Fall Photo Walk, November 25

I hope that your Thanksgiving was as lovely as mine was. My brother and his brood flew here from Denver. My parents’ house was full of food and conversation about the past, present, and future. I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday.

The light has begun to brighten from the dark damp of mid-fall. There were several evenings and mornings in which golden sunlight made a cameo, but I’d be reliably stuck on the wrong side of a window at work or home as it paraded by.

This morning I was finally able to catch some of the light with camera in hand. I returned to my favorite forest park, where the oaks are still hanging on with their many brown tones. It is not until fall is winding down that brown leaves reveal their glory.

There are also a few other trees whose leaves still linger. Among these were a trio of bald cypress trees, which is a true oddity this far north. I’m not sure who decided to plant these trees at our local parks, but I’m glad that it happened. Every year their shedding of needle-like leaves is a surprise to me. They look like evergreens until the moment those needles turn a tawny brown.

(This post is also my entry this week’s photo challenge, Transformation.)

 

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Yesterday’s Fall Photo Walk

I hated winter until I learned that I needed it. I spent four winters away from Ohio, in places where a 45-degree dawn was hailed as the start to a frigid day.  Each winter away from the Snowbelt would begin with a feeling of escape from a harsh fate and end with a sense of impending madness. I needed the deep rest that only a classic, frosty winter can offer.

While winter has not arrived yet, the temperatures have been cold enough to suggest that it’s getting time to bring out the blankets and sweaters, that there is no time like the present to dust off the books you’ve been meaning to read. The time has also changed, so there’s not enough light to get much done outside before or after work.

I had hoped for sunshine yesterday, but the skies were also gathering a blanket against the cold. The temperatures hovered in the low 20’s during my photo walk. The oaks, with their russet tones, are reigning now. Just a few sweetgum trees are blazing red. Last the willows and Bradford pear trees will change color before all of the trees slip into their winter’s rest.

(This post is also my entry in the Weekly’s Photo Challenge’s theme of Temporary.)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale

We don’t have dramatic topography or structures in my area that are conducive to taking photos that tease our ordinary perceptions of scale. The land here in Lima, Ohio, is fairly flat. The few hills in this area are like sedentary folk in that they do most of their rolling while asleep. Our buildings are fairly short and squat as well. Short of renting a helicopter or buying a drone, I don’t have any vantage point I could use for a photo that says, “look how small we really are in the grand scheme of things.”

I suppose that some of our trees are tall enough to make us look small. I noticed this in a video I took of my husband and I walking through a local forest last weekend. The further we walk away, the more Lilliputian we look.

In reality, my husband, my daughter, and I are fairly short people. We ride together comfortably in a Honda Fit.

Last month, we attended a car show that had a few classic cars that are even smaller than our Honda Fit.

Here’s a photo of my husband walking by a 1957 BMW Isetta:

Perhaps the Isetta was the Smart Car of its time (but of higher quality, I hope). In this photo, my husband looks small enough to fit himself into that car twice over. While he is on the short side, I don’t think he’d have quite enough leg room in that Isetta.

Scale

Once More, With Feeling: Pedestrian

I had technical difficulties with yesterday’s weekly photo challenge post. By the way, who is else is old enough to remember when TV stations would interrupt their broadcasts with the message, “Please stand by – We are having technical difficulties”? For whatever reason, my first entry for the challenge did not have a proper pingback, so I thought I would create another post, this time with a Throwback Thursday angle.

I have plenty of aging images in my photo archive that feature people walking around at fairs and parades. I took the picture below at a county fair ten years ago:

I would guess that this trio was on the verge of starting 11th or 12th grade when I took this picture. Unlike the other cliques of teenagers on parade for their peers that day, this group did not walk in sync. I wonder where life has taken each of them and if their roads diverged, as portended by their steps.

 Pedestrian

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The theme for this week’s photo challenge is Pedestrian. My response to this week’s challenge does not show an exquisite setting for a stroll. Instead, my image is somewhat pedestrian in a different sense. A pedometer is a common (even trite) device nowadays.

The internet is full of “humblebrags” about step counts. I won’t pretend that I’m not proud of today’s number. I had back surgery seven months ago, and I can walk seven miles on a good day.