blue

Hunting Blind Sunrise on the Potomac River /  by Todd Henson

Hunting Blind Sunrise on the Potomac River #1

Back on New Year’s Day my father and I visited Widewater State Park in Virginia for an overcast and blue morning. When we went over to the Potomac River side of the park we were fascinated by this streak of warm light reflected from near the horizon as it created what appeared to be a finger or pointer directly at a hunting blind in the river. I hiked around trying for other perspectives and found one other I liked. They’re both very similar and yet the surface of the water and that warm pointer have a slightly different look.

Hunting Blind Sunrise on the Potomac River #2

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Overcast Blues on Aquia Creek /  by Todd Henson

Overcast Blues on Aquia Creek

On New Year’s day my father and I went for our first hikes of the year. We visited a couple locations, one of which was Widewater State Park in Virginia. I’ve previously shown views of Aquia Creek as seen from the park, and today we return to this view with a couple new photographs from January 1st of 2024.

It was a very overcast day, and in fact it began raining lightly for part of the time we looked out at Aquia Creek. The overcast quality gave the scene a very blue look with interesting breaks in the clouds near the horizon, providing enough light for the scene and for some reflections in the creek. This scene is also interesting in how you can often see different channels where water flows in the creek by the different looks of the water’s surface. Sometimes it may be caused by a boat that’s moved through, but this morning I believe it was all due to water flow and perhaps to any breeze further out. We didn’t see or hear any boats while there, and there was little if any breeze where we were on shore.

And, as luck would have it, one of a pair of mating bald eagles happened to fly into the scene as I was photographing, creating a nice little bonus in the upper left of the image.

Below is a panoramic photo stitched together from 29 vertical views of the scene with a 105 mm lens. It gives a taste of this wide open part of the creek, and of the calm feel to the morning. Perhaps this is why they named the park Widewater.

A Wide View at Widewater

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Behold the Blue-eyed Grass /  by Todd Henson

Blue-eyed grass. Isn’t that a beautiful pattern where the blue and yellow meet?

This spring I found many examples of what has become a favorite flower of mine, blue-eyed grass. I find it fascinating it’s called grass as it’s really a member of the iris family, which helps explain the lovely flowers it produces.

I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the bright blue-eyed grass flower against the darker brown of another plant.

I sometimes struggled to photograph these flowers. I love the pattern formed of the transition from yellow to blue inside the flower and so I often wanted to focus on that. I loved the shapes of the petals and so I wanted to highlight those. And as often happens, I was drawn to the anthers so I sometimes focused on those. With the lens I was using and the distances I was at and, of course, the breeze, I often had a very shallow depth of field so I needed to choose what I wanted in focus as I just couldn’t get it all. If the breeze hadn’t been there perhaps I could have done some focus-stacking, but not this time around. This did give the opportunity, though, to really focus in on those single elements. And I do very much enjoy a very shallow depth of field.

Here I tried to include both the flower and the green bud of blue-eyed grass, though the but is out of focus.

A different arrangement of flower and bud of blue-eyed grass.

I don’t know what specific species of blue-eyed grass I photographed, or even whether they are all of the same. There are several species here in Virginia and many more can be found all over the United States and Canada. Check out Linda Leinen’s Lingering Bits of Spring to see examples of dwarf blue-eyes grass and annual blue-eyes grass found in Texas. Head over to Stephen Gingold’s Friday Night Flower Night to see an example of eastern blue-eyed grass in Massachusetts. And visit Alexander Kunz’s Sisyrinchium bellum to see an example of western blue-eyed grass in California.

A closeup of the beautiful anthers of blue-eyed grass.

I created these photographs on May 25th of 2022, all in the same general location. In fact, this is the same location where I photographed pink lady’s slipper orchids. It can be a very productive location and I look forward to more opportunities in the future to photograph these amazing little flowers. I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these views of blue-eyed grass. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Here I really liked how close the blue-eyed grass grew to the branch, almost as if it were a part of it.

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