16 Comments

Love that you did this John, and congrats on achieving a hand bouquet, I know from Diana's experience that they are not easy!

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Ha, ha. So I found out.

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Thanks for the share.

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Some really nice photographs here :)

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Thank you Stephen. I feel an instant connection to your work. Thanks for the share.

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It’s so glad I stumbled up on this post. I am all about the wildflowers thank you so much for sharing this.

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Thank you Tinabeth. Our property is full of wildflowers, so you will like see more of them here over time. I have started to post some wildflowers images in my notes section as well as I have quite a backlog of them.

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Beautiful photos John and lovely meadow. Thanks so much for sharing it with us! Happy to have also discovered Diana Pappas! I did a wildflower post in the spring. I've been meaning to do another.

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Thank You and you are welcome. I searched for wildflowers on your substack but all seemed locked up except for your August 22 post on the Salisbury Salt Marsh.

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Hi John, yes it is behind the paywall. I will repost it at some point. https://pamelaleavey.substack.com/p/photo-essay-wildflowers-in-my-yard

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John thanks for taking us along with you on this meditation on and in the meadow! It's splendid to see all the varieties you were able to isolate and identify. I think we also have woodland sunflower - I put that in my first hand bouquet attempt that wasn't quite right for the art drop but will probably see the light of day soon. They are so cheerful popping out of the shade the way they do. I think we might also have white heath aster too in our driest, sunniest spot - I need to get outside and take a closer look! This is such a lovely post, I enjoyed it so much, and your final hand bouquet is a lovely culmination and arrangement of the beautiful plants you've introduced us to. We'll have to compare notes next spring too...

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Thank you Diana for getting me up off my ass. I am better for it. I mow the meadow once a year, less often than I used to, and am seeing more varieties of plants each year. Every year I seem to mow later and later, hoping that I will do the least damage to local wildlife populations while keeping the meadow from being overtaken by shrubs and trees. The meadow is a living botany lab. Matching plants with names and learning little tidbits about them is very rewarding.

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Knowing when to time the field-mowing is really tricky - I think we're aiming for early November, so things are short for winter, but what do we know? I like your description of the meadow as a living botany lab... these are important habitats! The insect world alone that populates them is so robust... there are endless details to observe and discover.

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Lovely photos, John. It seems that cheap lens is good enough for the Net and social media. Actually, I find the photos are excellent, which says to me that the person behind tbe camera is more important than the machine, although a good machine helps Love the Tom Petty song. Happy Wildflowers.

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Yes, any lens will do. We have long past the stage where there were good and bad cameras, good and bad lenses. The gap between these two extremes has narrowed in that almost all cameras and all lenses, even the cheap ones, are better than we rightly could hope for. The race for the most megapixels is over. The debate between full frame and crop sensor cameras has become tiresome, even boring. Gear acquisition syndrome (GAS) remains the number one malady amongst photographers which carries the industry limping into the future. Fact is, photography has matured to the point of near extinction. Now nearly everyone carries a camera in their phone. Stills, movies, they are no longer special. But photography, like writing, still has the power to move people. Some say photography is dead. Some say music is dead. Certainly many say writing is dead. But self expression continues despite what people say and the tools of our trades may change but communication remains vital to the human experience.

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Absolutely in agreement. Communication will always live on, as long as we exist.

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