Taken at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s 2017 orchid show. Olympus OM-D EM10 II with 30 mm macro lens (60 equivalent). I recently acquired this 4:3 mirror-less camera (which somehow stands up under the burden of that absurd series of letters and numbers), and so far I absolutely love it. It’s lightweight and small, which is a boon for my tendinitis-weakened wrists, but it seems to perform as well as my Pentax K-50. Best of all, you can shoot just by touching the LCD screen where you want the sharpest focus to be. No, Olympus didn’t pay me to praise this camera. What a shame! Next up: Orchids! Lots of ’em.
Water
At the car wash again ~
Palette 2/28/2016 ~
Alas, thus far I seem to have a rather lurid style. I began this painting by trying to copy a lovely, delicate watercolor by a contemporary artist named Jane Voorhees. Other than a slight similarity in the landforms, however, this painting bears no resemblance to the watercolor. The title is thanks to Nick Drake, of course, whose fame exploded a number of years ago after VW used snippets of this song in a commercial where two young couples in a convertible forgo a party to go spinning down the road in the magical moonlight. But “Pink Moon” is not about magic; it is, almost certainly, about death. Nick Drake suffered from depression; he either killed himself or overdosed on antidepressants. But even his darkest songs are beautiful. Have a listen.
Intermission: An afternoon in the Cache River area ~
With luck, I’ll wrap up the Big Trip series this week. This afternoon was a rare day for Southern Illinois: low seventies, sunny, not very humid. Too nice to stay indoors. The shot above was taken from a boardwalk just south of the Cypress Creek Visitors Center. Pentax K-50, 100mm macro lens.