Wildflowers – Page 3 – Different Isn't Wrong, It's Just Different

It has been far too long since I have gone out with my camera. Today was rather warm, but tonight as the sun went down so did the temperature. A summer night in rural Iowa like I remember from days gone by, a bit cooler, not too humid and the bugs were leaving me alone. A nice evening for a walk and what better place than the walking path Molly and I walked along so many times. The Queen Anne’s lace is blooming and putting on quite the show this summer. Along the path I also saw milkweed soon to be in bloom,Gray Headed coneflowers and purple coneflowers that were too hard to get to in order to photograph up close. But in the second to last photo in the gallery below, if you look close along the bottom you will see a few purple coneflowers. As I walked along the path I could hear the birds chirping before calling it a day, the crickets were chirping and in the pond just beyond the cattails, the bullfrogs were bellowing. The sounds of summer that I had almost forgotten having lived in the city for so many years. As the sun set the fireflies or lightning bugs as we called them, were lighting as they were flying amongst the soybeans and wildflowers.

Until next time, enjoy my images of a summer night in rural Iowa…..

My personal project since moving to Iowa has been photographing my nephew building his house. It has been fun to watch him work hard and see his dream come to fruition. However, the other day when I went to the sight to shoot sunrise images, something else caught my attention. There was a heavy frost on the ground and just as the sun rose the light glistening on the frost had my full attention. Debating on whether to switch to my macro lens and shoot for myself or to continue with my original plan, my instinct said shoot macro. For the first time since moving to Iowa I was excited to shoot macro!

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queen annes lace-frost-2720 — Queen Anne’s Lace covered in frost

There were so many seed heads of wildflowers and even weeds that were stunning with the hard frost. I was like a kid in a candy store unable to decide what to shoot first. The Queen Anne’s Lace is a beautiful wildflower and the seed heads covered in hard frost looked as if they were dressed in diamonds.

wildflowers-frost-2756 — Wildflower or weed covered in frost

Knowing the frost would quickly melt with the warmth of the sun’s rays, even though it was still quite chilly, I tried to make several images. As I was feverishly working I realized that my glasses were no longer hanging from my coat. When shooting macro I remove my glasses and have a habit of sticking the arm in the neck of my shirt, however, I had put them in my coat. Oops! I started walking around trying to find them and had no idea where they had fallen off. I called my husband and asked him to come out to the sight to help me. Now I was debating as to whether I should continue looking for my glasses or keep shooting. The frost was melting so fast and my instinct said keep shooting there may not be heavy frost the next day or in the near future as it has been unseasonably mild for December. I traced my steps and went back to where I thought my first images were made. Walking around carefully so as not to step on my glasses and break them, I continued to look. I found them! Then I called my husband, but he was already on his way, so he came out anyway to see the progress on the house. I continued to shoot and glad to have made that decision as the next morning the frost was light and not as pretty.

Below is a gallery of images and you can click on any of the images to see a larger version. If you have been following me for a while, you know my images are mostly macro. So finally after living in Iowa for a few months, I was excited to shoot macro!