Frost from Fire

As different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

~ Emily Bronte

It has been a cold, frosty winter for the most part. One downside is that it's been too cold to wander about comfortably with camera in hand. Another is that my apartment windows are so heavily covered in frost, that I have a hard time seeing outside of them. The upside however, is that it makes for some interesting macro photography. Frosty windows with minimal tweaking are below.

Winter is a glorious spectacle of glittering fractals complete with a soundscape and atmosphere entirely its own. ~ Anders Swanson

The sun sent its first light over the horizon and sprinkled her golden glitter on my window pane.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. 

~ John Burroughs

Just when I thought it couldn't sparkle any brighter.. it did.

What miracle of weird transforming

Is this wild work of frost and light,

This glimpse of glory infinite?

~ John Greenleaf Whittier

The day began to take on peachy hues.

How beautiful thy frosty morn,

When brilliants gem each feathery thorn!

~ Bernard Barton

Peach blended with pink and mauve light turned icy panes into a bejeweled mountainous landscape.

What a severe yet master artist old Winter is. No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.

~ John Burroughs

As the day grew lighter, so did the colours reflected in the glass.

The frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I just kept seeing little worlds within this tiny frozen space.

In winter we behold the charms of solemn majesty and naked grandeur.

~ James Ellis

I love how depending on the time of day and the colour of the sky, various shades appear to soften the icy etchings.

Nothing burns like the cold.

~ George R.R. Martin

Silvery blue crystals with aqua hues in the sky beyond.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.

~ Carl Reiner

Some of these photos are from last spring like this one taken in March of 2017.

I watch the springs, the summers, the autumns;

And when comes the winter snow monotonous,

I shut all the doors and shutters

To build in the night my fairy palace.

~ Charles Baudelaire

As was this frosty feather.

Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours.

~ Robert Byrne

Also from last year, I turned up the contrast and vibrance on this and the next image, and found that these sparse bits of frost looked like unusual bugs crawling around on the glass.

Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's night.

~ Virginia Woolf

This pattern should come with its own sound effects.

Winter came down to our home one night

Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,

And we, we were children once again.

~ Bill Morgan, Jr.

A nighttime shot with enough light from behind to silver-paint the window.

It is said that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer. ~ Author Unknown

Layer upon layer of sparkling frost, and what appears to be a silver leaf a little left of center. I might not be able to see out my windows but they do entertain me.

The gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter.

~ Bret Harte

And later in the night, city street lights help illuminate the window's canvas so that Jack Frost can do his work.

There is a grandeur in winter, stern and wild it may be, but a grandeur which speaks to the soul.

~ C. J. Peterson

On New Year's Eve, the moon was nearly full - and it rose early. You might have to pull back a bit to see the curve of that lovely orb in the background.

The winter frowned its icy eyebrows

~ Florenin Smarandache

Or I could just give you a more distant perspective instead.

I hide myself in the quiet white of Winter and

nestle in her comforting folds of cold oblivion.

~ Terri Guillemets

And here we are further still - the near-full moon smiling contentedly at Jack Frost's work.

Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

And on New Years Day, the full Wolf Moon appeared bright and beautiful in the eastern sky.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

~ Anton Chekhov
A bit late in the wishing but Happy New Year, everyone.

Just Take Them

I'm back from my ten days away visiting family and friends. I saw lots of wonderful people in old familiar places, and had several fun photo opportunities which you'll see over time. But not today. Today's post is one I already had prepped but somehow left it in draft mode. I'll get around to visiting some blogs soonish. There were over 500 posts sitting in my Feedly feed. Ack! I'll just have to catch up with the most current posts.. eventually. Now onto this one. 

The pictures are there, and you just take them.

~Robert Capa

In case you hadn't noticed, it's winter around here. That, along with a problematic back is limiting the number of photo opportunities to be found outdoors. So what better way to remedy that than by wandering around with the camera indoors. I switched out the lens for a marcro lens and began focusing on some of the items around the house. Some of the subjects will be pretty obvious upon first sight but some might need a bit of an explanation or an additional photo to clarify.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day so we'll just have to start out with something green.



Here's something you might see at a kid's party if you don't fancy the idea of doing much cleanup afterward. Or if you don't fancy being fancy.








Here's another view at the bottom end of the packet. They're plastic spoons, knives (left and right in the top photo) and forks.







If you're like me, you get your morning boost from the same place I do. The camera is peering inside a large tin of ground coffee.






If you should run out of coffee filters, a piece of paper towel can come to your rescue.







And this here is the breakfast of champions - if you happen to have feathers and wings.







No need to get overly picky about this closeup.







Just grab one and put it to good use... you have some spinach stuck in your teeth.






They help to freshen the breath while having the added bonus of a Valentine's Day sugar rush - cinnamon hearts. In the interest of true disclosure, I can not for the life of me ever remember how to spell cinnamon. I mangle it so badly that even my computer's built in dictionary throws up its little arms and stares back at me blankly. Good old Google comes to the rescue and doesn't even laugh at my sad attempt. It just calmly replies with "Did you mean cinnamon?" Yes, I did indeed.







This isn't a storm over the lake. Or a snapshot of something on TV. I think I might have guessed the latter if I didn't know what it was.


 




It's a closeup of something my son gave me for Christmas. Its ever-changing picture can be quite soothing to watch.







It sits on the bookshelf in my bedroom just waiting to be flipped over to start again and you can tell by the smudgy finger prints that it's been flipped many time. Thanks, Alex!







I was intrigued with how this turned out up close and took a few snapshots of it.







I never would have guessed that all those fibres would show up like that. The bright sunlight helped to illuminate them.







A different view from the front.







I haven't read it yet. If any of you have, you can let me know what you thought. Failing that, perhaps I'll let you know if I enjoyed it, once I'm done.

More photos coming up soonish.

A Blush of Scarlet & Posts of the Week

I stepped outside one April morning to find that some of the fallen buds from my neighbour's tree to the left of me had landed on the hood of the car belonging to the neighbour to my right. It caught my eye. I grabbed my camera and voila.. instant blog post!


"Sunshine steeps your boughs





and tints the buds





and swells the leaves within."  ~ William C. Bryant





"Thought is the blossom;





language the bud;





action the fruit behind it."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson




"When April winds grew soft,




the maple burst into a flush of scarlet flowers."  ~ William Cullen Bryant

And now, without further delay, here are the Posts of the Week. The icon below is yours for the taking if if your blog post is named as a POTW.

***

A GOOD READ

For Mama
by Pauline
at Writing Down the Words

For Mother's Day
by Stacey Dawn
at Dawning Inspiratio

***

JUST PLAIN ENJOYABLE

Button Can Memories
by Sandi
at Holding Patterns

Mother's Day Promises
by Gary
at Gary's Third Pottery Blog

***

IT'LL MAKE YOU LAUGH

One Step at a Time
by Joanna
at The Fifty Factor

*** 

PHINE PHOTOGRAPHY
 

Just Pictures
by Keith
at Holding Moments

Deep in Thought
by Lisa
at Lisa Gordon Photography

Battle of the Birds
by Gail
at Louisiana Belle

The State House, Vermont
by Steve
at Take a Look Around

A Spa Visit
by Reena
at Missing Moments

***

Please drop by their blogs for a visit and leave a kind comment if you have the time. Also, please feel free to add your own choices (for any blog except this one) for a specific blog post in the comments section below, where others can see them.

Thank you

Beautiful Reserve

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Just a few summer beauties to brighten your day and mine. I haven't been around enough to collect posts for the POTW, this week so all I have for you are some of my usual photos.




Thistle is a prickly plant but it sure does produce a beautiful bloom.





Here's one unfolding to the sun.





I don't know what this is but each sprig produces all these teeny-tiny leafy blooms - each one smaller than the nail on my pinky finger.





Small, pink roses grew rather profusely on the bush that my boy, Alex gave me for Mother's Day, a few years ago.





Clover is fresh and lovely in its simplicity.





Raindrops dot a broad leaf in the garden.





And more rain collects on the tender petals of the pansy. A plant my other son, Jeffrey gave me for this year's Mother's Day. These droplets are spherical and in the largest one, you can see the reflection of the pine tree we planted when Alex was born.





All that water weighs a poor pansy down.





This daisy doesn't seem to mind it one bit.





Berries make a perfect snack for hungry birds. These are in various stages of ripeness.





Up close and personal with a wild chicory.





The fiery stamens of the tiger lily.


More photos coming up soon.