September Foraging

Remember last September when I went on a quick trip to Manitoba Canada to attend the Finding Stillness event hosted by http://kimklassen.com/about/

Fast forward to September 2016 and no, I did not go again but I did begin a year of adventure in the Studio 2.0 course. Each month we get a prompt with an idea of what to focus on with our cameras. Maybe you'd like to see some of the results.

First up was the suggestion to go outside and forage for material to put together some Still Life shots. For many of us that meant looking in the early autumn landscape.

In the first week or so I was still able to find pretty flowers in my garden to carry inside to photograph...

 Or I could choose to pose them closer to where they were growing outside in the garden.

 For this one I foraged inside where I found this dried rose. Actually, this photo had another purpose. We were tasked with setting up in just one location and photographing it at different hours of the day to watch how the light changed. I thought this room would be too dark to take photos using natural light only but I was incorrect.

 This old window frame had been carried home as a treasure sometime last year then put in the garage and forgotten. Brought out and used as a backdrop with a couple of old aqua colored glass bottles it kept me entertained for several hours. This was while the autumn clematis was still in full bloom.

One morning the newly risen sun illuminated this spider web and I challenged myself to try and get a good image. It was a challenge but once I got this one I decided I might be done.

 The echinacea are looking pretty ragged by season's end but they still have a beauty to them.

 A neighbor has several large and spectacular hydrangea shrubs so I made a quick phonecall to ask if I could come clip some to use as subjects for my foraging photos. Using those lovely blooms occupied me for days!

This critter was also doing some foraging. You might notice a black walnut in the lower left of the photo. We have a tree that obligingly drops many of these and the squirrels keep busy for several weeks collecting them and hiding them all over the garden. Sometimes they sit on the driveway and crack them open and I come outside to find a mess of black shell to be cleaned up.

I'll save more foraging photos for another day.