"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Tag: winter

Happy New Year!

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From Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings by Madeleine L’Engle:

“New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day come not out of the church year but out of the dawn of human life. To our ancient forebears… the stretching nights of early winter and the shortening days were terrifying. Was the night going to swallow up the day? Was the life-giving sun going to slide down the western horizon and be lost forever? It must have seemed a real possibility to those dwellers in caves or tree houses, who knew nothing they could not see with their own eyes about the movements of the suns and the stars.

“So, when it slowly became apparent that the sun was staying in the sky a minute longer than it had the day before, and then a minute longer, there was great rejoicing, and feasting and fun…. But it was more than fun. It was spontaneous gratitude that the world was not coming to an end.”

From The Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau by Henry David Thoreau:

“[What] shall be my new-year’s gift, then? Why, I will send you my still fresh remembrance of the hours I have passed with you here, for I find in the remembrance of them the best gift you have left to me. We are poor and sick creatures at best; but we can have well memories, and sound and healthy thoughts of one another still….”

From Beautiful at All Seasons: Southern Gardening and Beyond by Elizabeth Lawrence:

“As the New Year comes around I always wonder what flowers will be here to greet it….”

Hello! Hello!

I always like to find some white flowers blooming during the last week of December, to post here on New Year’s Day. Below are this year’s galleries: some paperwhites, white quince, and white camellia, followed by renderings of a few of the quince and camellia flowers on black backgrounds.

Thanks for taking a look, and…

Happy New Year!  

Snowdrops and Snowflakes, Daffodils and Tulip Leaves

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From “The Onset of Spring” in A Garden of One’s Own by Elizabeth Lawrence:

“No matter how closely you watch for the snowdrops, you never quite catch them on the way. One day the ground is bare, and the next time you look, the nodding buds are ready to open!“

From “February (Winter Blooms)” in Through the Garden Gate by Elizabeth Lawrence:

“English snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), called Candlemas bells, or Mary’s tapers, are the emblem of hope. They are not often seen hereabouts, as their place is taken by the snowflake, which grows so much better with us, but I have had them in my garden by the second of February or before….

“One of the stories of the garden of Eden is that it was snowing when Adam and Eve were driven out, and the Angel, touching the flakes, turned them to flowers as a sign that spring would come.“

Below are five views of a snowdrop I found growing in the filtered light provided by a large maple tree, at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens. I couldn’t decide if I liked the partially darkened background (in the last three shots) better than the others … so I included all five photos.

I took the photos below in the same area, thinking they, too, were a kind of snowdrop … yet imagine my surprise to discover that they aren’t.

I’ve mentioned before here that I often use a site called Plantnet Identify to help me figure out the names of various plants and flowers that I photograph. I typically use the site as a research-starter, since it takes a picture you upload and returns the names and images of possible matches, which I then chase down some googly rabbit-holes to see if I can confirm the plant’s identity. I uploaded one of the three pictures below, and here’s what Plantnet said:

Loddon-lily? Spring snowflake? — what? not a snowdrop?

Turns out many people (!!) get confused by these two plants, enough that there are articles describing how they’re different. See, for example: What is the difference between snowdrops and snowflakes? Or just remember this: snowdrop flowers have petals that look like helicopter blades with only one flower on a stem; snowflakes look like tiny bells and will often produce multiple flowers, clustered near each other, at the tip of each stem.

If you would like to learn more about the differences between these two plants, see Galanthus (the snowdrop’s plant family) and Leucojum (the snowflake’s plant family). The history and cultural references for the snowdrop, in particular, are interesting to read.

Here are the first three snowflake photos:

Here are three more snowflakes, produced with a little more grain in the images because they were nestled in a very shady spot so I used I higher ISO — which rendered the images a lot softer in focus, but not entirely unpleasant to look at. 🙂

Here are five views of one of the early daffodils I found, one of the few hardy enough to produce two large flowers during these late-winter, early-spring days. The five views were taken at decreasing focal lengths; and for the last two, I used a shallower depth of field to blur the backgrounds more but retain some of the surrounding purple, gold, and blue colors highlighted by a bit of reflected sunlight. The background colors in all five photos come from pine bark and leaves that fell around the hibernating daffodils during late fall and early winter.

Sometimes nature just likes to surprise me with its deceptively simple yet elegant forms. Here’s a batch of tulip leaves, just a few inches high, soaking in some mid-day sunlight, probably waiting a few more days to send up some blooms.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Winter Shapes and Forms (3 of 3)

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From “The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind” in Selected Poetry of William Wordsworth, edited by Mark Van Doren:

When I began in youth’s delightful prime
To yield myself to Nature, when that strong
And holy passion overcame me first,
Nor day or night, evening or morn, was free
From its oppression. But, O Power Supreme!

Without Whose call this world would cease to breathe,
Who from the fountain of Thy grace dost fill
The veins that branch through every frame of life,
Making man what he is, creature divine….

From “The Thorn” in Selected Poetry of William Wordsworth, edited by Mark Van Doren:

[What] lovely tints are there
Of olive green and scarlet bright,
In spikes, in branches, and in stars,
Green, red, and pearly white!

This is the last post in a three-part series showing some natural shapes and forms revealed by winter. The first post is here: Winter Shapes and Forms (1 of 3); and the second post is here: Winter Shapes and Forms (2 of 3).

What can you say about sticks?

While the tree these branches hung from was winter-stripped — and just beginning to create new leaves for spring — I had an autumn version of the same tree (see the first gallery here: Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-up #2) and was able to use those photos to identify it as Cercidiphyllum japonicum, or, more pronounceably, Japanese Katsura.

If I could make up my own names for plants (I sometimes do!), I would have called these Reindeer Hooves. Take a closer look at any of the images — especially the fifth one — to see what I mean. 🙂

Here’s a wider view of the branch I took the closeups from. When we move a bit later into spring, I’ll go back and see how this beauty is progressing. Is it weird to be fascinated by sticks?

This giant oak or elm grows not far from the entrance to Oakland Cemetery; and it’s one of the widest and tallest on the property. Here you are seeing only the top half of the tree, because (without a wide-angle lens, and perhaps not even then) there is no vantage point on the property from which the camera can capture the entire tree. It seems even more impressive with no leaves, and if you would like to see the intricate branch detail, select the image, then select “View Full Size” … or click here.

I got photo-bombed by a jet while taking snaps of the tree; select either image to see the “tiny” plane.

Here’s a variation I had fun with, by removing most of the blue color and adding saturation to purple and magenta. Or, this is a picture of the tree dreaming it was in a snowstorm….

… and here it is, dreaming of blizzards.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!