the past week or so i’ve been looking through glass at collected bits of the garden.  i’ve enlisted the help of our collection of antique blue mason jars to buffer and play with light. you see, david perry is judging this month’s gardening gone wild picture this photo contest and having met him at the garden writer’s association meeting in dallas this summer, i was compelled to experiment with his proposal for this month’s theme: macro in a mason jar.

putting our antique (quart) blues to use yet again

the goal of this contest is to capture the essence of an object, en macro, and to enhance its characteristics with quality light passing through and reflecting inside the glass.  the camera is placed on the rim of a glass jar of some sort, and the camera’s macro skills are put to the test. if you’ve ever struggled with the macro (tulip) setting on your camera, this is the study for you to train each other with.  honestly, i think the more you work with this setting, the better the eye of the camera and of the beholder gets…

ball perfect mason & pint

my first collected objects included gossypium (cotton, not grown on-site), winterized asteraceae, lichen epiphytes and another malvaceae (cotton being the first, hibiscus the second):

fluffy gossypium (cotton)

asteraceae on gossypium through the glass

asteraceae "snow" flakes

lichen epiphytes on gossypium

continuing on the soft cotton background that both reflected and softened the light, i added asclepias (butterfly weed) to the jar:

asclepias (butterfly weed) array

asclepias seed pods on gossypium

i then decided to build up the background using my favorite colored winter stems:

lichen on purple blushed malvaceae (hibiscus) twigs

apricot infused malvaceae (hibiscus) seed pod with purple blushed twigs and lichen

an agriope (orb weaver) spider nest added to the light-filled jar

changing things up a bit i removed the cotton and went for a bit more chlorophyll action:

enter beta vulgaris (swiss chard) and the vegetable garden to the mix

the blue green glass filters complementary light onto the swiss chard

jagged rubrus (blackberry) leaves and thorns

reflected blue light pools on ruby rubrus (blackberry) foliage

continuing with the fruit theme, i gathered some pomegranates growing out front:

punica (pomegranates) red and green

pomegranates

noticing the center pomegranate (above) was in the shape of a battered heart, i placed it alone on a bed of cotton:

pomegranate heart with soft filtered light

and then i (accidentally) broke my heart:

not a soft landing for this glass jar...

gathering up the broken pieces...

hmm...

even the shattered pieces are beautiful

working with the emerging theme, i vowed to go on, even if i could no longer follow the rules:

pomegranate heart on shattered antique glass

pomegranate heart with left membrane removed, on shattered glass and soft cotton

a shattered heart at rest

i took this series of photos over a week’s time, and enjoyed how the images evolved. which image would you choose to enter the contest? to see which one i selected, head on over to the gallery where there’s several other perspectives to enjoy. thanks again to fran, saxon and debra for hosting the contest at ggw, and thank you david for the poetic inspiration.

namaste (i see & honor the light in you)…

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