Category: photos

frost feathers

Over the winter, I often would find that my car (parked overnight in the driveway) would be covered with frost in the morning. I frequently admired the various patterns. In fact, it was only a few days after I posted a series of photos of the scribble-like frost patterns I’d seen on my car on different days that I went out to find these new and unexpected frost designs:

Rather than the more typical zig-zaggy patterns, the car was covered swiling, whirling whorls and arcs, reminding me strongly of plumes.

Interestingly, it was not just the windows that were frosty, as was often the case, but the whole body of the car.

I suspect that the patterns were not so much frost as thin sheets of ice from freezing rain, which wind had blown around as it froze.

The patterns were just so feathery.

The piles of stuff in the back of the hatchback showed through, adding various colors to the palette of swirls.

These shapes remind me of palm trees.

I had remembered that I’d taken these photos and have been meaning to post them, but I hadn’t remembered that I had taken them the same morning as I took so many photos of ice drops in the back yard. I do wish that I’d gotten some photos with my real camera, and not just my phone, but I suspect that the delicate frost patterns didn’t survive much of that sunny morning.

Photos from a sparkling winter morning

Those of you who have known me for a while will surely know that “sparkling” is not a word that typically gets anywhere near the word “morning” in my world. (Certainly it is not a word that has ever been used to describe me in the morning.) However, there was one morning this January when I was bedazzled by the sparkle of own backyard.

After bustling the kids out to the bus, I walked down the driveway to be greeted by a display of glittering light. The sprinkling of freezing rain the night before had left droplets of ice and water decorating the tangled vines and thorns of our overgrown garden.

The winter sun was low in the sky, gradually burning off the cold mist.

The low rays lit up the ice and water drops all around.

In many places, there were water droplets, lined up along the horizontal branches like dangling crystal beads.

Little balls of ice had been caught in the winding twists of wild grape vines, looking like jewels wrapped in wire.

I was charmed by the twists and coils, the quirky designs of some mildly deranged jeweler.

(This one reminded me of a dangling lightbulb.)

I first tried to snap photos with my iPhone (not shown), but the phone came nowhere close to capturing what I was seeing. I went inside and got my real camera with telephoto lens.

Even with the good camera and good lens, focusing was a challenge. These little beauties were only a couple of centimeters across, with the ice drops probably measuring 6 or 8 millimeters. (I find it funny that the jewelry-like shape of these forms inspires me to use the metric system. When I buy beads, they are always measured in millimeters.)

Using my long lens also meant that I had to be several feet from my target. (See? Feet. I am an American.) It was often tricky to even find what I was trying to focus on in my screen, and any little sway of my body would often throw the focus off. (Really, a tripod would have helped, but I’m not sure how it would have worked the way I had to contort myself to get the different angles to capture the sparkle.) I went back inside to get my pancake lens (200 mm fixed length lens), and had better luck.

Clearly, I was bedazzled, as I see from my photo metadata that I spent about 2 hours taking photos. (Not counting breaks to come in to change lenses, and to look at the photos on my laptop.)

My fingers were numb in my fingerless gloves when I finally tore myself away. It was, after all, an icy January morning.

It was totally worth it.

drip, drip, drop

It rained today, a little April shower.

I didn’t get any photos of the rain today, but here is a photo from March. I liked the way the drips lined themselves up. (And now I like the way we no longer have snow on the ground. We were away for the weekend, and the last of the snow had departed by the time we returned.)

The drips and drops remind me of the song “Little April Shower,” which I loved as a little girl. We had the record (it must have been a single) and I used to play it over and over on a little plastic record player. I’d do a little dance (not shown). Here is the clip of the song from the Disney movie:

As an adult I have enjoyed the Natalie Merchant version off the album Stay Awake. I can’t believe that even that album is now over 25 years old.

neon light on raindrops

It was raining as we drove down to New York on Friday night. When we stopped at the truck stop/rest area half way down, I admired the way the neon lights were reflected on the raindrops on the windshield.

These are really just various crops of the same photo.

I like the way the reds and oranges look flame-like in the watery patterns.

Tell me that this doesn’t look like a semi-abstract surrealist painting.

old thyme photos (friday foto finder: herbs)

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that I am not capable of talking about thyme without making puns.

This week’s friday foto finder challenge is “herbs.” Well, actually, it’s “HERBS.” So maybe I should have tried to finds some Herbs, not herbs. I don’t actually know any Herbs. I did learn that there is a slang meaning of herb (with the h pronounced) that means, more-or-less, “dork.” I don’t know if admitting that I learned that on Urban Dictionary makes me a herb. Let’s pretend not.

Anyhow, I seem to have gotten sidetracked by herbs (h pronounced) while looking for herbs (silent h). I did find some herbs, but not much in the way of an interesting photo. I did remember that I’d gotten some thyme as part of my experience belonging to a CSA in 2007, and tracked down this old photo, which features some thyme hanging out with some veggies. So, we have an old photo of thyme.

Then I vaguely remembered having bought some fresh herbs to use in preparing my Thanksgiving feast. Remarkably, the package of thyme has held up quite well in my refrigerator. I was amused to see that the label says “Infinite.” No wonder it has lasted so well, being infinite thyme. (I never realized I was someone with infinite thyme on my hands. Or in my vegetable drawer.)

But wait! It gets older! When I was checking to see if there was anything interesting of the herbal variety in my spice cabinet, I found this bottle of “Organic Lemon Thyme,” which someone long ago had lovingly labeled with masking tape and bubble letters. This is not actually thyme that I have used, and I didn’t really mean to save it. I liked the bottle, which had been in an apartment I lived in when I was an undergraduate. That was over 20 years ago.

This, my friends, is some old thyme.

To see what other herbs have been dug up, pay a visit to the fff blog. Have some herbs you want to share? There’s still time to play along!

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poissons d’avril

Okay, I took this picture of fish in February, not April. But it’s April now, and I’m pretty sure the fish are still more or less where I left them. (Which was in the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park.) I liked the way this group of koi displayed such a range of colors.

My post title, in case you were wondering, is a reference to the way the first of April is celebrated in France, a sort of fish-themed April Fool’s Day. The main tradition is to put a piece of paper in the shape of a fish on the back of an unsuspecting person, and to shout “poisson d’avril!” (translation: “April fish!”) when the fish is discovered. I kid you not.¹

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¹ I kid you not, but I would totally try to sneak a paper fish onto your back.

signs of spring

After all my moaning and groaning about the way Winter was overstaying its welcome, Spring showed up on our doorstep rather unexpectedly. (Happily, Spring does not need to stay in the guest room, because we usually aren’t prepared for unexpected visitors.) A few days and nights with temps above freezing greatly diminished the snow piles, and on Saturday I saw our first open crocuses.

I may have done a happy dance.

A week earlier, our crocus patch had looked like this:

Little green shoots peeking out tentatively, taking advantage of the snow pile’s recent retreat.

We had some minor setbacks, with Winter trying to muscle back in with a sleet storm on Monday. The crocuses closed up tight.

Is it just me, or do these crocuses look rather irritated?

I’m happy to say that yesterday, Spring came back, and the crocuses and I enjoyed the warm, bright sun.

Today, the temperature even reached as high as 60 degrees! (Only the most stubborn of the snow piles remain, hiding out in the shadows.)

The crocuses and I agreed that today felt like Spring has settled in.

The 8-legged butterflies of Nara, Japan

10 years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Japan for a conference. The conference itself was held in Nara, a very old city whose historical monuments are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There I visited Todai-Ji, a temple housing the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. The large wooden temple also housed a number of other statues and decorations, including these giant butterflies perched on enormous vases. (I don’t remember exactly how big they were, and my photos are unhelpful in terms of offering things for scale, but you can sort of make out some people heads in the lower left corner of the first photo.)

I was particularly intrigued to notice that the butterflies all had 8 legs, rather than the usual 6.

I found that I was quite charmed by them.

I’m just rather sorry that my point-and-shoot camera didn’t do as well with the trick low-light conditions as my current camera does. I will just have to go back to get new photos some day.

This week’s friday foto finder theme was “butterfly.” I have posted on butterflies many times before (including a ThThTh list as well as some of my own photos), but somehow had not yet managed to post these curiosities. To see what other butterflies have been collected, pay a visit to the fff blog.

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