Tuesday, July 5th, 2022 – 3:45 pm EST
Weather: partially cloudy today with a slight wind, temperatures lingering around 70 degrees, gloomy day to say the least
Observations
As I walked into the park today, the first thing I noticed was how empty it was. This is not as deep as it sounds though, it is simply a gloomy day, threat of rain constantly, no one is really using the park and similarly the wildlife that usually roam around here seems to be missing. The taller trees in the park are swaying in the slight wind, giving almost a “white noise” feeling as I walk through.
Natural History Mystery
When walking around the park today I made an effort to look up more, because we tend to miss things if we just look at and below our eye level, and one thing I noticed was a mixed coloration on a tree’s leaves. While most of the tree bared dark, almost purple leaves, there was one section that had yellowy – orange leaves. One explanation I had at first was that this area was getting more sun, hence more color, but then after continued observation I realized that all of the tree’s leaves were high and not blocked by anything else. The other explanation I have is that these yellow – orange leaves are just earlier or later in the life cycle, or maybe it is the first sign of Fall to come.
Five Photos
In this photo, I tried to highlight something I really enjoyed about the trees in the park. I wanted to capture the tree roots living within the ground, so I tried to position myself at the right height to be able to photograph the various roots poking out of the ground, and their position in respect to the base tree. For me, trees growing their roots around them and not just straight down screams “intertwined” to me, and that is one of the most beautiful aspects of nature in my opinion.
With this photo I really wanted to highlight the individuality of trees, like a snowflake a feel like everyone is different. One of the main ways I think trees can become unique is how they grow the branches. Some trees like to grow straight up, while ones like this have a series of branches veining upwards, allowing for almost multiple canopies rather than just one. Because it was such a gloomy day I wanted to try to get as much light in the photo as possible, so this white light that is bleeding through the holes is the “cloud light” from today, and I think it does a great job contrasting the greenery and it almost makes it deeper.
In this photo of crab apples growing on the outskirts of the park is the next feature I wanted to highlight. These crab apples, being such a bright green, is something that I did not want to be taken away by a gloomy day. So I tried my best to let the camera take in a sufficient amount of light, hoping to give the photo a slight shine.
This next photo I really wanted to single out the main aspect, the flower. I once again played with the lighting features on my camera, with the goal of singling out the flower. So I adjusted my camera to let in less light and I was rewarded with this picture of a flower that looks like it is growing out of darkness. To me, that’s cool. I really enjoy the beautiful purple emerging from this dark hole with green surrounding the ascent.
In this last photo I really wanted to depict the sanctuary a tree offers. I mentioned earlier in this piece that looking up rather than just straight and down is a great way to take everything in, and with this photo I employed the same process. I went under the tree facing up and captured what I see as a different world. A world beneath the canopy of a tree, life within the branches. I once again fiddled with the camera settings hoping to get a similar effect to that of my second photo, and the result was this whitish haze that gives a great backdrop to the little world I found.
Conclusion
I find new features every time I do one of these blogs, like today I found that purple flower, hiding on the other side of a tree. It is amazing what we can find when we adventure. This felt similar to sketching in the way that I chose an area and focused on it, doing my best to depict that feature with my camera or my hand and pencil. What felt different about this compared to sketching was the articulation. In this exercise because I was able to use a camera I feel what I am trying to get across is much more clear, whereas with sketching I felt like I could not. In all fairness though my artistic ability is nowhere near that of an iPhone X. I really enjoyed this entry though, I feel that I was very clear on what I had to do and I think I did my best to depict each feature as best I could.