iPhoneography: Ginkgo canopy

Ginkgo grove at the Blandy Experimental Farm and State Arboretum in Boyce, VA

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. (iPhone 8Plus, Snapseed app border)

 

I’m likin’ this lichen!

Rain is good for the garden. Too many days of rain is not good for me (or my beautiful Bearded irises, which I was fortunate to photograph in all their glory before the wet mess came). We’ve had about a week of solid rain. It let up some today and I saw a glimpse of the sun very briefly. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for sunny and no rain (yay!). I was at a Michael’s Craft Store and in the parking lot next to the car are several trees that are coated with various colors of lichen and moss. It’s actually quite beautiful and only in our rainforest-like weather could this occur. I went a little nuts with my iPhone using the Camera+ app in macro mode late this afternoon. I added the grunge borders in the Snapseed app. I plan on going back with my Nikon D850 to get some more images tomorrow.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

iPhoneography: Sunroof view

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 7plus / Snapseed app border

iPhoneography: Birds & branches

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 7Plus, Snapseed border added

 

iPhoneography: Splendid fall

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 6s / Snapseed app border

iPhoneography: Saturday sky

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 7 Plus / Snapseed app border

iPhoneography: Saturday sky

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 7 Plus / Snapseed app border

 

Wednesday sky

Last night’s sky was so painterly with a brilliant blue background, storm clouds, wispy cotton trails, and glowing gold patches of sunlight. I went a little nuts photographing it with my iPhone 6 (border added in Snapseed app) in a mall parking lot. Beauty is found in the most mundane places!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

Fall comes to Kingstowne Lake

Storm clouds on one side of the lake, sunlight from behind me illuminating the foliage…what a beautiful mix! I photographed this shot at Kingstowne Lake yesterday afternoon on a field photography trip with my friend Michael Powell.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Signs of fall

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Re-post: Fall in Virginia

We’ll be heading out to Boyce, Virginia to the Blandy Experimental Farm to check out the Ginkgo grove this coming Saturday, so maybe I’ll have new fall photos to post!

Originally posted in October, 2010

Since I haven’t been able to get my bounty of fall photos this year, I’ve made a collage of my favorite images from the past three years. These were all shot in various parts of Virginia, including my own neighborhood. Enjoy!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Twilight

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Reflections of fall

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Chartreuse

A palette of green in the hills of Austin. Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

A Line of Chartreuse Blooms

Chartreuse blooms, living for a week at most
maple trees lining Maple Street
little bells, like green lilies of the valleys,
bright yellow-green buttercups
bouquets shining in the April-May sun
Soon they will fall and the supple new leaves
will stiffen, turgid with Kelly green, darker hues
But for a regal moment, even the trees bloom
in vivid bright colors

—Raymond A. Foss

I met Raymond online a few years ago when I asked for permission to use one of his poems to accompany a post about growing grapes in our tiny townhouse backyard garden. I’ve kept in touch with him regularly and enjoy reading his new works. He is one of the most prolific poets I have encountered—more than 11,000 poems to date! Check out more of his work here.

Sunset + (super?)moonrise on the Potomac River

Michael and I ventured out to the Mount Vernon Parkway before 7:00 p.m. this evening to scout out a good spot to wait for the much-anticipated and much-heralded “Supermoon.” I’m sorry to have to report that I was a tiny bit disappointed. I confess that I was hoping for that end-of-the-world-large-encroaching-orb-could-swallow-us-whole-fodder-for-a-science-fiction-movie effect, but it didn’t happen.

Yes, it was a lovely moon—slightly larger than usual and a bit brighter. I guess I was expecting it to flood the horizon so fully that I would have to take off my Nikkor 80-400 zoom lens and put on the 50mm just to catch it all in my viewfinder. So large that I would hear audible gasps from the neighboring photographers, then perhaps we would spontaneously hold hands and break into song (Kumbaya, perhaps?). Didn’t happen.

The moon I photographed in Huntsville, Alabama a few years ago seemed a whole lot larger and a lumen or two brighter than tonight’s “Supermoon.” You can view that posting here. I was, however, taken in by the sunset’s show earlier.

Hey! Guess what? I was just ready to publish this post and decided to Google this search: “supermoon was disappointing tonight,” just to see if anyone had the same reaction that I did.

I found this on space.com: On Saturday night, the moon will arrive at perigee at 19:09 UT (3:09 p.m. Eastern Time). Its distance from the Earth at the moment will be 221,565 miles. But just over three years ago, on Dec. 12, 2008, which was also the night of a full moon, the moon reached perigee at 21:39 UT (4:39 p.m. Eastern Time) at a distance of 221,559 miles, about 6 miles closer than Saturday night’s perigee distance. So it seems Saturday night’s supermoon will actually be just a little less super than the full moon of Dec. 2008. (You can read skywatching columnist Joe Rao’s full article here.)

Why do I find this so interesting? Well, I photographed that moon near the Huntsville Airport in December 12, 2008! So my eyes (and my memory) did remember a more impressive sky that night than tonight. Unlike tonight, I wasn’t even hunting for it—my friend Sue had picked me up from the airport and I asked her to pull over so I could get a few shots of the spectacular moon! Who would have thought that the moon being only six miles closer to the earth would make such a noticeable difference?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Afternoon at Lake Land’Or

Yesterday Karen and I could hardly believe it was still just February—the temperature was almost 70 degrees when we were at her lakehouse at Lake Land’Or. I spent considerable time trying to entice the ducks to come to the dock so I could photograph them up close—to no avail. So, I had to be content with capturing lovely abstract tree and water reflections instead. We enjoyed the weather while it lasted—today is incredibly windy and in the 50s.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Fall in Virginia

Since I haven’t been able to get my bounty of fall photos this year, I’ve made a collage of my favorite images from the past three years. These were all shot in various parts of Virginia, including my own neighborhood. Enjoy!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Will work for Peeps…

(and Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies, too!). This past Sunday, Karen and I drove down to her lakehouse to paint the last remaining bedroom. While making a run to Family Dollar for paint rollers, we picked up some unhealthy snacks (bless her little heart). I told her I sure worked cheap—Peeps and Cosmic Brownies! To quote Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk, “And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one—I need this…and Peeps…and these Cosmic Brownies…but not one other thing…not one…oh, and this blue broom…

Without a doubt, it was plenty of sugar to keep us going. After we finished painting, I stretched out on the lakeside hammock for a few minutes just to get these graphic tree shots and also—because how often does one get to lie in a hammock, anyway?

Yes, Virginia, there is a Peeps Fan Club. Check it out here.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Water like satin

Sunset begins at Lake Land ‘Or © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

The Lake. To — by Edgar Allan Poe (1827)

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less—
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody—
Then, ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremendous delight—
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define—
Nor Love—although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining—
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.

Check out my zenfolio.com gallery!

I’ve been working on putting the “cream of the crop” of my garden and landscape photos into one easy-to-navigate gallery. Eventually I’ll have the gallery set up to sell prints as well as stock photos, but in the interim, this is just a way to wrangle all of my web-viewing-only images into one gallery. I’ll be adding more images in the future. Currently there are 380 images in the Botanical Gallery. That should keep you plenty busy! If you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you’ll recognize many of the photos.

Once you click on the first link below, you can click “view all” at the bottom and see everything on one page, scrolling down as you go. If you click on an individual photo, it will enlarge and thumbnails for other images will show up on the side (as shown in the collage below). You can click on any of those to enlarge, or you can just launch the slide show in the second link below. I hope you enjoy the show!

Gallery:  http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Slideshow: http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135/slideshow

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Open a Zenfolio account with my referral code 8B9-BTJ-6G3 and save $5.00

Judy, Simon & Beyond the Garden Gate

Sue and I met Judy and Simon while out window shopping in Little Rock last week. Judy is the proprietor of Beyond the Garden Gate, located at 5619 Kavanaugh Blvd. in The Heights section of Little Rock. The shop sells silk flowers, plants, trees, and unique decorating accessories. The one-year-old daschund serves as the unofficial store greeter and was such an energetic and sweet pup. Judy says lots of people return to see Simon but don’t always purchase anything because they get so distracted playing with him! I told her she needs to wear a t-shirt that reads, “Please buy something—Simon needs kibble!”

So if you happen to be in the area, stop by and see Judy, Simon, and all the wonderful items for sale. And for Simon’s sake, buy something!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Magnolia bud

Magnolia bud, Green Spring Gardens

I don’t know exactly which species of Magnolia this is, but my web research revealed that there are 80 different species and they are native to the eastern United States and southeastern Asia. I assume that because the flower looks like it will be a pale yellow that it could be one of the two very popular yellow flowering cultivars—perhaps ‘Butterflies’ or ‘Gold Finch’. I did call and talk to a gardener this morning at Green Spring Gardens and she confirmed that it is a Magnolia.

I learned from the United States National Arboretum site that Magnolia flowers are typically pollinated by beetles. Magnolia flowers do not produce nectar but they do produce large quantities of pollen that is high in protein. Do check out the Arboretum’s web site—it’s well organized and very informative!

And because there is a society for virtually everything, I discovered Magnolia Society International. a worldwide organization of gardeners, nurserymen and other people who are devoted to the appreciation and study of Magnolias.

ID Update #1: I think this bud could be a Magnolia stellata— Star Magnolia or Royal Star Magnolia. The buds on this site look very similar to this one.

ID Update #2: A quick photo trip to Green Spring Gardens today—I was able to identify the tree—Magnolia ‘Yellow Fever’—Yellow Fever Magnolia. There was just one bud halfway opened on the tree, so it may be a few more days before there’s something to photograph!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Currier & Ives morning

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.