Fiddleheads

Found these two nice fiddleheads but didn’t like the background, so I placed this skunk cabbage leaf behind them.

Snail On Skunk Cabbage

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My first day out shooting this spring.  The skunk cabbage leaves are starting to sprout.  I found this old snail’s shell, and thought it would be a nice contrasting subject for this skunk cabbage leaf.

First Sign Of Life

The Skunk Cabbage plant is the first sign of life in the north as we head torwards spring. These interesting plants have a built in heating systems that allows it to melt through the ice in the swampy areas that it grows in.  You will start to see them here in southeast Michigan around the end of Feburary, providing we don’t have a blanket of snow covering them. You can see the ice surrounding this one.

Happy St. Patty’s Day

Here’s my green shot for SPD. This is a backlit Skunk Cabbage leaf.  The backlighting is from a early morning sun.  In the next few week these leaves will be poping up in the swampy areas, can’t wait!!

Backlit Skunk Cabbage

Well the skunk cabbage is taking over the forest floor in the swampy areas and the leaves are quite large now.  One morning a couple of years ago I was out shooting and I looked toward the east to the low morning sunlight and found an interesting new subject.  The skunk cabbage leaves had come alive as the sun backlit them.  The large veins of the leaves just exploded and created cool looking patterns.  Very cool stuff!!!

Shot with a Fuji S2 Pro, Sigma 180 macro

Kensington Workshop

I had a real nice group of people for a workshop yesterday at Kensington Park, Michigan.  The weather was great with not  much wind, (the enemy to a macro photographer).  We found a good variety of subjects.  The mayapples are spouting, skunk cabbage, and marsh marigolds are up, and we found interesting subjects to create with.  One of my favorites to shoot are the new sprouts of the mayapple.  It comes up as a cigar with tightly encased leaves before opening into a umbrella looking plant.  The sprout is pretty narrow (inch and a half wide) so you have to get in real tight for the shot, so as to not bring in any of the background.  The shot above is one from these mayapple sprouts.

Fuji S5 Pro, Tamron 180 Macro

Great Show First Show

For my first show of the summer I had a blast and did excellent sales.  I had a lot of photographers from my workshops that stopped by to say hi and make purchases, and I got to meet a blogger friend Wren.  It was nice to meet her and put a face with the name.  You can go to my links and click wrenaissance reflections to check out her blog.  Its starting to green up here and hope to get out and shoot some new growth this week.  The image I posted is from a few springs ago. This Maple is on a Skunk Cabbage leaf.

Skunk Cabbage Inside

Continuing on the series of the Skunk Cabbage this image shows the flower that grows inside. 

It has an alien look.

Fuji S5 Pro, Tamron 180 macro

Almost 70 Degrees

Almost 70 degrees in southeast Michigan today, Yah Hoo!!!  I was out shooting in my tee shirt.  To bad there isn’t much worth shooting  yet, but it was still fun to be out and not bundled up.  Here’s another stage of the Skunk Cabbage as they emerge through the ice.  I’ll post again in the future where you can see the flower inside as  it starts to open.   When I got home today I had the new Fuji S5 Pro on my porch, Yah Hoo Again!!,Can’t wait to get out and shoot it, but to bad no color yet, won’t be long till spring pops.

Weather man just said we hit 72 degrees today one off the record.

Fuji S3 Pro, Tamron 180 macro

Tough Shooting-Winter Blahs

Its that time of year up here in the northern region (Michigan) when its tough out in the field to find interesting subjects to shoot, the vegetation’s wasted from the heavy winter snows, and the snow is melting down and dirty looking.  March is just a bleak month.  Every year at the end of February I will start to search through the local metro park swamps (Stoney Creek) and look for the first plant life to pop out, the Skunk Cabbage. These interesting plants have their own furnace inside that heats up to melt right through the ice as it start to emerge.  Its the first signs of life and the hope that spring won’t take to long to get here.  As much as I  like winter, by March I’ve had enough.  This is the first phase in the life of the Skunk Cabbage.  It doesn’t look like much now but it will get better as it grows.  I will post more images as they progress.