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January Squares: Snowdrops Glisten

Snowy landscape with snowdrops backlit by the fading sun
Snowdrops glisten under silver birch trees in a snowy winter garden

Interaction between the camera lens and the sun’s rays has sent rainbows tumbling from the top right. I’m not sure if that’s a feature or a flaw… perhaps a bit of both.

Pockets of snowdrops are barely distinguishable from the snow at first glance but, once your eye tunes in, they seem illuminated like tiny, ankle-high lamps. Long, narrow tree shadows accentuate the ray effect while the shade and golden rays together capture that feeling of warmth and exposure we Northerners associate with winter… the lucky ones, that is, who have the means of keeping warm. Continue reading “January Squares: Snowdrops Glisten”

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Flowers with backlight effect

Pink daisy flowers made translucent by sunlight

Pink flowers – possibly some form of echinacea – tumbling over each other as if to watch something. They’re at a concert and the ornamental grass is performing on stage, perhaps, or at a football match. An exciting one.

But we know that’s just fancy. Unlike us, the flowers don’t need a reason to be like this, they simply respond at a cellular lever to the sunlight, the soil and whatever moisture they can seek out. Continue reading “Flowers with backlight effect”

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January Squares: Mixed Lights

Atmospheric lighting and a modern stained glass window
Liverpool pizzeria’s mood lighting

I’m sharing a few days’ January Squares, with twin themes: places where we can eat and/or drink; each picture to represent a word ending in light.

The first could be daylight or windowlight (apparently that’s a word). I was interested in the colours – how the light seems to leach them out from the modern stained glass and paint them on the sills and surfaces, and the way the barstools carry them through into the room. The hanging lights have coloured wires too or appear to have through a trick of the light.   Continue reading “January Squares: Mixed Lights”

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Anole In The Limelight

Shadow of an anole lizard seen through a backlit leaf

All photographers learn to enjoy light. These upright elephant ears (some form of alocasia) are so beautifully backlit they would be interesting even without the patterned raindrops and veining and the anole’s shadow.

But I’m not complaining about the photobombing anole. I like the spreading toes (I’m scared of snakes, so lizard toes are always a reassurance) and it interests me how our minds interpret height from the strength of the shadow. We know the head is raised because the shadow is softer – it’s a three dimensional shadow, not a flat one.

This green anole lizard was benefiting from the vision and hard work of Jesse Yancy, a literary gentleman who has raised a garden / wildlife haven on land around the edge of a small, concrete car park that he does not own in Belhaven, Mississippi. Continue reading “Anole In The Limelight”