Most every year since 2002 I’ve photographed these personable beauties, the first wildflowers to bloom as early as late February through the snows.
Hepatica
Early Spring Beauties
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Category: Macro
Frozen Fall Creek II
Natural Ice Sculpture
My last post, “Frozen Fall Creek I”, ended with macros of Ice Crystals on a bed of frost over creek ice within sight of our former home, a restored water mill. I continued on the ice, following the creek to this spot were the stream bed turns 90 degrees, changing from a southerly to a western flow.
Here I encountered an open course where constant water motion resisted freezing. A few frigid days later, the course had an amazing transformation.
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The transparent ice of the now frozen space retained the impression of movement, the surface rippled by current. In the following photograph, motionless ice crystals reveal the truth.
In the intervening days, the constant motion resisted freezing while the water temperature dropped well past freezing to achieve a supercooled state. As the water temperature continued to drop, a fast transition from fluid to solid happened so quickly the movement of the water surface was preserved.
Here is the matching “after” photograph to the “before” that started this post.
Click me for “Fall Creek Winter,” another stunning scene.
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Frozen Fall Creek I
Ice Crystals
Click any photograph for a larger version.
Click me for the next post in this series, “Frozen Fall Creek II.”
Click me for another Winter Series starting with “The Fang?”
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Christmas Ornaments 2018 I
for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8
During the summer of 2013, while, gathering my Mother’s estate I found this statue, about 9 inches high on a wood plinth, among her belongings. It is of a type of unglazed porcelain called “biscuit” or “bisque” commonly used for decorative figures. From the coloring, especially the brushwork on the robe and shade of the cloak, it is a product of an Asian workshop. The halo, erect stature and figuration of the arms and hands, identify it as the Immaculate Conception. December 8th is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception for the Roman Catholic church and, so, I have chosen this as our first Christmas ornament to post for this year.
In 2017 I produced four posts featuring photographs of Pam’s Christmas displays or our household Christmas ornaments. These were “Christmas Tableau”, “Ireland on the Mind at Christmas”, “Christmas Angels”, “Me and the War on Christmas”.
This year, Pam featured our Asian Immaculate Conception on the mantle with festive silver ornaments. She is placed in front of a wall sized mirror in which the reverse of her cloak and halo are reflected.
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Christmas Blast from the Past
Travel to a post from 2017
Thinking of Christmases Past photography projects…….
“Christmas Tableau” cozy snowmen dance round the candle.
Autumn Mushroom
Moments from a September backpack
A budding mushroom
among autumn leaf litter
along mountain shores
Peaked Mountain and Pond, Siamese Ponds Wilderness, The Adirondacks
Click this link for my Online Gallery, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Wilderness Textures
Abstract Beauty of the Superstition Wilderness of Arizona
These abstracts are some of my photographic output from four days and nights spent alone in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness. For the first three days I met not a soul, all these images were captured on a single afternoon spent in the canyon below Reavis Falls, a jumble of landslides, flood debris and boulders. There is no trail. The few people who enter the canyon must negotiate around boulders, crossing Reavis Creek many times.
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My backpack kit included a full sized Manfrotto studio tripod with hydrostatic ball head. The benefits more than outweighed the effort (I was a lot younger in 2008) when the Canon EF 100mm (macro) lens is mounted on a Kodak dSLR body, allowing me to take crisp shots. The tripod legs can be adjusted to precise positions for stability.
I can feel the bright afternoon desert spring sunshine in this photos. It was after the spring floods, the flow of Reavis Creek and ample still but slow. Gathering in pools over the rough stones of the creek bed, the water absolutely clear.
I held the shot over many minutes, capturing ever changing diffraction patterns.
We see in all these photos, not a homogenous blend of stones from a shared geology. Reavis Creek washes over diverse geologies: volcanic, ancient igneous extrusions, sedimentary and metamorphic are jumbled together.
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This is a series of photographs of smooth, white igneous boulders with shadows of still leafless sycamore and cottonwood trees.
Graceful shadows
Strong, demonstrative shadows.
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A leaning cairn, not a trail marker….
A 15 foot high jumble of stones piled at the bottom of Reavis Falls, carried over by the floods.
A metamorphic conglomerate stone….
Another metamorphic conglomerate.
Please browse my reasonably priced stock photography. License a photograph, download and use it for your website or blog. Click this link to browse all my Getty IStock Photography offerings.
Or click this link or any photograph or this link to select a print with custom framing from my “Textures” Fine Art Gallery.
Here’s another of my Arizona wilderness adventures, “Racing the Sun.”
Copyright 2018 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
