The day that I went on campus for my 2nd dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, back in July, the poincianas were in bloom.
I walked around taking pictures of them.
I haven’t done that much this year…
…just wandered around places…
…taking photos….
So many changes.
But the poincianas keep blooming…
For mornings such as this…
…when Tropical Storm Zeta in the western Caribbean Sea…
…streams rainclouds across the sky, blocking the morning sun…
…nature provides a fallback of other yellows…
…to counter the grey….
Chin up! Don’t look down! The view on the ground is not the celebrated view…perhaps for good reason…
But sometimes the downward glance reveals the beauty…
…of fallen things…
…of forgotten things…
…of broken things…
…of things past their prime….
This blooming Poinciana tree…
…Delonix regia…
…flamboyant fi true!
I stood in a backyard in St Paul, Minnesota, trying to take a photo of a bright red cardinal as it flitted from tree to tree. Such a beautiful bird, but it just wouldn’t sit still! Every time I moved slowly into position to snap a photo, the bird flew off to a new vantage point! So I got no photo of the bird….
This tree in the backyard, however, stayed still enough for me to take a number of photos, which I now share with you. If anyone can identify the tree for me, I would be grateful.
Here is its crown pictured with two other trees against a clear blue sky…
It had beautiful blossoms in abundance…
Here they are closer up…
The tree had such wonderfully rugged bark…
And if you look very carefully, up towards the right in this photo, you may see the branch on which the cardinal was sitting moments before I captured this image!
“Flower,…
…the reproductive portion of any plant in the division Magnoliophyta (Angiospermae),…
…a group commonly called flowering plants…
…or angiosperms….
As popularly used, the term “flower” especially applies…
…when part or all of the reproductive structure is distinctive in colour…
and form.”
“This week, show us your interpretation of prolific.”
It is still poui season and a poui tree in bloom is certainly prolific! Last week I shared photos of a yellow poui tree. This week it is the turn of a pink poui tree. (I declare my bias in favour of yellow poui trees, but I would never say this out loud in the hearing of any poui tree!)
Masses of blossoms on the tree…
…and on the ground….
Beautiful, even when fallen…
“Taking a photo is an invitation to explore the world around us as if it were new and mysterious. My favorite shots are always the ones that reveal something — a detail, an angle — I’d previously overlooked. They’re the ones that turn the familiar slightly (or very) alien.”
When you get close to flowers, it can be like entering a different world. Hibiscus…
…plumbago…
…orchid….
“Evoke the excitement of entering a new year with a photo that shows growth.”
They hold promise…mango blossoms…
… hibiscus buds…
…like the new year.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Growth
‘This theme is as wide open as the prairie sky. How will you portray “Experimental”?’
I enjoy photographing flowers; they are such colourful subjects. What happens when you take the colour away? Beautiful still!
