This Sunday will be the official "First Day of Spring," but Spring has been making its presence known in Vicksburg for the past two weeks. In honor of its long-awaited arrival, I'd like to share some photographs I've taken the past few weeks. I hope you enjoy the slide show as much as I enjoyed capturing the pictures.
If you'd like to hear the music while you look at the pictures, be sure your sound is turned up before you click on "play."
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At first glance, you would think it's still winter time here in Vicksburg. Winter's toll is evident everywhere you look ... in the drabness of faded brown grass, mostly leafless trees, and skies that are more often cloudy than clear.
But if you take the time to look closer, you will see Spring making its first appearance in the form of tiny new leaves on the trees, and green shoots of bulbs and flowers poking through the leaves.
The early-Spring flowering trees like Bradford Pears and Redbuds are budding out, and the Japanese Magnolias (Tulip Trees) are in full bloom now. New life is everywhere ... you just have to look a little closer to see it.
Even though yesterday was one of those cloudy days we've been having, I decided to get out and capture with my camera some of the new life heralding Spring's arrival in Vicksburg.
This is a photo I took on February 16th, of a Japanese Magnolia Tree just beginning to put out new buds.
I spotted this little Hyacinth next door to the church. I need to go back next week to get a shot of the pink one, too!
And here are some pictures I took of the new life I found in our yard. I love the way my Carolina Jasmine vine winds around itself. Soon it will be a profusion of delicate yellow blossoms.
Our Lorapetalum plants are covered with tiny buds, too.
With each passing day, Spring is literally "bustin' out all over," and I can't wait to try to capture some of its "How Great Thou Art" glory with my camera.
I've got several projects going on right now, and since my blogging time will be limited for the next few days, I will be sharing some of my pictures from my Photography with a Southern Accent blog.
Today I'm featuring some of the flowers I've captured during my ramblings. You can click on the images to enlarge them, if you'd like.
Lorapetalum
Narcissus
Yellow Ruffled Iris
Lotus Blossom
Dayflower
Crimson Clover
Pink Dogwood
Camellia
Cotton Blossom
Sasanqua
I recently bought a macro lens for my camera, and have been trying to learn how to use it. Yesterday afternoon after a rain shower, I looked out and noticed that the sun was shining and everything looked so pretty and fresh after the rain. I grabbed my camera with the macro lens and went outside to see what was going on.
I thought it would be fun to take some closeups of ordinary things in our yard, and I started with our Lorapetalum plants which are covered with fuchsia blooms.
Here is a close up view of one of the blooms [you can click on the pictures to enlarge them, if you'd like].
Our Little Gem Magnolia trees have almost finished blooming for the summer, and when I took the picture of the Lorapetalum, I noticed the seed pods on the magnolias.
This is a Sasanqua plant on the side of our house. As you can see, it's loaded with tiny buds.
My "macro" skills still leave a lot to be desired, but, hopefully, practice will help ...
It's hard to believe that all those buds will look like this in just a couple of months (I took this photo last year) ...
I think seed pods are sometimes as beautiful as flowers in full bloom. I captured these Cleyera seed pods after they had burst open to reveal the fruit inside ...
I have several Lantana plants in a flower bed in our back yard, and the Gulf Frittillary Butterflies love them. I was literally walking amongst them when I took these pictures.
This close up of a Lantana blossom that's not fully open reminds me of a kaleidoscope.
Ivy growing in and amongst the Majestic ferns in the flowerbeds along our path leading to the back yard.
These two close ups are Mexican Petunia blossoms ...
When I went back outside later to get a full view shot, I was upset to discover that the wind had blown all the blooms off. I found this picture that I took a couple of summers ago which shows the Mexican Petunia in the background. Notice the butterflies were swarming the lantana then, too.
My pictures aren't perfect (and probably never will be), but I'm having fun discovering all kinds of "hidden Nature" through my macro lens. I'm going to get my tripod out which will help, but it's kind of hard to drag a tripod around when you're chasing butterflies!
