For some reason the first line of an old John Prine song popped into my head. This is actually a mixture of ice, water, leaves of grass, and part of a cottonwood leaf, all jumbled into a rich stew of nutrients that will feed the new growth in my backyard in the weeks to come. Shooting straight down and very close.
It's a departure from the spare look of my ice shots over the past few days. No elegant, clean lines here. Usually I try for simplification, which maybe I could have found in the leaf itself... but I have lots of close ups of leaves, and thought I'd try something different, organizing the visual elements around complexity instead. I built in a bit of structure by placing objects - the leaf, blades of grass - along the left, bottom, and right sides, leaving the top side open. This was intentional.
Tomorrow I'll be cranking up the wayback machine and revisiting some of my favourite wilderness backpacking adventures from years past. I am grateful to my younger self for being willing to place one foot in front of the other for as long as it took to get into these amazing places. It was a huge part of my life for a quarter century. Ask my knees and back - they'll tell you it's true!
This shot was made in my backyard at the peak of snowmelt in April. Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2023 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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