Figure 1 – Pitcher flower, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI. (c) DE Wolf.

The gloomy weather here continues: cold, rainy, and windy.  We have even had our first snow, albeit of the nonsticking variety.  So I continue to “work up” photographs.  So today I am offering up an image of a pitcher plant again taken at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI, and again under really poor light.  But it was ever so vivid that I remember the moment including the damp warm smell of the Earth and the sound of running water.  These are always intriguing plants, and here I was attracted by the lovely, yet savage, shape captured between two blade like and out-of-focus leaves,

Pitcher plants are an adaptation of four families of carnivorous plants. Insects, such as flies, are attracted to the cavity formed by the pitcher shaped leaf. Often this involves an alluring smell or visual appearance.  The insect becomes trapped inside and ultimately drowns in the pitcher’s nectar.  The body of the insect is gradually dissolved.  The mechanism of this digestion can be quite complex.  It can involve symbiotic bacteria or lytic enzymes.  But also it can involve digestion by insect larvae within the liquid, in which case the insect excretes nutrients into the fluid. All these mechanisms create a nutritive brew of amino acid and other metabolites for the plant to feast upon.  It is a tribute to Darwinian evolution.

They are splendidly complex objects for photography. And I have photographed them before. The depth of possibilities is brilliantly explored by photographer Beth Moon in her “Savage Garden” series.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 98 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE mode, 1/100th sec at f/6.3, with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Bowl Ball Garden decorated for Halloween. (c) ABW 2014.

Halloween is pretty much my favorite holiday.  What could be better: costumes, candy, and really no religious baggage – Día de Muertos.  So it is pretty much with remorse each year when November rolls around.  Sometime in the seventies Halloween started to become a big deal commercially: costumes for adults, home decorating, and the like.  I am a great fan of giant blowup pumpkins, spiders, and ghosts!

But yesterday a reader posted on his Facebook page a picture from Wisconsin of his neighbors bowling ball garden, decorated for Halloween.  Every bowling ball had a ghoulish mask.  So I asked this reader to send me a higher resolution shot from his IPhone, which he was kind enough to do.  So as I take down the “Halloween Gallery” for another year, I thought that I would share this snapshot with you.  Also, I am hoping that it inspires people all over the world to decorate their bowling ball gardens for appropriate holidays: Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Diwali.  The possibilities are endless.

Figure 1 – Scoria at the Thai Garden in the Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI. (c) DE Wolf 2014

I am sitting in my dining room at my computer and listening to a cold rain falling on the roof.  It is a washout for the first Saturday in November, although I did venture out with my camera for a short walk through the woods.  Nothing grabbed me photographically, but I was content to watch the raindrops and the leaves fall into Sudbury’s Cricket Pond.  There is something really special about leaf covered paths on a rainy day  There is an inner peace to the dampness and the muted colors..

But now I am back home, warm, and happy to have some unfinished photographs to “work up.”  I am reasonably pleased by the image of Figure 1 of some scoria in the Thai Garden at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI. Scoria is a volcanic rock, filled with cavities from gaseous bubbles.  There is something wonderful about it – something that binds us to an ancient, growling Earth. Although our Hawaiian friends staring in the face of home-threatening lava fields may not agree.

Tonight is the time change and last night I thought nostalgically about the fading light.  I will not drive home from work in the light again until the first week of February.  The light of September that I spoke so fondly about is now long past, and I found myself wondering about night photography.  That is much more accessible and doable than it was in the days of film. On the other side of cycles, I may again enjoy the light of dawn illuminating fog enshrouded cows on my drives in. I guess that it is time to take down Hati and Skoll’s Halloween Gallery.

Figure 1 – Pigeons in flight, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Rock dove is a fancy name for our common pigeon.  The ones in Figure 1 were photographed in Concord, MA; so they are suburban birdsand probably drive BMWs.  As a result, they need a fancy Latin name, hence “Columba livia.”  I was watching these birds, their identity was obvious from the way they flocked and their flight pattern, as I walked along a muddy path this past Saturday at a farm in Concord.  They were obviously drawn by the remnants of September’s harvests but were quite a bit off.  But in the end my patience was rewarded when they flew frenzied past me against the background of the late fall foliage.

Birds are hard enough to photograph, but birds in flight represent a true challenge and it is more than a bit of a challenge to achieve the eyes in focus goal.  I didn’t quite accomplish it here.  But the feathers on the wings are well defined, and the seemingly random asynchronous beating delightful.  Birds always seem to be in a frenzy come October – all hurrying somewhere.  My father used to tell me that they were debating whether to go south for the winter and that birds like these pigeons debate too long.

I know that these guys will be huddling together come January, and it is a tribute to the resilience of nature that anything can survive outside in those elements.  We have ultimately to consider the pigeon quite noble.  They figure prominently in Darwin’s thought process that led to his “Origin of Species,” and for that we owe them a great gratitude.

Figure 1 – Radishes and sunflowers, Madison, WI. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

The image of Figure 1 was meant to be an experiment.  The goal was to let color dominate but then to break a few compositional rules, or at least to be quirky.  It was a cold wet morning at the Madison, WI farmers’ market when I saw this woman buying sunflowers. The brilliant yellow sunflowers were beckoning and they stood out against a pile of gorgeous radishes.  I had thought to exclude the woman’s face, but it seemed more interesting to let her nose and bangs enter into the image.  The vendor counting change and looking rather cold is relegated to the background.

I got exactly what I was after. With a little knife and a shaker filled with salt I could feast on those radishes! Whether it is a success, I have to ask you.