Dodder

I was not aware of dodder until a couple of years ago, while driving along a road that I’ve used every day for the past fifteen years. One summer I noticed something orange and stringy covering plants along the side of the road. I was curious, but I always forgot to look it up. At least a year went by, and I finally figured out what it was. If you have never seen it before, imagine taking orange/yellow silly string and spraying it all over some plants. That’s what it looks like driving by, but what does it look like up close? Recently I was able to bring some home, including the plant it was attached to, in order to photograph for this show.

I was doing a little research and it was really interesting how it grows. It’s actually a parasitic plant - after seed germination, it finds another plant to twine around or attach to. It then inserts modified roots into the host plant, getting all of its nutrients and water from it. It even gives up growing in the ground once it attaches itself to a host plant.

I don’t know if I will see this plant again until next summer. At this time, there is no noticeable orange silly string in the spot where I took my samples from so I feel fortunate to have taken the photos I did.

Praying Mantis

Not too long ago, the strangest thing happened - I did a portrait shoot with a praying mantis. When there’s enough daylight in the evenings, I like to spend time in the yard, not necessarily doing work per se, but, maybe pulling a few weeds, turning the compost pile, or assessing future plans. I can be worse than a pet sometimes when it comes to tracking things into the house. In a little more than a week we found at least two praying mantises in the house, with the most recent one being on me.

I must have spent part of a Sunday morning in the yard, and returned to the sofa for lunch, when I noticed something on my shirt. It looked like a piece of straw or dead plant material that I must have picked up in the yard. But it wasn’t - it was a small praying mantis. And I knew what I had to do - photograph it!

I quickly set up an impromptu photo studio, throwing some black cloth over a chair and pulling out my camera. Since he was barely moving on my shirt, it seemed he would make the perfect subject. However, when I got him in the “studio”, he became more active and more challenging to photograph. After about a half dozen photographs, he was done with me, so I put him outside where he belonged but glad he made a pit stop along his journey so I could take his picture.

Monarch Butterfly Egg

Many people who lead busy lives never stop for a moment and watch the world around us. There is usually something interesting going on, but we just have to pay attention. One afternoon I took my camera to the the Park Circle butterfly garden, and I was captivated by a Monarch butterfly as she flew among the milkweed plants. Occasionally I would see her touch the tip of her abdomen to the plant, and I realized that each time she did that, she was laying an egg. I followed her around the garden as she started stage one of a new generation of Monarch butterflies (they can lay as many as 500 eggs over a two to five week period) until I got this photo. Since then, I have been able to photograph most of the stages of a butterfly’s life cycle with the exception of one emerging from a chrysalis so stay tuned for that one.

Milkweed with Fly

Most of these photos were taken indoors, where I could control the weather conditions - light, air current, and placement of the plant, or as much as the plant was willing to cooperate. Macro photography in the wild turns out to be more challenging than you think, but you never know what you may see. In this instance, I was still learning how to take photos like this, when I decided to give it one more try at the end of the day. I had read somewhere that shooting in the shade or late afternoon made it easier to get the black background.

Unlike other photos, this time I saw the fly foraging for dinner while I was focusing on the flower. I took several shots as the fly moved around, but none of them were quite as good as this one. You might say I got lucky!

Dollarweed

Under the right conditions, every plant flowers, but some are more famous - or infamous - for their leaves. Dollarweed is one of those plants. It gets its name from silver-dollar-shaped leaves and is the scourge of everyone who wants the perfect lawn. I see it pop up in my yard in areas that tend to stay wet, and in places where the grass has gotten a little thin.

While most of these plants in my yard were unknown to me until recently, dollarweed was one that I was familiar with. Though it wasn’t until I happened to be sitting on the lawn that I noticed it flowering and decided to take a closer look. The cluster of flowers were so tiny - this photo doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.

This is another plant I’d like to get to know better, taking more photos of, trying to get a better look at its elusive flowers.