Colour is hard to find on the northern prairie in March. The hills are yellow-brown, the valley bottom is yellow-brown, my front lawn and backyard garden are yellow-brown.Certainly I'm glad to see the departure of winter, but the land is still warming. The first green grass blades are still tentative. It will be a while before we see the rolling green hills of spring, dotted with wildflowers, graced by the flash of bright feathers.

I spent some time on a recent hike searching for the first prairie crocus, to no avail. Soon, but not yet. Then, cutting across a broad slope littered with big rocks, I noticed the one constant that's available to me in all four seasons: lichens on rocks. One of the boulders - the largest, as it turned out - was made of pink granite, which instantly informed me that it didn't "grow" here. This was a glacial erratic, deposited by retreating glaciers ten thousand years ago or more, at the end of the most recent Ice Age. It was covered in lichens.

Lichens, which are neither plants nor animals, consist of an alga ("alga" is singular; "algae" plural) and a fungus in a symbiotic relationship. Map lichens, such as the ones seen in this image, are the oldest living organisms on earth; an Arctic species has been dated at more than 8,000 years old.

My concerns that morning, however, were purely photographic. I was carrying the tripod. I still have one of those old fashioned DSLRs with the mirror, so I used a cable release to lock it up before each exposure and thus minimize vibration from mirror slap. I focused on the shaded side of the rock; illuminated from the blue sky above kept the colours relatively cool. I lined up my camera's sensor parallel to the plane of the rock and stopped my lens down to ensure edge to edge sharpness. I briefly considered flattening those dead grasses, but in the end chose to leave them in, for context.

Photographed near Eagle Butte in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2022 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   lichen macro close up glacial erratic boulder rock pink granite symbiosis mutualism pattern shape texture colour color colourful colorful grass wild prairie Eagle Butte Grasslands National Park Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page

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It's a land of spaces and distance, the prairie, where you can get lost, pummelled, frozen or fried, take your pick. Yet amid the hazards and harshness... unimaginable beauty. Sometimes I find it in the clouds, sometimes in shadows of clouds rolling across the land, other times in it wild creatures or in the light itself. And often it's right at my feet, hidden in plain sight.

The hills of Grasslands are strewn with boulders, many of them deposited by melting glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. This pink granite almost certainly came from the Rocky Mountains, transported hundreds of miles and unceremoniously dumped upon the prairie buttes and coulees. George and I were working on a segment of our video project concerning macro photography - mainly wildflowers, insects, and lichens.

It seems that scientists are having difficulty classifying lichens. They exist as an alga and a fungus in a symbiotic relationship, but here's the problem: algae are plants, but fungi are not; they exist in a kingdom of their own. So where do you slot in an organism that mates two life forms from different kingdoms? And can it even be considered as "an organism"? It certainly has a name. We know its components.

Pardon my confusion. I could not find a clear explanation online last time I looked.

And lichens are everywhere, from rain forests to Arctic tundra. Some are ancient. They can survive for thousands of years - by far the oldest living organisms on our planet.

Science aside for now, just looking at lichens aesthetically, they are marvels of colour, shape, and texture. I didn't do anything special here - just saw the lichen and bare rock pattern on a big rock and set up my tripod for parallel plane focusing. Small f-stop, cable release, slow shutter, low ISO. Soft, even lighting. Sharp focus.

Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2021 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   lichen macro close up rock glacial erratic boulder pink granite symbiosis symbiotic relationship alga fungus ancient old crustose lichen wow beauty beautiful nature wild prairie the buttes Eagle Butte Grasslands National Park Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page Explored

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The Colour of Winter, Part V, for lichen lovers everywhere. Some great things about lichens: 1 - they are as colourful as wildflowers; 2 - you can find them in winter as well as summer; 3 - the ones that grow on rocks don't move, so it doesn't matter if the wind is blowing; 4 - rock lichens often grow on flat or nearly flat surfaces, so all you have to do is stop down to f/16 or smaller and most or all of your subject will be in focus; 5 - you don't have to worry about backgrounds (again referring to rock lichens), just find a pleasing configuration; 6 - they're everywhere; 7 - they can live for thousands of years, so if you mess up the shot all you have to do is find that rock and try again; 8 - most photographers don't bother with them, so the competition is nil; and 9 - they're often very beautiful.

The down side for some is that to get a TOP quality photo, you have to use a tripod. A tripod allows you to stop your lens way down for maximum depth of field without worrying about the shutter speed. Using a tripod is the only way to achieve the ideal combination of small f-stop, slow shutter, and low ISO. If you don't, image quality will be compromised, either by insufficient depth of field, unintentional blur, or digital noise. Admittedly, these problems are not as great as in times past. In particular, modern sensors in high end cameras are so good - and noise reduction software is now so sophisticated - that you can get a good result at higher ISO settings. But for the BEST quality, without compromise, you still need to tick those three boxes. Oh, and you'll need a decent macro lens, too!

So, to summarize: sturdy tripod, good macro lens, low ISO, stop down the aperture. In addition, I use a cable release and lock my mirror up before exposure to eliminate vibration from mirror slap. Those with mirrorless cameras can skip this step. Of course, you have to be able to see and compose, too :-)

Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2021 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   lichen macro close up vertical orange parallel plane focusing beauty beautiful small f-stop low ISO tripod patience rock still life outdoor nature wild prairie Grasslands National Park Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page

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