The surest sign of fall is the end of the Minnesota State Fair. With perfect temps and blue skies, the fair set a new attendance record this year. Living just a few blocks away from the fairgrounds has its good and bad — lots of car traffic, people everywhere, the sounds of the shows at the Grandstand, and the fireworks every night. Now the neighborhood returns to its usual routine, and we slide into fall. Already there are spots of color in some of the trees. The temperatures slide a little bit cooler in the evenings, and the sun has lost its intensity. The Canada geese are flying again, cruising over our rooftop as they commute between the agricultural fields at the university and Como Lake. The summer flowers are fading and the fall mums are evident in gardens and on entry steps. This morning the children were standing at bus stops waiting for their first day back at school. All the familiarities that tell us the seasons have changed.
flowers
The things we overlook
How often do we start out to do one thing and end up with something else? And how often do we overlook what’s right in front of us? We headed out a bit before sunrise this morning for Wild River State Park. This is a large Minnesota state park located on the St. Croix River. My intent was to photograph the wildflowers that bloom in the restored prairie in the park. As we’re driving along the edge of the prairie, my eyes were seeing some unusual white “flowers” — they seemed to have a tuft at the top. They certainly didn’t appear to be anything I recognized, but I was intrigued enough to stop and look further. Upon closer examination I realized that these weren’t flowers at all. The early morning dew was undisturbed by wind and sun, and it was decorating the cobwebs that had been woven between the dried flower heads and stems. And once I looked through the camera lens further, these intricate dew drops almost appeared to have been “strung” along the web, with a small eyelet on each one. As I photographed I was thinking of how grateful I was to have been curious enough to stop the car and look closely at what I was seeing from a distance. How much easier it would have been to have said “no wildflowers here” and continued down the road. How sad it would have been to miss the wonder and beauty that was there for that small window of time before the wind blew and the sun dried the dew.
McNeely Conservatory summer flower garden
One of my favorite places to go, whether to photograph or to soothe my soul is the McNeely Conservatory in Como Park. The Sunken Garden flower shows are a feast of color to the eyes and a treat to my sense of smell. Right now the summer flowers are on exhibit in the garden. I was fortunate to be there one night this past week when there were only a few fellow photographers. It was peaceful, calm, and very quiet except for the water flowing at the base of the sculpture. This bronze piece is titled “Play Days” and was created by Harriet Frishmuth in the early 1900’s. On this night the young woman was surrounded by a beautiful reflection of the evening sky and the blooming flowers of summer.
Coneflower blooms
The heat of summer brings the purple coneflowers into abundant bloom. And one of the best places to photograph these delights of summer is in my own backyard. Most photographers understand how important it is to be in close proximity to what you choose to photograph, allowing you to be there when the light changes, when the scene changes, and to observe and “see” the subject in much more detail. So my backyard is the perfect practice-field for me. Last night we enjoyed a beautiful evening — nice light, no winds — a perfect setting for photographing. This bloom was calling to me to sit on the ground and photograph upward, capturing the opacity of the petals, and colors of the entire plant, and to see it from a different perspective. Little did I know that there was a small insect hiding underneath too, posing just as I snapped the shutter on the camera.
Clematis
It is a beautiful time of year right now — our garden is in full bloom. I try to walk through the gardens each morning, allowing myself to observe the changes in the flowers and plants and to marvel at the new ones that have just bloomed. Our roses have burst into bloom, the hydrangeas are coming along, the lilies are budded, but right now it’s the clematis that are stealing the show. We have over a dozen different varieties, and each is unique in its sun & shade requirements, its bloom time, its size, and its color. This photo is of one of the newer clematis – silver moon. It’s bloom is large, soft, and of the palest color – almost as if whispering the shades and hues of its petals. With a garden in full bloom it’s easy to overlook the cold and snow that Mother Nature sends to us in winter — this makes the wait all the more worthwhile.
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