Saturday’s mighty wind blew itself out overnight, and Sunday morning dawned calm and mild. What a day to explore the park more and gather plant samples for photography!
Late autumn/early winter might seem like a boring time for plants – I’ll freely admit that there’s a lot of brown out there – but this is a great time to be contemplative and appreciate the variety and nuance of brown hues. Foxtails have bleached to buff but still arch gracefully in the wind. Goldenrod has traded its brilliant gold hue for fluffy, cream-colored towers atop tweedy stems. Sumac’s horns have turned a deep auburn, and the milkweeds long ago moved past their pink blossoms to produce delicate white seed puffs that can travel for miles on gusty days.
On Sunday I collected more than a dozen different plants, many of which are still anonymous to me right now, but I’m looking forward to working with folks here at the park to identify them in the coming days so we can call them by name. And today, as winter knocked on southwest Iowa’s door and snow swirled outside, I set up the studio space I’ll use to make the photographs.
“Studio” might suggest a high-end or very technical setup. Spoiler alert: it’s not. A studio is really just a space that puts a photographer in control of all aspects of a photograph – the background, the lighting and the subject. At home, my studio is in a corner of my unfinished basement and has at times included a background made from a $12 Target bedsheet and a photo platform made from Rubbermaid storage tubs. Seriously not high-end, but totally functional.
The studio space Waubonsie State Park is offering me is even better than my basement: a shop area with a high ceiling. It’s more than wide and deep enough to move around in and I’m excited to start shooting in earnest tomorrow!
