Sunset
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Tonal abstraction
Cat Portrait by the lower pond
Here I want to expose for the sun, so that it looks like the orange ball I could see.
Early spring, Central Missouri
Standing by the large juniper I call the Master Cedar the sun sets in the forest behind the upper pond. The Master Cedar is thick with new growth, providing a home for a spider.
Standing by the large juniper I call the Master Cedar the sun sets in the forest behind the upper pond.
In the center is a large sycamore, the upper pond is off to the right.
In the center is a large sycamore, the upper pond is off to the right.
Winter sycamore, sunset reflecting off the snow.
Sunset a couple days before the Hunter's full moon. Sunset lights up the tree tops.
Sunset a couple days before the Hunter's full moon. Sunset lights up the tree tops.
The forest at sunset offers beauties only seen when the sun strikes through the tree trunks to illuminate the many paths to take. And when the lens picks up interesting lights.
The way through the forest, neither strait nor straight, twists, turns, narrows and widens, pauses here and there, which way to go now? Many are the ways,many are the destinations. There is no way to say which destination this way goes to. Finding my way through the forest, burdened with whatever I carry, I may meet a traveler upon the way, whose way through the forest is the same as mine, for a while. Brandon Smith, 2013
A summer sunset over the forest.
The sunsets at the art garden are only rarely spectacular. There are no grand vistas here in the forest.
still has debris on top from when tree fell on it. Well, leaned and let go, no real damage.
Got out with the camera a bit too late. A few minutes earlier, the whole sky was a dark bright red, very impressive.
Five days after a 4 or 5 inch rain, the lower pond, er, wetland, has absorbed what it can and drained out this ditch what is couldn't. In theory, if I go through the other photos with the keyword 2015planting, I should be able to determine what it is I planted where I have the flag.
The cell phone lens doesn't quite capture the straight lines of the beam of sunlight my eyes saw, but it does pick up on the light difference where the golden light falls on these now dried out plants standing in this field.
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The golden hour at this time of year and at this location, starts around 3pm and is usually done by 5. The hill to the west has a lot of tall trees, so the direct sun light is blocked off a good 10 to 15 minutes before the official sunset of 4:45 or so. The firebush is a non-native invader who is not too aggressive, but is spread willy-nilly by birds and deer. Like bush honeysuckle, the young ones pull up easily and I pull the young ones up along with the bush honeysuckle. I leave a few, like this one, for their color.
The bright red leaves on the left are the late fall colors of the the Winged Burning Bush, Euonymus alatus. Sold in garden stores because it does make quite a display in the fall, sometimes appearing really bright red. However, my observations of it confirm that it is one of those ambitious plants, prolific in producing seedlings nearby, but all over the place from bird transport of seeds. The National Park Service considers it a threat, http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/pubs/midatlantic/eual.htm although Missouri doesn't yet. I have been removing the smaller ones when I find them; they are easy to identify with their green stems that have brownish wings along them lengthwise. And they pull up by the roots fairly easily. These pretty red leaved shrubs are not that much of a threat unless they get loose and the young ones are not removed. However, the pretty green and yellow leaves on the right is from what I call a Bush honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii (Overgrowing Choke-plant or Amur honeysuckle), which has made the most invasive list in just about every site I visit. And there is no doubt in my mind that it does not play well in the forest garden. Fortunately the young ones do pull up very easily when the soil is wet enough. Identification is easy due to the same thing that makes it so invasive -- the leaves turn green and fill out weeks before anything else at that level, and stay green much later, in this case nearly a month after everything else (except the fire bush) has dropped theirs. The big ones require chainsaw work. Once it is down to a very low stump, one can drip some strong poison directly on the freshly cut (i.e. no more than a couple minutes after making the cut). Needless to say, avoid dripping poison anywhere else. Alternatively, covering the stump with something totally lightproof will also work, but that will take a lot longer to completely kill it. I use a pair of gallon pots, one slid into the other and rotated so the drainage holes do not line up and allow light in. The jury is still out on how well that will work, I'll let you know in a couple years.
This is a LR default HDR merge of two cell phone images. totally unsatisfactory on technical grounds, marginally satisfactory for aesthetics, and rather good for showing the branching patterns clearly. The dehaze control is what brought them out clearly. But further down the trees we begin to see a huge amount of digital noise in the form of large splotchs in the middle and further down a highly plasticized texture. Almost works as a painterly photograph.
