The Golden Hour

Stricker's Pond - Trees Lit by the Setting Sun

Trees in the Golden Hour ©2012 Bo Mackison

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Spending this week with family and friends, but I still wish to share a photo a day with you of my walk around Stricker’s Pond. I walked in the evening a few days ago, and the tree trunks caught the light from the setting sun.

This time of day is the golden hour in photography parlance — easy to understand why!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is balancing wedding plans and photography this week while enjoying both.

Hollyhock in Profile

Creamy Hollyhock

Creamy Hollyhock ©2012 Bo Mackison

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. ~ William Shakespeare

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is currently balancing wedding week and photography, while appreciating the wonder of both.

Seeing the Great Blue Heron, Unexpectedly

Blue Heron at Stricker's Pond

Great Blue Heron at Stricker’s Pond ©2012 Bo Mackison

. . . when I am out searching, I never have a set idea of what it is I’m looking for. I simply seek, and occasionally I find  exactly what it is I wasn’t searching for. ~ Jeff T. Alu

I’ve never considered myself much of a birdwatcher, and I had little interest in taking photos of birds in the first years I explored with a camera. I always enjoyed watched a shorebird circle the pond, the rhythm of its wing stroke powerful yet graceful. I enjoyed the sandhill cranes, especially when they were quite a novelty. The resurgence of their numbers makes the sandhills a more common occurrence, but still provides a moment of joy, seeing them healthy and often with their chicks by their sides. And I have always loved listening to the sounds of the forest and prairie song birds, their music varied and always a surprise because I seldom can make a strong connection between song and specific bird.

And now on my morning walks I see a variety of birds from the heron family —  great blue herons, white egrets, and the little green heron. I returned on a late afternoon, alone, just me and my camera, to see what I might see. The lake was eerily quiet — only a few wood ducks and their babies were swimming along one shore. It had been a hot day and so I speculated the birds were keeping themselves cool in a shady spot.

While walking through the oak forest, I chanced to look up into the trees in an open space in the woods. The outlined branches of a dead tree against the deep blue sky caught my eye, and I was evaluating the textures and shapes, the lighting. Suddenly my eye caught a movement in the branches. This great blue heron stretched her s – shaped neck, twisted it, and then snuggled back into her roosting position. I was mesmerized.

I didn’t have the lens I would have preferred, but I made do with my 50 mm prime. Many shots later, after I had amassed a healthy number of bird-roosting-on-branch shots, I watched as the heron stretched its neck again, made a slight dip with her body, similar to the movement of a human diver on a spring-board, and then she flung herself into the air in an explosion of feathers and flapping wings. What a marvelous sight.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is falling in love with the beautiful herons she sees as she walks in her neighborhood!

Hollyhock in Two Perspectives

Hollyhock in Two Perspectives

Hollyhock in Two Perspectives © 2012 Bo Mackison

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order. ~ Katherine Paterson

Every weekday I walk around Strickers Pond in the early morning, but I do not bring a camera. On the weekend, I walk the same path, camera in hand. Those two kinds of very different walking experiences give me two perspectives.

I walk with a friend on weekdays and I don’t carry my camera. It would be too tempting to either constantly stop for photo ops, or to not stop and carry the feelings of what “might have been” along on our walk. Plus our plan is to walk at a speed designed to give our bodies a bit of a work-out. I have yet learned how to combine the two terms – brisk walk and taking photographs – successfully.

I balance my photo urges on my weekday walks by bringing my camera along on my weekend walks with Sherpa. He is now an expert at the walking-with-camera-poised for-action routine, he barely notices my frequent, abrupt halts. In fact, he has become so good, he now calls my attention to scenes I miss, in case I want some photographs. (Sherpa does his serious walking at the gym where there are no interruptions of the spouse + camera variety.)

I think the compromise is working well. Five days a week, I see the pond from the perspective of a moving body. On the weekend, I return and see the same pond from the view of a photographer – always on the look out for a soaring egret, a bit of interesting texture or shadow, a new wildflower that has opened for the first time this season.

Last Friday we passed a dozen hollyhock plants in bloom – whites, pinks, creams. My walking partner and I did pause to take in the deep colors, then we continued our walk.

And what was so special about seeing those blossoms? It wasn’t that they were a wonderful subject for a future photo session.

No.

It was listening to the memories that the flowers evoked. I listened as my friend told me about the hollyhocks her father grew in the gardens of her childhood, how a relative had shown her how to make a dolly from the flower – one blossom as the skirt and another as the doll’s bonnet. I remembered making the the same Hollyhock dollies with my great-grandmother.

It was a lovely experience, reminiscing about vintage gardens and old-fashioned flowers, about grandparents and parents who shared not only their love, but the love of their gardens. I couldn’t have taken that special conversation with my camera, but I will remember it.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is enjoying the early morning walks in Wisconsin – camera with AND camera without.

In Honor of Fathers

Papa Goose Hissing At Me

Papa Goose Hissing At Me @ 2012 Bo Mackison

I meet this father goose every morning when I take a walk around a nearby pond. He snaps his mouth open and shut, hisses at me, occasionally spreads his wings and makes a false start towards me.

I now bring my hiking stick with me every morning. I tried shooshing him away, and walking (not) bravely towards him, but he would never let me pass, and I found myself turning around and taking a different route. But now I tap the hiking stick on the path in front of me, and papa goose along with mama goose and his babies, march off the trail, into the long grass, and eventually into the water.

When I first encountered the pair of geese a month ago, their babies were just bits of fluff. Now they are about three/quarters the size of their parents, though they seem to have no clue what to do about me and the other walkers on the trail. They do, however, know that they must scurry off the path and hide if a person walking a dog should happen by.

Maybe I should borrow a neighborhood dog as my walking companion!

On this Father’s Day, hope all the fathers out there are enjoying their day.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is enjoying Fathers Day, too. The father of the house is grilling steaks for his kids (and me) — what a nice dad!