The Daily Photograph™

Where they all hang out in their best clothes

Autumn is a fascinating time of year

When the plants prepare to go into hiding but not before telling us to look out for next year. In their party clothes they dance in the wind and sunlight. Soon, the dancing will end and this vine and the tree across the way will be skeletal and stiff. Even the clouds will hold themselves differently. But let’s not think of that right now. Let’s party and celebrate the life we have.

And it makes them shine, too.

“Schön” is the German word

From which our English ‘shine’ derives, especially in the sense of “doing well” or “excelling.” The sun slanted into this tree in an excellent way and its leaves answered with shining beauty.

Again, I found that tight framing gave the feel and substance I wanted. The tree became more ordinary when I took a longer view.

These trees always color up first

They are an Australian poplar

And seem to like to keep to their own schedule. We planted these because it is illegal in Casper to plant cottonwoods. Because of the cotton. Makes some noses itch. So, we have to import our hardy trees from elsewhere.

These leaves turned color overnight. Yesterday, Green as green. Today, Autumn yellow.

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You may notice that this photograph is square. That’s because of a framing error. I didn’t want to go reshoot, since I’d already brought the gear inside, so I simply cropped off the offending bright white fence I inadvertently caught in the lower right corner. Cropping is okay, despite what you may have heard.

They are big and tough

Cottonwoods last about 50 years

Before their limbs dry up and break off and the tree eventually dies. This one is about fifty years old. Many of its siblings are already gone.

Those who went Westering along the Oregon/California/Mormon trail welcomed the sight of a cottonwood the horizon, for it meant a stream or at least a watercourse was close by. This one is on the west bank of Sage Creek.

They are small but feisty

Going back to the days I worked with film

And stood on my head to get this portrait of Wyoming State Flowers. This tiny clump of Indian Paintbrush grew in a most unlikely spot, in the gravel beside the road up Casper Mountain amidst a patch of daisies. We found them by accident and were happy we did.

This was made with Kodak Ultra-color 100, a color negative film that is no longer manufactured.

They get along together so well

Tiger lilies bloom ferociously

And the grape vine just hangs around.

They bloom every year at this time, loudly

Turns out I like to photograph flowers

But it’s sort of difficult in Wyoming to do that. Wind. You may have heard the wind is awful, here. It’s not always, but it is constant when it is not awful. Wind-blurred flowers won’t win any prizes, so fast shutter-speeds are needed. Today, I used 125th of a second, and that worked okay, but it meant I needed to open the lens up to f4, meaning no depth of field. As it happened, three blossoms were on the same plane, and the rest became compositional elements of greater or lesser blobbiness.

I do not know the name of these flowers. I think they are of the crocus family. Maybe you can help?