Today’s photographs from a late afternoon Piney Woods Church Road visit include two images of sky: first, as seen through a hole in a greenbrier leaf, and second, as reflected in a drainage ditch alongside the road. The tree in the reflection is a pecan, already leafless as winter draws nearer.
In the early morning, I encounter worlds in water drops still clinging to a naked branch….
Between rainshowers today, I dashed out t take a few pictures of water droplet suspended from branches. Most did not turn out as hoped, but I enjoy this one quite a bit, with a colorful blurred leaf outline in the background. I took this photograph around noon; since then, skies have remained overcast with dark gray, accompanied by much-needed rain.
I also include a second photograph — yet another muscadine leaf, covered with water droplets. It doesn’t quite go with the oak — though it does, at least, grow with the oak. Yet it doesn’t quite seem to merit its own post, at the same time.
While half the country now lies under a blanket of white snow, along Piney Woods Church Road, a small white flower with a yellow center in the Asteraceae family has come into bloom. I have not idea what it is, but it adds a note of hope to winter’s approach, gracing the roadside with its delicate form.
Two blades of a wood oat plant, one already browned, the other green turning to yellow, catch the mid-November late-afternoon light and beckon to the photographer-pilgrim.
As the natural history term d’jour, a fascicle refers to a cluster of pine needles; various pine species have different numbers of needles in each grouping. Loblolly pines have fascicles of three. In this case, the pine needle fascicles are balancing on branches somewhere down Piney Woods Church Road.
Whenever I need another surge of photographic inspiration, I know that I need only seek out a vine with tendrils, and some enchanting bit of calligraphy will emerge. I was drawn to the way the light played across the edge of a recurving tendril in this photograph from Piney Woods Church Road earlier this afternoon.
From my walk late this afternoon, here are four illuminated leaf portraits:
Along Piney Woods Church Road grow many plants, including stately oak and hickory trees, weedy sassafras and loblolly pine trees, and dozens of shrubs and ground plants, both annuals and perennials. Amongst them all, many are quite photogenic and invite me to return to them again and again as the seasons advance: muscadine grape, greenbrier, and white oak fall firmly into this category. Then there is dog fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium): tall (several feet), gangly, frilly, with nondescript flowers and seeds, and a pungent yet not particularly pleasant aroma. Today, a dog fennel plant was in seed alongside the road, illuminated by the afternoon sun. I dedicated myself to taking its portrait. The result is the two “experiments” below.
Walking down Piney Woods Church Road on my way back home late this afternoon, I noticed a tiny loblolly pine sapling, maybe six inches tall, along the roadside. The uppermost third of the tiny tree was bathed in sunlight. These two photographs resulted from my time spent there. Both, but particularly the first one, evoke the canyon landscape of the Colorado Plateau, as if projecting my longings onto the space of my daily pilgrimage.
