Saturday, June 18, 2005

the secret life of weeds

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Two barns had come down in one week, and my mood was definitely gray if not black. It occurred to me that it has been awhile since we checked in on the progress of the corn crop. With all good intentions of grabbing some corn shots, I started tramping around at the edge of the field. Every photo seemed to be boring and uninspired. In frustration I headed toward a large stand of sticky, bristly weeds near the treeline.

At this point I realized that I was walking, walking, walking aimlessly, snapping and hoping for a photograph to appear. I decided to stand still at the edge of the weed patch and take the time to slow down and observe. Motionless, I listened to the sounds - the ever present prairie wind and an unfamiliar bird call. My eyes turned towards the weeds where if you looked closely you could discern strange forms and wonderful color.

The weedy landscape changed over the following 15 minutes. A dragonfly flitted between the plant, making it impossible to catch him with the camera. Flies sunned themselves on broad leaves and butterflies danced playfully over the dangerous barbs. The thistle leaves created a canopy shading the prehistoric looking stem.

A wonderful way to spend a quarter of an hour.....slowing down and taking notice of the secret life of weeds.

2 comments:

KatKit13 said...

I've been meaning to ask - is your camera a digital? And if so - what brand? You take stunning photos.

Suzanne said...

First of all, thanks to all who take the time to visit and leave comments. It's greatly appreciated.

I actually have several cameras - a Nikon D70, which still presents a challenge to me until I take the photography class this fall and refresh all the information I forgot over the years! This photo was taken with my digital Fuji Finepix S5000, which is an excellent camera in it's own right. I get consistently fine photos from the Fuji, and the color is always awesome. It has a decent 10X zoom. I also have my original film camera, bought brand new in 1975 - a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic. It's a tank - all metal, no plastic parts. You could probably roll over it with a truck and it would still take pictures. No batteries to worry about, except for a tiny one to run the light meter, and I love the manual focus on this camera. There's a small Nikon digital point and shoot that's always tucked in my purse, and a tiny little pen cam (spy cam) which is actually alot of fun. Then there's a new toy - - the 1954 TLR Rolleiflex that I picked up on Ebay. I'm really anxious to take some pics with that and possibly get into developing my own black and white. Can you tell I get a little carried away when I get into something? Don't ask about my knitting addiction!! HA HA.

And if you go here:http://www.flowtobliss.com/visualflow/
you'll see some awesome photos taken with a super slim Casio Xlim.

Regards, Suzanne