Monthly Archives: November 2018

NEW CAMERA

Some years ago my life was changed by the purchase of a new camera and lens. With it I was able to photograph even the smallest flowers, and this led me to write a book, “Small Wonders” many of the pictures being only possible because of the new camera.

And then came another change. Our son, with his wife and daughter, was here on a visit, bringing an unexpected gift – a new kind of camera, unlike anything I have ever seen before. It plugs into the computer and only takes pictures of things that are really small. Amcap – Digital Microscope 20x-800x Magnification 8-LED Mini Microscope Endoscope Camera Magnifier.

Right away I was struck with the difference between human made objects and living things.

I photographed one of my recent watercolors. The new camera produced a beautiful highly textured picture, showing the paper and the way the pigment settled into its peaks and valleys. Then I photographed the painting and printed a copy. The extra close-up camera showed that this print consisted of a series of smudges and dots.

A portion of the painting

Close up of the painting

Close up of a print of the painting

 

I suspected that living plants would be very different. To test my theory I photographed a spurge in our front yard (some kind of Euphorbia). With the naked eye and with my ordinary camera, I could not tell whether it was in bloom or not. Then I took a picture with my usual close-up camera and found that indeed it was. Finally I used my new Amcap camera, and found all kinds of detail I had been missing. With the new, even more powerful equipment I could go into more and more detail, and no matter how far I went, I would still be seeing new things until finally arriving at the molecular level. There is a kind of infinity in living plants that is quite astonishing and endlessly fascinating. And, by the way, it is in bloom.

 

Euphorbia seen from above

Euphorbia with my close-up camera – below, with the new camera

LATE BLOOMERS

We live in Arizona so we expect the unexpected, like Saguaros, Creosote, Ocotillo and a host of other plants blooming more than once a year. The books say that they are Spring bloomers. The plants say they will bloom when they feel like it, which apparently, is right now.

On Halloween I made a trip to Sabino Canyon. It was a beautiful sunny day. According to my own rain gauge, we have already had over twenty inches of rain since January 1. Compare that to the normal total of ten to twelve inches and you will see why some of the plants are confused. I looked up at a very tall saguaro. Toward the top it was crestate. This word refers to the fact that with some saguaros, the top, instead of being a column topped with a dome, fans out into many folds and ridges. Sometimes normal branches grow out of the crestate top (see my posting SEEN ON NATURE WALKS April 1, 2017).

On this last day of October the one I saw not only had the crestate, and new branches emerging from it, but the top of the saguaro next to it was sporting a fresh new flower. Another had  flowers on a side arm.

Not far away there were a number of creosote bushes (Larrea tridentata) in flower. Yesterday I saw two Ocotillos (Fouquieria splendens) with their bright red flowers at their tips. On a short plant walk Ed and I saw over thirty species of otherflowers in bloom, and this was early in November.

 

Whenever they bloom, these plants are always welcome, giving us a lift with their beauty.