Blue Skies, Yellow Trees

Autumn Trail ©2012 Bo Mackison

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~ George Eliot

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Autumn Hike in Wisconsin

Autumn Walk XI

Let’s Take an Autumn Walk ©2012 Bo Mackison

A Colorful Autumn Hike in Wisconsin

One of the urban parks in Madison, Wisconsin – Owen Conservation Park – has a maze of hiking trails. There are dozens of paths, views of the city, prairie remnants, trails through hardwood forests, and a small pond for water fowl. The park seems specially designed for a colorful hike in autumn.

Autumn Walk VII

View Across the Prairie ©2012 Bo Mackison

Prairie view. Most of the golden-rods and asters – the last blooms in autumn – have now gone to seed. The prairie is filled with fluffs of white blowing seeds.

Autumn Walk III

Autumn Colors in the Woods ©2012 Bo Mackison

The forests, though small, have a fine variety of hardwoods. Maples, oaks, hickory are the predominant species, and together produce a fine color mix of yellows, oranges, reds and browns.

Autumn Walk XII

Leafy Shadows in Autumn ©2012 Bo Mackison

I love to hike when the sun is still low enough in the morning to cast leafy shadows on the tree trunks in the more open spaces.

Autumn Walk VI

Reds and Yellows in Autumn ©2012 Bo Mackison

Sumacs give the park’s open spaces a deep red glow. More whites in the prairie — fluffy seeds. Yellow ashes still have some of their leaves.

Autumn Walk V

Autumn Walk in the Forest ©2012 Bo Mackison

Another path through the woods and I’m back to the parking area.

Autumn Walk I

Owen Park Road ©2012 Bo Mackison

Even while leaving the park, there are so many trees in bright colors. I pulled along the side of the road a half-dozen times for that “one last shot.”

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Thankful for the opportunity for a nature walk today.

She is attending the Filter Festival in Chicago the week of October 15. Workshops, lecture series, gallery walks, portfolio reviews, and much more. But no opportunities for walks in the autumn woods.

The Trees Speak of Connection

Olbrich Autumn Wonders - A World of Yellows

World in Yellow ©2012 Bo Mackison

Know that the tree is not just the form, it is not just a certain species the botanists’ talk about, it is an unknown god – so green in your courtyard, so close to you, beckoning you, calling you again and again. ~ Osho

My Connection to Nature

I often think that trees are the finest species on this earth. I love photographing flowers, grasses, natural landscapes. But there is something about the trees. In my part of the world, I am never far from some type of tree. There are usually a few trees in every yard, and large stands of trees in whatever direction I head from my home.

Grounded in the earth, they often stretch a hundred feet high, their tops surrounded only by sky when I peer at their crowns. I like being able to reach out my hand, rest my palm on the trunk of a tree, and feel a deep sense of connection to nature.

And I am happy that there are trees not only in my yard, and in my community, but I am also happy that there are trees even in downtown Chicago. I’ll be in Chicago next week. And I’ll be noticing the trees that grow there, even in the midst of a crowded metropolis.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Yesterday she finished the printing of two sets of fine art photography and today she is putting the final touches on the two portfolios.

She is attending the Filter Festival in Chicago the week of October 15. Workshops, lecture series, gallery walks, portfolio reviews, and much more. Opportunity awaits.

A Time for Every Purpose under Heaven

Wisconsin River Sandbars

Sandbar Fingers © 2012 Bo Mackison

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares that will not withdraw from us. ~ Maya Angelou

It is autumn along the Wisconsin River.

The river is low, a result of the drought in spring and most of summer. August’s rains were not enough to fill the banks of the river. And so sandbar fingers stretch from shore. As far as I can see, peering from the bridge, there are sandbars edging from shore and sandbars rising from the river’s middle.

Trees across the river have changed their summer greens for autumn oranges and yellows, and soon, it seems too soon, the glorious autumn colors will change again. They will turn into autumn’s piles of crisped, brown leaves below bare branched trees.

Change. Nature manages its changes, coinciding with the seasons, recycling over and over. Nature responds to changes that aren’t cyclical on a yearly calendar also, ones that track over decades and centuries. Rivers overflow, flood the nearby lands and the nearest buildings and roads in river towns. Rivers run low, exposing land that is usually hidden from sight, once only the realm of underwater creatures.

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
~ lyrics from Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds

It is autumn in my life, too. I walk through the yearly calendar’s changes. Month by month, I anticipate spring, summer, fall, winter. Sometimes I know what to expect. Some things are planned – a joyous wedding, a planned holiday with family, a special birthday. Some events are unplanned – a family member’s lost job, the death of a close friend, a change in a long-standing relationship.

Perhaps one of the most difficult is the aging of parents and the responsibilities that come with that change in family status. Elderly mothers and fathers are no longer the matriarchs and patriarchs in charge; middle-aged sons and daughters are no longer the ones that obey. Shifting responsibilities, shifting emotions.

Our lives follow similar patterns to those found in nature. The river runs low. Our energies run low. Sandbars are exposed, exposing that which had been underwater, out of sight, for many years. The status quo is disrupted. Secrets spill open, lives are altered. There is no taking back the time, no denying the newly discovered information.

The trees drop their leaves and only the gray skeletons remain. Some changes are short-term, like the bare limbed trees. Spring brings budding leaves; summer, a fully leafed tree. Flowers bloom, grass grows.

Sitting silently
Doing nothing
Spring Comes.
The grass grows by itself.
~ Zen Haiku

Some of nature’s changes take longer periods of time, like the deep river that will only stretch to its edges after many rains and deep snowfalls. Even then, there are subtle changes in its ebb and flow.

Some of the changes – severe damage to the earth from which it cannot recover in a many a generation’s lifetime or a death in a family – they leave a more enduring mark of change. Time passes. We adapt to the constancy of change.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is searching for clarity amidst many changes.

Exploring — My Lawn as a Metaphor

Fully Floral

Fully Floral in Black and White © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Think of your free time, and how you spend it. Are you fighting your inner geography and planting a lawn? Are you going with the ambient climate and keeping it simple? Do you want to do work that is intense and may not fit the popular climate, or do you want to go with the flow and keep your work suited to an easy schedule? Or, do you want to create an environment that’s exotic for you or do you want to explore your nature as it is?” – Quinn McDonald

There are just so many options for spending my free time, and I always pack more ideas into my brain than one woman could do in a lifetime.

But that doesn’t stop me from adding to the list constantly. When I factor in my penchant for change, I need to consider several options for my front lawn if it is to be a metaphor for my free time.

At first thought, I liked the idea of a tall sunflower field.

I would be surrounded by eight foot high plants, all topped with giant yellow sunflower heads. Hidden in the glory of all those waving flowers, spending my free time wandering without being seen. But when I thought about the upkeep and the crispy brown remains of sunflower stalks once autumn’s frost paid a visit, those glorious sunflowers lost their appeal. Maybe I would get tired of being surrounded by a jungle of bright yellow flower heads the size of dinner plates. Too much intense color, over a long period of time, it might be too bright. Or too lonely, hidden away in the flowers.

What about a mass of low growing, take-care-of-themselves-flowers?

And while I’m imagining what I’d really like my free time to look like, in lawn form, I’d like a black and white flower yard where I can change its colors on my whim – like the original movie version of The Wizard of Oz which begins in black and white, and then magically transforms into resplendent  color. That would satisfy my preference for quick change – white to match a pristine day, red for a passionate mood, multicolored when I’m feeling  festive.

Of course, I’d need a magic wand to keep the flowers in tip-top shape, growing lush while remaining an easily tended ground cover.

And the magic wand would come in handy when it was time for a color change, too. My flower lawn requires a bit of magic – is that because I don’t want to do all of the work that fun sometimes requires (such as the wild rush that comes before and after a planned vacation.)

Perhaps I’d like a magic wand because I’m not the quick change artist I wish I could be in real life.

One day I yearn to be a landscape photographer tramping through the wilds of red rock country or the Southwest desert; another day I’m the artist curating her photographs for a museum or gallery show.

One day I am a photographer who is demonstrating the simple workings of a pinhole camera to a group of excited children; another day I’m an urban photographer documenting form and shape in the architectural details of abandoned buildings.

Maybe I’d even be in the mood for some meticulous, creative work. I spend much of my free time doing just that when I am in front of the magical computer screen processing my photographs.

What a changeable yard…um, photographer…