Right Brain Feed

 I’ve become smitten with gelli printing of botanicals. ‘Gelli’ meaning I use a squishy gelli like plate for printing. Here’s how it works: I roll out a thin layer of acrylic paint on my gelli plate, then make imprints in it with leaves and anything else I can think of (bubble wrap, feathers, bits of twine, stencils, etc). Then once the paint is textured, I lay a sheet of paper over it and make a print. I’ve really been enjoying trying all different sorts of leaves. The end of summer is getting closer, so I’ve been making prints before the leaves disappear. Here was my printing set up during yesterday’s session: And one of my prints up close: 

I recently lucked out and got to spend some foraging time with a really knowledgeable forager. We went seeking black trumpets.  They smelled amazing, as we gathered them, I could smell them wafting up from my basket. We need to invent a scratch and sniff photo technology, because a photo without the lovely smell just doesn't do it justice.  Apparently black trumpets are found close to hemlock, beech, and fallen birch. They like an undulating ground surface, and quartz outcroppings. Yummy in a simple butter miso linguine dish, and also delish in an omelette 

 I’ve been tinkering with Chlorophyll printing.  It’s fun, when it actually works. I start with a photo I took, and print it out in black and white on a clear sheet of acetate. I overlay that clear acetate on a leaf.  Only certain types of leaves work, this one happens to be a hasta leaf. I leave it outside on a sunny day, oriented directly facing the sun. As the sun beats down on the leaf, the places where the image shades the leaf stay green, and the places where there is no image force a change in the chlorophyll, resulting in an image on the leaf. It’s not transferring anything from the acetate to the leaf, the image is entirely a result of the chlorophyll in the leaf trying to cope with being in extended very direct sunlight for an extended time. How cool is that! Here are some more images. Lots of different tests, trials, and tribulations…. I’ll leave those perhaps for another post.

 We've been really excited to see our very first black raspberries starting to ripen, black raspberries really are my favorite.  But then we were chased out by some really aggressive yellow jackets. Sarah got 5 yellow jacket stings a few weeks ago, and then last week I got two. War has been declared.  Most stinging things here are pretty laid back. They go about their business of visiting flowers or building a nest, and generally leave us alone. We even had wasps nesting in the house for a bit this year.  I finally found their nest today out in our field, and hit it with spray. Hope it works, because our raspberries are delightful when they aren't covered in perpetually angry yellow jackets. I did manage to pick some while suited up in thick pants, and a hooded windbreaker with the hood cinched tight around my face.

 We have a really special cemetery close by that I walk past frequently and visit. Quaint headstones, surrounded by a beautiful dry stack stone wall. And plenty of wonderful people I've known to visit. It's a calming, quiet place. But there is also a darker more sinister side to my visits. Outside the walls is a large mound of dirt, grass clippings,  and discarded plants.  I tend to peruse the discards to see if there is anything I can salvage and replant. Two years ago we scored big when someone decided to thin out the iris at a loved ones grave marker. This year I have my eye on a really healthy huge light pink columbine. It's just bloomed, if we leave it to go to seed, we plan to steal both seeds and the plant. Hope there aren't other plant robbers also planning to heist it. Update June 20: I guess I'm not the only columbine pilferer in town, someone else nicked the columbine out from under us! Went back and it was gone. Not even a lonely seed pod left behind.  

 Yesterday I tried out my new spotting scope, and took my first stab at digiscoping. This is my first scope, digiscoping is the act of holding/mounting some sort of camera up to the scope, and taking a picture thru it. Yesterday I tried it with my cell phone. While I am loving the scope, it brings in tons of light, and is crystal clear, the photos didn’t do it justice. But it will be interesting to try different setups, and I can’t wait to use the scope to spy on loons across the lake next summer. Trying to learn about spotting scopes was an odd experience, on one hand you have the mild mannered bird geeks like myself using scopes to look at cute fluffy little birdies, and on the other hand you have macho guys all camouflaged out wanting to use scopes to go kill animals.  So this bird stalker found herself perusing spotting scope reviews a few times on websites clearly not geared towards watching cute fluffy birds. Uhhhh....Celebrate diversity?

 Continuing with the "well duh,Suzy" photography rules  , another photography truth is that photos don't come find you if you hide in your office fussing with photo editing/organizing all the time. While a lot of folks thrive on using mad editing skillz to come up with wildly teased photos, for me the joy is in the seeking and finding of photos.  I enjoy capturing the moment.  I realized recently that I was getting in too deep with trying to rework/reorganize all my photos that have piled up over 15 years ago.... I needed a break, needed to go have fun back in the real world.  So I went for a quick hike, I wasn't really focused on photography at all, but still managed to find and capture a few  nice ones on a foggy day up at Craggy Gardens. Corollary to Go Find Photos: Sometimes photos don't need the $2k body with super fast Zeiss glass shot in raw using a tripod. These were all captured with my cell phone. I wanted the photo gearicity to be on the minimal ...