty look like?
Is beauty infective, reactive, subjective, defective or is it one size fits all?
Is there beauty in things we do not observe or disregard because we think it is not worth our time?
Can beauty coexist in things that scare or anger us or that we find icky?
If we have a fear of spiders can we find beauty in its geometric web?
Or can beauty happen in a snake or a slug?
Do fresh water mollusks have any beauty while they filter water or stick out their foot that looks like a tongue?
Should there be beauty in a cluster of eggs laid by what I believe to be frogs on sticks and plants in a lake?
On this divine week of April Fools/ Easter should there be more time spent as Marcus Aurelius instructs us to “dwell on the beauty of life”???
Reflective Nature
The rational and the irrational join with molecules of water on the surface of lakes, ponds, rivers even puddles in parking lots to reflect their surroundings sometimes swirled by spirits with a gust of wind.
Light and dark mingle with color and clarity reflecting the permanent and the impermanent making and ever changing mosaic of duel realms that imitate our thoughts through Mother Nature’s looking glass.
Feathers and Tails
On a recent exploration I noticed that someone had attached a six inch by six inch feeder to a random tree at a random location. The coming and going of dozens of Nuthatches and Chickadees is what drew my attention to this tiny bird feeder. The birds came in one’s and two’s to the feeder as more waited on nearby trees and branches for their turn.
Some birds worked the surrounding ground searching for any bird seed that might have been spilled.
A squirrel charged on to the feeder scattering the birds but they didn’t go very far. The squirrel ate like it was his last meal and a nuthatch or chickadee would land on one side of the feeder and take a seed. The squirrel did not want to share and would fake a lunge at the offending bird pilfering its seed.
The squirrel gorged, the birds seized at opportunity and the squirrel did its fake lunge and on it went.
With all this activity I didn’t think I would be noticed trying to take their photo but I was regarded like paparazzi in Hollywood as I tried to capture a photo the squirrel would move behind the tree to block the shot and giving me photos of just its tail.
The nuthatches and chickadees came and went so fast that I got photos of disappearing tail feathers or a blurry wing tip.
With minimal movement and waiting the nuthatches, chickadees and squirrel began to regard me as just another part of their environment and as long as I didn’t try to take any of their food they cared less about me and my camera.
Ducks, swans and “The” Groundhog … oh my?
The winter of 2020 – 21 had been an easy one with only 2 nights of low temperatures below zero into the first week of February with daytime highs in the mid 20’s to mid-30.
And then excessive bitter cold marched out of Siberia forced its way across Canada over the border and swept over my house in northern Wisconsin without a sound still on its way to Oklahoma and Texas. This is nothing new and most winters it is the norm from November to April but this year we started to believe it would never happen, so long underwear, bulky sweaters and puffy jackets stayed in the back of closets, but the groundhog knew better.
On February 2nd we have faith that groundhogs can forecast the weather for the next six weeks – this is not true. The groundhog cannot predict the weather; Groundhogs control the weather from there extensive underground layers where they are also the inventors of such things as the polar vortex, bomb cyclones, wind chill and Time Shares. Groundhogs would like you to imagine they are just cute, furry ground dwellers that we celebrate one day a year. In actuality they are a supper Marmota monax that have figured out how to influence the earth’s meteorological conditions for reasons only they know – all hail “The” Groundhog!
After rereading the first part of this essay I think this arctic blast has compelled me to spend way too much time in my house and that I should check my ever running gas furnace to make sure it’s venting outside and then head outside and Shackleton.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an English explorer who in 1915 while exploring in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica his ship the Endurance was crushed by pack ice. He and his crew spent nearly six months on a drifting ice flow before he and a few of his crew set out to find help, and after an arduous journey they were all saved. So that is the mind set I get myself into when I attempt to venture out into air so cold your nose could freeze, turn black and fall off in minutes. So into the back of the closet I go to dig out the long underwear, bulky sweater and puffy jacket and gear up to go Shackleton.
You may be asking “why would you do this?” Because if you didn’t Shackleton you might spend too much time in self-imposed seclusion in your warm home writing delusional ranting blogs about weather controlling groundhogs – that’s why.
Down to a small stream that the cold of winter has not frozen over and it still freely flows into a lake and at that spot ducks and swans gather to feed and rest from what life has given them like they always have.
When I arrive at the stream I am disappointed that I see no swans – I as scan the scene I notice lumps of snow in the water that are not lumps of snow but swans all curled up resting in the below zero temperatures.
As I am zooming in on the swans’ ducks fly in and land in the water right at me feet not paying any attention to me.
Just another day for swans and ducks – paddle around and eat in unfrozen water that if not moving would be frozen.
Swans in effervesces of sun and water makes me want to go for a swim – maybe tomorrow?
