"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 
Spring 2020: April Colors 5 (Clematis in Bloom, 1 of 3)

Spring 2020: April Colors 5 (Clematis in Bloom, 1 of 3)

With most of my nearby worlds still shut down, my spring photography will for some indefinite time alternate between my-garden photo shoots and Oakland Cemetery photo shoots, both locations presenting plenty of subjects to keep me busy. On a nice day earlier this week, I did go over to Oakland for a bit of iris-hunting — as irises are making an appearance in any spot sunny enough to encourage them to bloom — and encountered more than a dozen varieties in every imaginable color between white and black. I had never actually seen black irises in real life; the black is strangely reflective of surrounding light, picking up deep purples from other parts of the flower that glowed in the camera’s viewfinder. Ah, but that’s for another day; this post doesn’t feature iris photos — I’ve got plenty of work to do on them before I can share — but it is the first of three posts featuring clematis blooms in my back yard.

When planted in pots, the growth of clematis vines is somewhat restricted, so all the blooms they’re going to produce for the season tend to come and go in a week or two. Mostly they’re already gone, having dissolved and blown away during some recent thunderstorms, so they live only here on my blog now rather than in the back yard. The first gallery shows a few of the flower buds on the day before they bloomed; the rest are, of course, some of the blooms.

The previous posts in this series are:

Spring 2020: April Colors 4 (White, Orange, and Red-Red); and

Spring 2020: April Colors 3 (Purple and Yellow (and Yellow and Purple)); and

Spring 2020: April Colors 2 (Catawba Grapevine); and

Spring 2020: April Colors 1.

Thanks for taking a look!




7 Comments

    1. Dale

      Thank you! The camera (and the photographer) really like the clematis colors.

      As to staying safe in Georgia, many of us are learning that ignoring the governor is a “best-practice” for the time being. Atlanta’s mayor has done a great job communicating, and even though she can’t over-ride the governor, she’s encouraging people to stay the course and remain safe at home … which is what I’m doing.

      Thanks for the comment! 🙂

    1. Dale

      The Post-Processing Department (!!) is working on the iris photos, so they’re in the darkroom (that is, Lightroom) for sorting, color treatments, spot removals, and other enhancements. Delivery date to-be-determined (I’ve got two hundred of them).

      Yes, we Georgians seem to have entered the political part of the pandemic, which feels a lot like a blend of 1984 and Full Metal Jacket — while our dysfunctional “leaders” squabble over telling us what to do. It was quite a surprise when the governor opened a bunch of businesses, especially after saying just a few days prior that it wasn’t going to happen yet, and providing no real plan (except a checklist in his executive order) for those businesses. Some are trying it, but a lot more are staying the course and staying put, because it’s so obvious that it’s too early to begin opening. To her credit the mayor of Atlanta — even though she can’t supersede the governor — is assembling a team to develop opening plans and provide guidance to businesses and citizens. For now, I’m not changing anything I’ve been doing, except keeping an even closer eye on what’s happening around me.

      Thanks for the comment!

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