Reminiscing about the Back Pond, Part 1
July 16, 2023
The Back Pond at Schoepfle Garden was long a favored spot to take photographs. That changed when the park people installed an aerator in the pond. Whereas before I photographed the water sometimes still, sometimes rippled by the wind, after the aerator, the pond surface remained in continuous disturbance. I have grown nostalgic for the good old days when the face of the pond changed with the weather. The last few days I have looked through my catalog to find old and new favorite reminders of what used to be. I found too many photographs for one blog post. The next post will show more-abstract photographs of the pond surface.
1 In early April 2017 I took what I didn’t know would be the last photograph of the pond without an aerator.
2 Sixteen days later, this is how the pond looked.
3 I took the rest of these photographs between 2002 and 2015.
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Romancing Reality 
What a stunning series of beautiful pictures – bravo!
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 16, 2023 at 11:40 PM
Thank you, Dan. I enjoyed paging through yours just now. French villages can be so visually appealing, as you clearly show.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 19, 2023 at 10:07 PM
Beautiful Set!
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 1:06 AM
Thanks, Harrie.
LikeLike
July 19, 2023 at 10:07 PM
These pictures make clear why you miss the pond in its natural state. Did people install the aerator to keep the pond from getting getting too much silt or algae?
Nice contrast in #14 between the isolated leaf in focus and all the reflected ones out of focus. #13 offers a more expansive take on the same kind of split. In #16 and #17 the contrast is between bright and dark rather than focus. The subdued colors in #8 and #6 are appealing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 6:55 AM
I don’t think silt has ever been a problem, Steve, but algae grow there from time to time. In pre-aerator days the algae would only stick around for a week or two, if I remember right. And even then there were photo ops, which I took advantage of in #10. I’m so haphazard in my technique that I just get lucky or unlucky with some things being in focus and other things not. Guess I wouldn’t be the first photographer to acknowledge luck as a collaborator.
LikeLike
July 19, 2023 at 10:08 PM
I think Lady Luck has benefited us all from time to time, even if we believe “Fortune favors the prepared” is a good principle to live by.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 20, 2023 at 5:42 AM
Your pictures speak so strongly of wildness and natural beauty… of changes in the flow of seasons… I certainly would feel the same sense of loss…
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 9:22 AM
Thank you. I appreciate your empathy, Caroline. You’re right: wildness appeals to me. That’s not to say that I don’t get a kick out of the urban environment; maybe I like my categories to be distinct.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 19, 2023 at 10:09 PM
I meant the wildness of these ones…
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 20, 2023 at 9:51 AM
This is a spine-tinglingly beautiful series, Linda.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 10:28 AM
Thanks, Marjorie.
LikeLike
July 19, 2023 at 10:09 PM
The aerator is probably doing what it’s supposed to. They installed one very similar to this at the arboretum in Webster (Where Life is Worth Living) but that was before I moved here. These are all fantastic shots, Linda, but I’m really taken with #8 and #9. There is a certain mystery that makes them very compelling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 11:45 AM
Yeah, well, Ken, I still don’t like it. 🙂 I’ll take the algae. I’d never have gotten #9 if the aerator had been installed when I took the photo in 2006.
LikeLike
July 19, 2023 at 10:10 PM
an entire album of weathers, surfaces, colors, textures, and moods.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 17, 2023 at 2:50 PM
You know, Phyllis, you’re right, though I wasn’t thinking about that when I put this collection together. I was just trying to choose based on what I perceived as the quality of the photograph.
LikeLike
July 19, 2023 at 10:13 PM
A beautiful set, Linda. The last three are particularly striking. 🙂 Maybe they would turn the aerator off for you if you asked? It looks like a well-maintained pond; I’m sure the aerator helps with that. The previous owner of our farm loved the place as much as we do but in a much different way. He used a lot of herbicides to keep the pond clear. We do not… He left us a pump to be used as an aerator but the power line to the pond has been cut in at least five places. So the pond has grown up and grown wild…we have mink, wood ducks and mallards, turtles, a little green heron and kingfishers; great blue herons visit. But it is not as photogenic as the pond you show here…
LikeLiked by 2 people
July 20, 2023 at 6:03 PM
Thanks, Mic. I have thought about asking, but the park is mostly unstaffed. I almost never see a park employee there. It’s a spring-fed pond; I think it was maintaining itself just fine except for a week or two in some years, when algae appeared. I seem to remember a photo you took at your pond. I liked it quite a bit. The wildlife at your pond sounds wonderful.
LikeLike
July 20, 2023 at 7:59 PM
Your nostalgic feeling bloomed into a lush, delicious post. I remember reading about the dreaded aerator, although that photo you took of the pond in April with the aerator going is very, very nice. #3 has the rich look of stained glass and most of these images show your affection for fall color. It’s beautiful in that spot (and nostalgic for me). The small groups of fallen leaves are perfection. The final photo’s complexity really appeals to me – I like the layering and the way the photo makes you question your bearings (#9 does that for me, too). But these photographs don’t make me question your bearings! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 20, 2023 at 9:07 PM
Thanks, Lynn. I think you’re right about my affection for fall color. There’ll be more fall-color photos in the next post. I’ll never take another photo like #9, at least not at this pond. I don’t remember taking the last photograph. It was a treat for me to find it. Probably I didn’t like it at the time so deleted it from my memory. Glad I didn’t delete it from the disc. To me it’s Rembrandty.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 20, 2023 at 10:13 PM
Isn’t it interesting how we see possibilities years later in an image that we didn’t see at the time? 🙂 I can see the Rembrandt association, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 21, 2023 at 11:34 AM
Yes, and isn’t it fun, like a gift on top of the original gift. Glad you can see the Rembrandt in the last photo. I was hoping that idea wasn’t just a conceited conceit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 21, 2023 at 1:28 PM
I’ve always been fascinated by how melting spots in frozen ponds look like neurons – and wonder if it is a coincidence or some other higher ecological function at work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 21, 2023 at 9:33 AM
I like your wondering, Mark. I have often wondered what physical principle results in that design, but I haven’t linked it to neurons—until now.
LikeLike
July 21, 2023 at 1:33 PM