spring photos | At Home with Tech

May 12, 2024

Chasing the Bloom to Capture the Magic of Spring

I always enjoy the experience of capturing blossom bliss with my camera. Here are a few of my photos.

When the flowers begin to bloom, and the spring cherry blossoms pop, it’s absolute magic. But it’s always too fleeting. Days. Maybe a few weeks. And then suddenly, summer is just around the corner.

That’s not so bad, but I think no other season can beat spring in New England.

Each year, I grab my Lumix camera (or simply use my iPhone) to capture the arc of this annual display throughout my neighborhood. It’s all so beautiful, from the early buds to the fallen blossoms near the end.

Here’s what nature graciously presented to me this year…

April 7, 2024

What Do an Earthquake, the Solar Eclipse and a Spring Flower have in Common?

These tree blossoms represent something much larger, which we can barely understand… if at all. Happily, you can still take a picture.

The big news this week was supposed to be the solar eclipse. But the New Jersey earthquake that affected much of the northeast stole the headlines three days before the big celestial event.

Having always lived on the East Coast, I didn’t really know how to process this sudden experience of our entire house vibrating. (I first thought our washing machine in the basement had badly malfunctioned during the peak of its spin cycle.)

Fortunately, it was not a big earthquake… just a taste of nature’s raw power.

Puny Humans
We are certainly not the center of our universe. A little earthquake or a total solar eclipse will quickly remind anyone of that often-terrifying truth.

We are tiny.

Mother Earth and its moon. The sun and its solar system. Our galaxy and its place in the universe. It’s barely possible for us to even comprehend.

It’s not Just a Flower
When spring shows up in the Northern Hemisphere, and the cycle of life is on full display, it’s just another example of forces much larger than us.

Sure, clipping a pretty daffodil from your backyard and popping it into a small vase on your dining room table is enjoyable. But perhaps it’s also good to remember what powered that flower’s creation. (I know one can take this in more than one direction. But that won’t change my point.)

Clarity
So this year, while I walked about my neighborhood with camera in hand to greet spring, I did it with something of a more evolved perspective. (My early-April photo exercises have become an annual tradition: 2022 and 2023)

Sometimes it just takes a little earthquake or a massive solar eclipse to put it all in perspective.

March 28, 2021

The Power of Anticipation

Though the effects of winter are still weighing heavy, I found spring at the base of the forest.

I always look forward to snapping pictures of spring. There’s that special window of time when nature suddenly reemerges. The early colors. The bright greens. The young buds. It’s nature’s celebration of life returning to normal.

As I peer out of my home office window, we’re not quite there. Not yet. Sure, there have been several warm, sunny days in Fairfield County, CT. And there are some early signs of reawakening outside. Yes, spring is officially here, but nature has its own schedule.

If you think I’m drawing a parallel to our present pandemic existence, I am. Our lives are frozen in so many ways, but thankfully thawing with the rollout of vaccines.

In Search of Life as We Know It

I headed out on a hike this past weekend to Collis P. Huntington State Park in Redding, CT. I brought along a couple cameras with the intent to capture nature’s visual equivalence of our current state of anticipation.

As I took in the forested area, much was still in hibernation mode. But when I looked closely, the rebirth was already well underway. Not so much high up in the trees, but closer to ground. The foundations of the ecosystem was kicking into high gear.

These photos promote a near future when spring fully arrives.

I can’t wait.