Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: frond

(+5 insets!) Today's Quick Post: Get Closer! My main picture today is one of those cool lessons you discover about macro photography. This dead fern frond is something most wouldn't notice. Why? It's dead. Furthermore, the color conditions us to ignore it because we've learned that brown plants = dead = boring. But if you get close to a dead plant, you'll often be greeted by a surprise like this one: new and interesting detail that you've never noticed before! Macro photography has taught me that even the most supposedly boring subjects can actually be extremely interesting and memorable! I now make sure to study all parts of a plant--both live and dead--because you never know what fantastic surprises lay in wait! :) Today's Pictures I'm featuring the other fern pictures I processed from my walk around the edge of Eel Lake at William Tugman State Park. I've also included a wonderful dead leaf with dramatic coloring and an interesting shape which I couldn't resist. :) I hope you are all doing great and have a lovely weekend in store! Explored on 2/20/21; highest placement #2.

Hi everyone! We are finally home from our 3-week RV trip to four of Central Oregon's lovely state parks: LaPine, The Cove Palisades, L.L. Stub Stewart and Diamond Lake.What an amazing trip it was! There were so many beautiful places, so many wonderful adventures, and so many "firsts" too! It was also a trip which taught me a few things, but most of all I had to wave goodbye to an internet connection and just forget about it. I also realized that it was just impossible to keep up with a proper journal. It's always a struggle: do you LIVE the adventure or do you DOCUMENT it? It's all a balancing act and part of that balance is just throwing your hands in the air and enjoying the show without taking a single picture or writing a word about it. We were blessed to lose our truck's transmission in a place where we were safe. If asked, "Where would you like to be stuck if you were stranded in your RV for a week while your truck was being repaired?", we'd both say "L.L. Stubb State Park!" Honestly, there were many wonderful parks we would happily hole up in but we sure loved staying at L.L. Stubb with its endless hiking and mountain bike trails, comfortable weather, and gorgeous local. Deep, rich, beautiful forests are not the worst surroundings and in the end we got our truck back in premier condition and ready for years of adventures in the future! I've missed everyone here so very much. Even when there was an internet connection, I rarely had the time to visit which was too bad but what are you going to do, right?! :) I sure do hope that everyone has been doing ok and I look forward to visiting between the ebb and flow of chores around here! Today's picture is a one of a favorite subject: a fern frond! You may know how much I adore them--In fact, I'm infatuated by these lovely plants! When we were in L.L. Stubb State Park, we stayed at two sites. The first five days we stayed at their upper campground, the next five days we stayed at their lower campground. Next to our site was a steep hillside which of course I was soon crawling around on with my camera and macro lens. Why? Well, remember the Foxgloves I shared last? The white ones were waving at me and I couldn't resist. Once I was down there I found bunches of other lovely subjects to photograph. I saw some ferns too but they weren't in great condition. In fact, many fronds were in the process of yellowing and dying back. Then I noticed how colorful they were and took a closer look. HOLY COW, THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL!!! I was totally enchanted, and so today I wanted to share this picture with you so you can see how incredible a dying fern frond can be! :) Pam, you've been on my mind every day too. I hope you are well. I've been thinking a lot about Marie-Claire too and wishing for positive news--if anyone reading this knows how she is doing, I sure would like to know! Sending my biggest *HUGGZ* to everyone this evening!! Explored on 7/6/19; highest placement, #1.

(+2 insets) (view large for the best detail!) It was so pretty this morning with the sun shining brightly and so lovely to be outside as the world was waking up around me. Well, ok--to be honest, when I begin my walk at an early time like today it's 7:30am and the sunrise ship has already sailed away two hours before! But I'm sorry, 5:30am is officially "0-dark-hundred" and that is no time for a sane person to be getting up! At least, not in my mind, anyway! Heh...I'd consider myself a "morning person" now but that only goes so far! Steve and I have been so busy working on the property and prepping for our trip that I've had to neglect my pictures from our last trip. However, today things were much more relaxed so I took the opportunity to get some images finished from our lovely visit to Stout Grove, in Jedediah Smith State Park. This lovely park is nestled in a huge forest of old-growth redwood trees. These magnificent trees include the largest and tallest trees in the world! They only live along a narrow strip in northern California to southern Oregon and are quite the magnificent sight. (I'll be sharing pictures of the redwoods in another post) :) The forest here was also brimming with fern species and I went totally hog-wild with my photography the moment we got out of the car. You may know that I'm a hopeless junkie for ferns, especially when the fronds are unfurling...they are so unbelievably cool to me. :) And so, today's presentation is all about some of the lovely ferns I photographed! The main picture is a close-up of an unfurling Sword Fern and the insets show two other pictures of this super cool species, including their "elephantine" unfurling fronds and a fun shallow dof art shot! I hope you enjoy the show! Explored on 6/5/19; highest placement, #4.

This fern plant isn't large, with each frond being only a few inches long, so I thought it would be fun to try getting some close-ups of the undersides, which are so fascinating to me. What you are looking at are spores, which is how ferns reproduce. Ferns are one of the world's oldest plants, and they do not reproduce by flower pollination like most other plants. The next time you are admiring a fern, take a look at the underside, and you'll be surprised how interesting the spores look! In fact, the spore vary drastically from one species to another, and I find them quite beautiful! :) If you would like to know more about spore reproduction in plants, Wiki has a very nice page here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporogenesis

Thought I would fool around with different color modes on this image and I thought it looked really nice in sepia. This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

Today I walked over to our seasonal stream on the way to a sprout I found the other day...but I never got there! I stopped to take a closer look along the edge and to my surprise, I found a tiny fern! How I adore these plants, and most especially, I love to see the ones which are unfurling. I looked very carefully until, with a squeak of delight, my eyes alit upon this incredibly tiny frond which was pushing its way up just 1" off the ground, its tiny head a mere 1/4" in diameter! When I looked at my pictures, I decided that the image was a bit on the bland side, so I turned it into a texture piece and found a pretty poem to go with it! I hope you like it! :) Thanks to Brenda Starr for the lovely texture, and as always, another nod to my dear Flickr sister, Stephanie Calhoun for her inspiration to use textures in some of my images! *high five* Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. Wikipedia: Robert Frost Egal Bohen: "My poems are my thoughts, dreams and memories, scribbled down primarily for myself as part of a lifetimes search to find out exactly what I am, who I am, where I am, and what the hell I'm here for - but I hope also you might find something in them too, for yourself, somewhere, if you find yourself asking yourself similar questions, which I am certain you do." Egal Bohen