Memorial Day 2010 in southeastern Minnesota was beautiful! Very low humidity and temperatures in the mid-70s. We rode our motorcycles out to Carley State Park to spend a few hours having a picnic lunch and wandering around some of the trails. The north branch of the Whitewater River flows through the park and our trail took us along the river’s edge. There was a stand of these flowers which resemble Queen Anne’s Lace vaguely, but are atop stalks seven or eight feet tall. I tried to find out what they really are online, but I’m still unsure. My best guess is cow parsnip. The other choice seems to be giant hogweed. Both are said to be rather poisonous.
In any case, they were all rather amazing. I can’t remember seeing flowers so large that weren’t sunflowers.
This guy appeared nearby. There were many of these caterpillars hanging by a thread, so to speak, in the woods. I normally have to fight with the speckled light of a bright sun coming through the leaves into the forest. It makes for exposure extremes that are difficult to cope with. But this day, I tried to work with that light, and our hanging friend above is an example. He was brightly lit by the sun, and I could move a bit to place him against a dark background making him pop.
I might have zoomed in a bit, but on this day, I was using my 50mm f/1.4 fixed length lens – no zoom. In that case, you “zoom with your feet,” but this is not a macro lens which limited how close I could be to the little guy and still be in focus. Nevertheless, I like the resulting image.
Being the end of May, there were still plenty of wildflowers around the forest floor. Here the wonderfully shallow depth of field of the 50mm lens made for a nice shot. I love the green of the woods; it makes for a terrific backdrop for the tiny flowers.
When we were preparing to leave the park, we had one more stop to make, of course. Lynne heard the shutter click and asked if I was taking a picture of the outhouse. Well, sort of. Actually, just the sign. I’m not sure why. Sometimes you find the shot and sometimes the shot finds you. In the latter case, you take the shot not knowing what it’s for or what you’ll do with it. It just needs to be taken. Maybe, you’ll just post it on your blog.
