Figure 1 – The dried crown of Queen Anne’s lace, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sept. 12, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020

There is barely anything left of summer, but the days are still glorious and filled with September light. The Queen Anne’s Lace has begun to shrink into glorious, delicate, and complex puzzle crowns. The one in Figure 1 I photographed today with my iPhone X Max at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, my old and now renewed stomping ground. It was a cool, sunlit, and breezy day. I love these delightful twisted structures, and I love the fact that it is largely the physics of the drying process that creates.

Figure 1 – Sleepy afternoon on the couch, Belmont, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Figure 1 is another sight and happy memory of Labor Day Weekend. It is the simple and wonderful combination of cat and sunbeam. My friend Mr. Pili was so content that I could not bring myself to rouse him into a sleepy glare at the camera. Besides this is what cats do best. Despite the color in the photograph, the appeal to me here is the geometric tabby coat – wonderful swirls and the characteristic mark of the M on the forehead –  and the melange of geometric fabrics on the couch.

Pili stood for the picture, perhaps because it was complemented with an ear rub both before and after. Cats enhance us by sharing their world with us!

Figure 1 – Sunset over Spy Pond, Arlington, MA, Sept. 6, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

The obvious question to go with my fishing photograph of yesterday is whether there is a beautiful sunset image to go with it? And the answer, as shown in Figure 1, is yes. This is a PAN shot taken with my iPhone 10 Max. In my experience, you want to limit the pan to about 90 deg. That way you don’t get a lot of geometric distortion. Such a wonderful end to summer! I also have to marvel once more at the algorithms contained within Apple’s Cellphone cameras. On film, I am told, properly capturing a sunset is a tricky business. They need to be anticipate, that is photographed earlier than the point of glory. But here to the iPhone – No problem! 

Figure 1 – Idyll of Summer’s End, fishing on Spy Pond, Sept. 6, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

And so we have reached Labor Day, which symbolically marks the end of summer. Here on the east coast of the United States, and despite the pandemic, it has been a glorious summer. So it seems appropriate to end it with a brilliant idyll of summer. Figure 1 shows people fishing on the shore of Spry Pond in Arlington, MA. What is more symbolic of the lazy days of summer than fishing? What is more symbolic of the end of summer than a brilliant orange sunset?

Figure 1 – Chicken of the woods fungus, Belmont, MA, September 3, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Today was a marvelous and drizzly day, which took us into the wood at Rock Meadow in Belmont, Massachusetts. As we came upon a clearing we were greeted by the colorful fungus of Figure 1. This according to Google is a Laetiporus sulphureous, commonly known as a chicken of the woods. It is an edible mushroom, we are told, that takes like, yes you guessed it – chicken! 

Now here’s the thing, does one trust Google so implicitly that you are prepared to risk your very existence and actually scramble it up in your morning eggs. Here technology, friends, meets the existential and caution becomes the better part of valor!

Figure 1 – Great blue heron at the end of summer. Assabet River national Wildlife Refuge, August 30, 2020. (c) DE Wolf.

No trip to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge is complete without a photograph of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). The one in Figure 1 was captured preening itself against the late summer flowers and the waxing fall color. As I said in my last blog, it was just a picture perfect day.

Good to know that I can still use my birding lens well enough to capture a heron with sharp eye at a distance.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 365 mm, ISO 800 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/2000 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Water lily as August fades. Asset River national Wildlife Refuge, Maynard, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

We went to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge for the first time in over a year today, and I found this most perfect water lily complete with dark blue sky reflecting in the water. I has my big birding lens with me, which is always a cumbersome challenge, but note the well focussed water drop on one of the lily petals in the foreground.

Thoughts now fall to the end of summer and the coming of the glorious September light. I would say that September is the best time for photography, but the reality is that the best time is the moment, now! Today was the most perfect of days and I think this the most perfect water lily with its delicate reflection.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 210 mm, ISO 800 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/3200 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Natural clay over jasper mineral specimen. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

A friend of mine presented me with this wonderful clay on jasper mineral specimen. I loved the abstract nature of it, and Figure 1 is my first attempt at photographing the piece. It is a black and white from an iPhone image turned into a delicate duotone. It is perhaps too contrasty, and I didn’t quite get the very top the way that I wanted it – a bit botched in the process of creating the perfect velvet black background. Still there is something very anthropomorphic about the object, reminiscent, I think, of some ancient fertility goddess. Of course, other angles give you something quite different, and therein lies the beauty!

Figure 1 – Datura wrighti, the Devil’s Trumpet. Salem, MA, August 20, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

I have been having a wonderful time, in these golden dog days of August, photographing a flower a day. Using the app “plantnet,” I get to learn the names of ones that I am not familiar with. Today it is a the Devil’s Trumpet, Datura wrighti. Why the “devil’s trumpet?” What devilish work does it perform? As it turns out, all All Datura species are poisonous and potentially psychoactive. This is especially true of their seeds and flowers, which can cause respiratory depression, arrhythmias, fever, delirium, hallucinations, psychosis, and even death if taken internally. HIstorically, they have been used not only as poisons, but also as hallucinogens. They have, as a result, been associated with witchcraft and various forms of sorcery ( perhaps there is a Salem connection, as we head towards what will be a pathetic Halloween), and native Americans have used them ritualistically. 

In Figure 1, I have captured one being visited by a honey bee. With this Devil background one starts to see them as ghostly specters against the dark leaves. Here they were tucked in a shady street corner.