Life in Nature

 While walking through the woods during the fall you will often get surrounded by leaping grasshoppers. This one, however, refused to jump just sat down hidden amung the grass. I was able to lay down in the grass and army crawl on my belly closer and closer to it until it finally bounded away from me.

 This little flower has been clinging to life as the cold weather has been rolling in on northern Minnesota. As leaves are turning color and falling off trees all around, these flowers are able to maintain their purple color. By getting close and using a wide apature I was able to create a very shallow depth of field that added extra emphasis to the flowers in the foreground.

 The original assignment I was on when I caputed this photo was to get pictures of beavers in the Bemidji State Park. After three or so hours of sitting in the woods, however, I had not seen a single beaver and the woods were starting to get really dark, really fast. When I was walking back out of the woods I heard something moving around to my left so I turned up my iso and widdened my apeture, just in case. Then a little brown head came out of the woods, at first I thought it was one of the beavers I was searching for, but then realized it was the first wild porcupine I had ever seen.

 

While home from class one day on about a 30 degree and windy day I heard the surprising sound of chirping coming from above me. As I looked up I saw a flock of birds all huddled together in the braches seeming to be holding on to the smallest glimmer of hope that warm days will come again this fall. These birds will likely be gone soon, flying down south with the rest of the flocks in northern Minnesota.

Death in Nature

While walking in the woods I stumbled upon the aftermath of an attack that eventually got me thinking that death, both in nature and in society are somewhat alike. In the case of this bird it was killed by another animal much like humans sometimes kill one another. In order to capture this shot I had to lay down on the ground right next to the dead bird, zoom in close to it, and set a shallow depth of field in order to blur out the surrounding details.

This little plant, while surrounded by life and healthy plants, struggled to survive and eventually died out as the days began to get colder. This plant reminded me of how when we get older and sickly it is harder for us to survive and press on, even when surrounded by health people who take care of us. I again had to get low to the ground and positioned the plant and its stem in the frame so it was almost framing the shot itself.

This photo of a tree that beavers were going to use, but ultimately left behind, made me think about how many humans do the same thing with nature. We will cut down trees, did up fields, or do a multitude of other things for us, but never think of the effects we are having on nature. We just toss it off to the side and slowly let it die off, much like the beavers have done to this tree.