Wet Flowers - 1

Think of these endless photos of flowers and plants as an exercise in learning to look at common things a new way. I'm certainly learning to see things in a new way and I hope you are as well.



Since these images were made in the brief bit of lighter sky between rain showers, the snails were once again out for some exercize. This guy/gal seems to be about to lose his/her home as s/he clings to the vertical side of our front steps.

Another front yard flower is the long slender yellow one that I do not know the name of. Just hanging there with the sexy bits for all to see. I guess if you are a flower, that is pretty much the point...exposing yourself to the world in hopes that one of the viewers is a suitable pollinator.

This is definitely one of the images where I want to challenge you see differently. Just a couple leaves on a tree, right? Yes, but when viewed with an open mind, you can find curves and shapes that are quite beguiling. The water drops mirroring the hole created by insects. the leaf in the foreground mirroring the more distant one. The translucence of the flesh of the leaf allowing you to see that one side of the leaf has water drops that are mirrored by the ones on the other. There's a lot going on here.

Although I set out to make a very different photo, the one below still works even though almost nothing is really in focus. I had intended this to be a photo of the central flower, all in focus, with a soft background of the rest of the similar plants behind it. Instead, I got an all around fuzzy image. So, plan B is this image. I exaggerated the softness and reduced the contrast. I desaturated a bit, then cranked up the yellows to bring the eye to the central core of the blossom. The end result is a dreamy composition that probably works better than my original idea.

Much of life is like that. We start in one direction with a clear focus and end up somewhere else looking through a frosted lens at the world. Neither is really better. Both are fun. Interestingly, we all end up in a dreamy world of memories painted in watercolor pastels no matter how focused our lives might be.

So sit back and enjoy the focused parts and the fuzzy parts. As the old McDonald's commercial used to say, "Parts is parts!". It is all good. No matter which part you are experiencing just now, embrace it. It is all life. It is the only one we've got.