Leaves

i believe that if you take an object that anyone can identify and photograph it and turn it around in post production cropping, that it should qualify as abstract...does it? or am i making my own rule...'cause i do that...and i don't feel bad about it. i like leaves. i've always liked leaves! 3 of my most vivid memories:

1) i use to draw landscapes and flowers and such when i was a kid. my trees were usually the broccoli type or the pine type...easy to draw and no trouble identifying what they were. then i went through a phase where i would draw every single leaf on a tree...yes...it took a long time...no...it was not very much fun.

2) i love the contrast of vivid, almost neon green trees against the steel gray of a sky warning of impending thunderstorms. especially when i would drive between school in iowa and home in oklahoma, coming through kansas city, and occasionally see the peppering of said trees through the cityscape. i believe i love kansas city for these memories:)

3) oh geez...i forgot what number 3 is...hold on a second. oh! i remember! i always loved the change between winter and spring (which is weird since fall is my favorite season and i love fall leaves...and i love the change...but the favorite actually goes to the other transition). anyway! i grew up in the country and our home was (and still is...parents still there) surrounded by trees and a little bit of woodlands...or forest...or...just country. when march came around, one of the first things i would do in the morning was look out the window to see how much green had sprouted. it always seemed like a little bit at a time...and then maybe there would be a weekend of rainy weather and come monday at the bus stop, it was like an explosion of green! i loved it:) and now that i'm thinkin' 'bout it...maybe my affection for this transition is because as a kid, to me, when the world started turning green, it meant that summer was almost there and summer break too! that makes sense.

so yeah...leaves! they're great! and of course, i loved climbing trees! i could spend hours in my favorite tree in my grandparents' yard...i had to throw a rope over a branch and climb up at kind of a slope. then i could gather the rope up and no one could come up unless they got a ladder to get them to the first step or if i lowered the rope. oh i loved that tree! it got hit by lightning. i cried:( oh no...i wasn't in the tree when that happened...don't worry.





and then my friend, amy, had a tree house that we would sometimes spend all day in! we would play barbies or draw or just talk for hours...sometimes we'd even take naps. that tree house was our utopia...life was bliss up there! it was surrounded with that camo stuff that hunters use...i'm sorry i don't know what it's called. but anywho and gumdrops! it was our little hideaway:) its deterioration aligned with our growing up...our heads weren't in the clouds as much as we got older...life was about part time jobs, college applications...boyfriends...blah! man i loved that tree house...how simple life was back then. i want a tree house in my yard someday...i'll even share it with my kids:)

i started taking pictures of me holding leaves or other bits of nature in my hands. i think i was inspired but other photographers doing this. i don't think it was my idea. that's okay...i'm not trying to take credit! i like showing myself being a part of the world around me...i guess like people taking pictures of their feet...i do this too. holding something in my hand says, "i see this. i can touch it. i find beauty in it. so i'm going to capture myself with it." leaves in the sunlight are always lovely...can't go wrong!




i'm happy my fingernails are clean. when i'm at the river in a few weeks, there will probably be shots of me holding my bits of nature with my dirty river hands and fingers...that's just nature though...it's dirty...in a good way:)

i really could go on and on about leaves. oh! i should tell you where these leaves came from! our upstairs neighbor has a patio full of plants that she tends to and throws the dead bits down below. so the front of our little patio is often sprinkled with petals and leaves...it's like confetti:) earlier today there was a little red petal that looked like a heart in the bright green grass...i didn't have my camera though and was tending to kakashi. anywho and gumdrops! i'm grateful for my upstairs neighbor with the green thumb.

something to look forward to my friends! i have gathered some leaves that i call "fairy wings" because that is what they look like to me. they are lovely little veiny whimsical fragile leaves! i'm not sure how i will photography them, but my goal is to capture the beauty i spotted in them sprinkled on the ground i walk over every day with kakashi.

hopefully, my love of leaves was at the very least entertaining to read. i think everyone should try to find some beauty in a bit of nature they see every day...or drive or walk through on the occasional weekend trips or yearly vacations. even a grain of sand or colorful weed can be a treat for the eyes and senses. so maybe i sound like a hippie...well i am a little and i'm okay with it. even my conservative husband can handle it...but i digress:) i love leaves.

p.s. my favorite tree is the weeping willow. not many down in oklahoma since they need a more moist environment. but lots up here in illinois!!! yay!