22 Apr 13. While walking along the trail of a local nature park in Hansville a several weeks back with the cherubs, I came upon a Madonna tree that was missing a branch. It was likely missing more than one, but this one was right at eye level and the resulting scar was quite striking. As I was considering how best to document it, my mind wandered back to a visit we made to Stockholm about 10 years ago where we visited the Swedish warship Vasa. It has a very interesting history about which you can read at the link. The vessel is housed in an large museum, actually built around it, and is accompanied by many dioramas and other displays adding to the experience of learning the ship. On one wall was a drawing of carpenters in the forest cutting down bent trees. Initially I thought it rather crazy to do such a thing until I read in another area that the curved (bent) trees were used for the ribs (curved) of the vessel. That made for material far stronger that having to form a straight piece into a bent one. Thus using what nature had already provided made for a stronger final product. As I looked at that tree in the nature park, rather than seeing a misshapen portion of the tree, I was envisioning it being felled and cut into slices for a table top or similar piece of furniture. Those naturally occurring textures and design being far more lovely than anything we might think of designing. I've enhanced the fine structure a wee bit to help illustrate the beauty I was seeing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec with flash @ f / 20.
23 Apr 13. Having been made aware that the cherry trees along Lake Washington were in full display, we decided to combine a trip to the dentist with a visit to the shoreline of Lake Washington where we both grew up and an area where we frequently rode our bikes as young kids. For those of you familiar with the Tidal Basin in D.C, think of an area 50x that large lined with cherry trees, a gift from Japan, which are best seen in and around Seward Park. And in place of a national monument there is a 14,000+ foot mountain guarding the area! It is rather spectacular to see in person, especially in color, but as this is B&W Tuesday, here is what we saw Monday afternoon in monochrome. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /13.
