Figure 1 – The asiatic dayflower, Salem, MA, August 17, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

I was headed out on my morning walk today when I discovered this charmingly tiny (less than 3/4 “) and vividly blue flower of Figure 1, single flower on the stalk. It looked ever so much like an orchid, which in fact, it is not! I took the image and immediately fed it into the PlantNet app on my phone to discover that it is an Asiatic Dayflower (Commelina communis). 

The story, I think, gets interesting from there. In the Northeast it is an invasive weed – despite being pretty. The reason that it is call a dayflower is that it blooms for a single day a year – so for this little guy/girl August 17, 2020. The wikipedia tells us all sorts of interesting things about this diminutive azure flower. First, Linnaeus described the species in the first edition of his landmark work, Species Plantarum, in 1753. Second, it can bioaccumulate a number of metals, which makes it a good candidate for revegetating and clean-scrubbing spoiled copper mines. Third, in China it is used as a medicinal herb with febrifugal, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic effects. And, finally, in Japan there is a dye industry associated with this plant, The colorant is known to have been used by famous Ukiyo-e artists such as Torii Kiyonaga. 

For me however, it was a simple matter of enjoying the royal beauty of this miniature single-day blooming flower. Perhaps its ephemeral nature is symbolic of the finite nature of human life and how it is to be enjoyed, especially in the seeking of beauty and wonder in nature.

Figure 1 – Reflections of the “When and if” under the ferry pier, August 10, 2020, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

It’s been a while since I posted a purely abstract photograph. Today’s image, Figure 1, shows the reflections under the pier, where Patton’s “When and If” is docked. I was struck particularly by the brown distortions which are the reflections of the masts. Technically these distortions are colored caustic bands, which we have spoken about before. In a sense this photograph, like others, that I’ve taken recently screens of the dog days of summer, when the sky is bright, the skies are blue, and the air is hot!

Figure 1 – August day on the Beach, Stage Fort Park, Gloucester, MA – August 8, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Yesterday we drove up to Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA with the assumption that the crowds would be too large to risk or even to find parking. However success! The lot was nearly empty and the the beach was also largely devoid of people. So we had some nice social-distanced moments look at the rocks and dipping toes in the water with its gentle surf. The gulls and duck also kept their social difference as they observed us disinterestedly. The scene of Figure1, a kind of still life, for me completed the sense of a warm summer’s day in August. I a sense you almost feel as if you are transported into one of those summer seaside scenes from the Boston Impressionists, where all the ladies are in white. Here the sandals in the sand, the path of stones, and the seaweeds suggest the whole story.

Figure 1 – Photopictorialism study #19, “The Path through the Meadow.” Rock Meadow Conservation Area, Belmont, MA. August 1, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

It has been almost a year since I last posted a photopictorialism study. The goal is to create an image that mimics, at some level, painting, particularly in the style of photo bromoil prints and impressionist painting. What these studies have taught me is the spectrum of techniques that can be used to add noise or confusion to a photograph, in a pleasing and artistic way – enhancing the story by shedding the detail.

Today’s image is the 19th such study in my collection. I call it “The path through the Meadow.” I took it last Saturday at Rock Meadow Conservation Area in Belmont, MA. From its conception, I knew that noise needed to be used to create a veil of mystery in the image. After all, we are never quite clear where a particular path will lead, and,  of course, the very term path is an allegory for the journeys in our lives. A hot mid-summer evening, golden setting sun, a sultry atmospheric feeling. I added noise in the simplest of fashions using the “add noise” feature of Adobe Photoshop.

There are so many quotes concerning paths. I will resist Robert Frost and the Road not Taken and use instead

“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana

Such is the fundamental philosophic conflict. Is our journey merely chaos? Is there a method to our madness, our seemingly mindless wandering? Or just possibly are we preordained to go this way?

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm lens at 70 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/250th sec at F/7.1, with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Waterlily, Concord, MA, August 3, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Here is the ultimate return to childhood, summer days – the gentle rush of rowboat or canoe gliding over a crop of waterlily pads. Figure 1 shows a real beauty of a waterlily (Nymphaea odorata) gracing a pond in Concord, MA. The image is dominated by the intense white and the contrasting deep and mysterious darkness of the pond. The reflection seems, in fact, to show greater and subtler detail of grey in the petals than the flower itself which like Icarus ventures too close to the sun. Water lilies accentuate the quintessential quality of August’s dog days; sultry warm, high overarching cumulus clouds, and gentle breezes. Winter seems far away, but we are reminded that September and the transition to autumn will soon come to the world. The waterlily is the botanical analogue of the swan, brilliant and virgin white, gliding over the surface of the pond, reminiscent of eternity.

“The world must live. We are only one species among billions. The gods don’t love us any more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies.”

Daniel Quinn

Canon T2i with EF 70-200 L f/4.0 USM mm lens at 200 mm, ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/125th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Monarch butterfly on purple phlox, Rock Meadow Conservation Area, Belmont, MA, August 1, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

These are truly the glory days of summer, hot with luscious evening light. Such an afternoon was this past Saturday, and we visited the Rock Meadow Conservation Area in Belmont, MA. The flowers and the light were glorious, and the world was alive with buzzing bees and alighting butterflies. Figure 1 will serve as remembrance on a cold January day come winter. It shows a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) dining on the nectar of a splendid display of pink phlox (Phlox maculata). I speak in superlatives because that is precisely what is needed to mentally make it through the current insanity. 

I read an interesting article about how we can return to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and the writings of Aldo Leopold in the 1930’s, both of whom record the dates of first flowering of species such as phlox, to find evidence of climate change. Systematically, over the course of some 160 years, flowers first appear earlier and earlier due to global warming. Indeed, flowers in Massachusetts typically appear six weeks earlier than they did in Thoreau’s time.

I guess that it all comes together in the very simple message to the fools in Washington, DC. Science is unrelenting. In science, Kellyanne, there are no “alternative facts“. Viruses and flowers obey the laws of nature, not political hype and fantasy.

Canon T2i with EF70-200L f/4.0 USM lens at 135 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1300th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation. 

Figure 1 – Mr. Pili takes the time to smell the flowers, July 2020. Belmont, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

My love of cats will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. So, today I wanted to share this photograph of Mr. Pili, who is outwardly a beautiful cat and inwardly a great philosopher. Mr. Pili joined us for a lovely Summer’s Saturday brunch on the deck. He paused a moment from basking in our adoration to smell the flowers. As always he taught us just a bit more about the important things and moments in life!

Figure 1 – American Yellow Lotus, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge , Concord, MA, July 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

And finally in Figure 1, we have the lotus flower itself – The North American or Yellow Lotus (Nelumbo lutea). The lotus is such a beautiful flower; so delicate and complex in structure. It brings such beauty to our world.

The mythic symbolism, particularly in Buddhism and Hinduism arguably evolves from the fact that the lotus grows in the most fetid of ponds and serves to purify the water. Both Vishnu and Lakshmi are often portrayed standing on and holding a lotus blossom. This image is repeated in the west by the birth of Venus on the half shell.  Venus stands in the half shell as perfect in beauty as a pearl. The profoundest of myths of the lotus is that of Lord Brahma sitting in the lotus flower that grows from the navel of the sleeping Lord Vishnu. Each morning the lotus flower opens and each night it closes. These symbolize the eternal pattern of birth, death, and resurrection. Each cycle of opening and closing represents a life in the journey.

The western parallel is equally profound and equally focuses on the trinity of birth, death, and resurrection. In the great Cathedral at Chartres, we find the famous Jesse window.  This stained-glass triumph of medieval art shows a supine Jesse out of whose loins grows the ancestral tree of David to Mary to the Christ. 

“Et egredietur virga de radice Iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet.” 

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots”

Isaiah 11.1

To see a lotus blossom, especially as I did on this summer’s day surrounded by thousands of lotus flowers, each of equal beauty, one can not help but realize that it is much more than a flower. It is symbolic of everything and every time.

“Everything turns in circles and spirals with the cosmic heart until infinity. Everything has a vibration that spirals inward or outward — and everything turns together in the same direction at the same time. This vibration keeps going: it becomes born and expands or closes and destructs — only to repeat the cycle again in opposite current. Like a lotus, it opens or closes, dies and is born again. Such is also the story of the sun and moon, of me and you. Nothing truly dies. All energy simply transforms.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

Canon T2i with EF70-200 mm lens at 200 mm, ISO 200, Aperture priority AE Mode 1/640th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1- Lotus leaf holding water – the warp in space-time that is the universe. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

The lotus mythically and philosophically is representative of the sequence of birth, life, death, and resurrection. And this sequence perpetuates infinitely. In short, the lotus is the universe. Last Saturday I saw these lotus leaves holding giant water drops. This is shown in Figure 1. A dear friend, and lotus lover, led me to see this differently. I recognized that in that pattern is the warp in spacetime that defines the universe. It is the juncture of science and myth, which was, after all, never very far away.

“As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so I, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world.”

Canon T2i with EF 70-200 F/4.0L USM lens at mm, ISO 200, Aperture priority AE Mode 1/400th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.