decay and compost
Seeds of Hope
The snow has pretty much worn out its welcome as far as I am concerned but I came upon something interesting today. In the photo below you can see a milkweed seed covered in snow. As cold & snowy as it is, this is a wonderful reminder that there will be small flocks of Monarch butterflies coming this summer. Sometimes hope comes in small, hidden packages.
milkweed seed
A Nearer Landscape #5
Our old amputated apple tree still gives a few apples for the squirrels each year. There is not much left of it but I like the way it shines on a wet day.
old apple tree
A Nearer Landscape #2
I’m glad that there is some redeeming value in our dying pear tree. Our nearly-dead pear tree continues to produce pears that are shared by mostly ants and bees. I enjoy a few myself but the ants are regulars.
pear #1
A Nearer Landscape #1
Early in my career I thought about all the wonderful photos I could take if only I could travel to exotic locations. As one who always wanted to see what was around the next bend, I felt that my photos would greatly improve by going to where National Geographic photographers and writers went.
Then one of my photographer friends burned out rather quickly working for the Magazine I loved. I still anxiously read the articles and look with wonder at the terrific photographs in National Geographic Magazine but I now have a better understanding of the process than I did years ago.
This past Friday was a very rainy, fall day in the Chicago area. I used this as an opportunity to take some photos. I’ve always enjoyed shooting in the rain because a coating of water saturates the colors. The neutral color of a rainy sky adds a purity to the colors.
My goal was to shoot for no more than an hour, venture no farther than my yard and to come up with 10 photos that showed me something new.
Photography is much more about seeing than it is about taking photos. Familiar subjects seen in a new light become a different – even exotic world. (An hour in the rain could be miserable if this were not true.) Most of the hour was spend seeing; very little was spent shooting.
The images in this series are very straightforward in both composition and treatment. I opted to not use unusual angles or anything other than a “here it is” approach to shooting. I also used no Photoshop filters or any post-production tools other than an occasional use of curves to put the contrast back into sync with my eye.
I didn’t travel to faraway lands shooting these but I looked at each subject as if it were seen for the very first time. And I had a blast.
Landscape #1
This is a horse chestnut tree leaf from my neighbor’s tree. I always have thought of these fallen leaves as a dirty brown color. This one was a beautiful surprise.
horse chestnut tree leaf
Decay… Again
broccoli leaf
Once again I am struck by the aesthetic side of decomposition. This time I took the broccoli leaf into the studio to photograph it. It was a little late in the evening and pretty dark for photography outside.
This is the same type of leaf that in June I was so taken by its waterproof quality. It now looks very different. No longer waterproof, it has taken a distinctly autumn-ish color. It looks worn and ragged.
As my garden ages it changes in so many ways. Leaves like this broccoli leaf become battle scarred. Tomato plants wither from the inside as they seem to yield their energy to the fruits as they ripen. The same fate falls to Noah’s pumpkin plants. They look horrible – just dying – again, in sacrifice to the beautiful pumpkins they produce.
Only the pepper plants continue to look as virile as their fruits.
This is the period of the greatest harvest. It comes at a price the plant itself pays. We enjoy the harvest but I also watch as the plants begin to succumb to their efforts.
No Progress on the Greenhouse
Clematis on greenhouse
So far our plans to turn the greenhouse into something other than an overgrown home for wild animals and rusty tools have been put on hold.
Instead, I have taken the easy way out and continue to do with it what I can. I photograph it.
I enjoy photographing the building season to season and year after year. Because we have lived with it for so long there is a Dorian Gray-quality to the experience. (Of course it is the greenhouse that ages and not us.)
As its architectural elements continue to fade away, the focal point each summer has become the clematis we planted against the south side when we moved here. A climbing rose planted years ago also helps to soften the deterioration.
If the flowers give the greenhouse meaning that may be enough for me to keep it the way it is for another year.
Poetry of Decay
A couple of times each week I carry my coffee can full of coffee grounds, egg shells and banana peels to the compost pile. That, combined with grass clippings and autumn’s leaves create quite a pile.
But once decomposition begins, the pile shrinks and becomes the dark brownish- black compost that the garden seems to love.
Aside from this wonderful function, I have found a poetic side of decay that is truly beautiful. Our old greenhouse is a monument to oxidation. Rust’s rich color combined with the familiar shape of the tools they once were create odd sculptures.
My neighbor’s rhubarb turns a beautiful color and shape after a series of autumn freezes.
And last year I found a squirrel’s nearly complete skeleton in a corner of the compost pile. Even it’s tiny molars can be seen in the photo below. 
