Category Archives: Abstracts

Attempts made to break outside of my engineering mentality

A Different View

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“Mary’s Perspective”
Yakima Area Arboretum, Washington

This image is Mary’s view for my previous post. She sees the world through “bright and shiny” lenses, hence the beautiful tones of aqua and yellow. The following is her perspective:

Extraordinary

Sometimes reality just doesn’t do it for me.
I want to see a world as I think it should be
and, maybe, not exactly as it is.

One of my favorite colors is teal or almost any
combination of blue and green.  Those colors conjure
both seawater and plants, some of the real necessities for life.

So why not make the tree leaves teal?
It’s true that they don’t usually come in that exact shade.  
I know that, but just once I want this tree to be how I want it to be.

Thank you for playing around with the color
and making blue/green leaves and warm, yellow light peeking through.
It’s a little thing and maybe a trick, but I think it is beautiful. 

For a few moments, this tree is just a little bit extraordinary. 

Mary Dahlin Graf

Thistle by Georgia

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“Thistle Impression”
Heatherwood Meadow, Summer

It’s time to come back home and add a couple more images from our Heatherwood garden. I used to think thistles were just weeds, but we decided to plant a couple of different varieties in our meadow. This one is planted between white daisies and yellow yarrow. It provides a nice contrast in the meadow. With the hot temperatures (>100 degrees) these thistles have quickly bloomed then lost their color. To accentuate the artistic flair of the thistles, I added a little Georgia O’Keeffe impressionism to it.

Nature’s Little Wonders – 1

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Paperbark Maple
Yakima Arboretum, Washington

This post will start a series of images depicting nature’s little wonders. These images are from a photo excursion I took in the Yakima Arboretum over a year ago. From time to time, I give myself an assignment to practice a specific type of photography. This trip I focused on looking for little things that caught my eye whatever they might be. Some were abstracts, others were macro details of pieces of nature.

Interesting bark was one of the things that caught my eye. The texture and color contrasts of the peeling bark of a paperbark maple (Acer griseum) creates a beautiful abstract that highlights a winter scene. We have planted two acer griseums in our yard, one at the entry of our Japanese garden and one in the middle of our front lawn. They are striking in the summer and gorgeous in the winter, especially covered with a little snow.

A Little More Meadow Color

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“Meadow Impression”
Heatherwood Summer

As the temperatures hover in the high 90’s, our new meadow continues to display a variety of color. I long to be able to get our among the flowers and become one with my camera and the beautiful blooms. For the next several weeks, I will need to be content with viewing alongside and from above. Patience is not one of my strongest virtues.

“Beardtongue”

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“White, Pink, and Burgundy”
Heatherwood Summer

The “Eastern Smooth Beardtongue” (Penstemon laevigitus) is one of our garden’s first bloomers. its three foot tall burgundy stems host brilliant white and pink flowers in the middle of the meadow.

Small beautiful vignettes like this help me focus on what is right with this world as I let go of the many difficult things we are all facing. Beauty is all around us, we just need to open our eyes and hearts to recognize it.

More Meadow Color

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“In the Meadow”
Heatherwood Summer

Here is to more color in the meadow. This time we’ve added a little orange to the yellow and purple. The patches of color are separate, but gently blend into one another. The yellow provides a little buffer between the orange and the purple. What a summer treat our new meadow brings us.

Monet’s Yarrow

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“Yarrow in the Meadow”
Heatherwood Summer

This image continues the theme from my previous post. The colors in our new meadow are striking. Adjacent colors were actually laid out using a color wheel. Here, opposite colors were planted next to each other to create the color contrast. Here again Monet’s perspective comes to the rescue.