Reminiscing about the Back Pond, Part 3
July 30, 2023
If you saw my last post, you may have noticed that the photographs tended to be in gold and yellow hues. This post continues with more photographs of the surface of the Back Pond at Schoepfle Garden. These, taken between 2002 and 2017, start with greens and blues and end in near black and white. The three-part series began with photos highlighting the setting of the Back Pond.
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17 This and the following photograph were made with intentional camera movement.
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19 Negative texture and clarity settings in Lightroom were used for this photograph.
Romancing Reality 
I love these photographs Linda!
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July 30, 2023 at 3:20 AM
Thank you, Jag. I really like photographing reflections. I should go out there and try to see what I can get even with that unwanted-by-me aerator.
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July 30, 2023 at 9:59 PM
You’ve got another yummy retrospective here. The circular ripples intruding from the right in #4 add a horizontal element to what is otherwise all vertical elements. The centrality of the round ripples in #14 gets reinforced by the floating dry leaf near its center. To my mind, the tree reflections in #16 fill the frame in an especially harmonious way. Is that a sycamore tree in #8 and #9?
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July 30, 2023 at 7:44 AM
Thank you, Steve. Yes, that is a sycamore tree. There are a lot of them in Schoepfle Garden. They like wet areas, and the Vermilion River is close by. But then of course so is the pond.
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July 30, 2023 at 10:01 PM
So much heart and beauty. Thank you.
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July 30, 2023 at 8:32 AM
Thanks, Caroline. I wasn’t sure people would want to see even more photographs of the pond surface. Glad you did.
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July 30, 2023 at 10:02 PM
That’s a really nice series. It makes me want to go to Schoepfle Garden with you.
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July 30, 2023 at 8:58 AM
Thanks. I’d love to go there with you again, Lynda.
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July 30, 2023 at 10:03 PM
An outstanding set of photos, Linda. The ripples in the water in the first few photos really drew me in. I have dozens of shots of water ripples but I don’t think they’re as good as yours. Timing and composition are everything. Well done.
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July 30, 2023 at 2:28 PM
Thank you, Ken. Yes, timing and composition, and don’t forget luck. And weather, especially wind.
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July 30, 2023 at 10:03 PM
What a beautiful set of images! I really enjoyed seeing these. Great work 🙂
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July 31, 2023 at 12:18 PM
Thank you, P.C. I just added the piece of information that these were taken between 2002 and 2017.
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July 31, 2023 at 8:39 PM
Thank you. They come together brilliantly as a collection and the effort of trawling your archive are very much apprreciated 🙂
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August 1, 2023 at 2:58 AM
Trawling is right. I went through thousands of photographs to find these—and in the process learned a lesson (again) about the importance of keywording. (I don’t assign keywords nearly enough.)
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August 1, 2023 at 2:27 PM
Your effort has given the photographs a new lease of life and no doubt inspired many people along the way 📷🙂👍
Key words are fine but I imagine you may have come across other forgotten images which is always a treat 😀
Best wishes
☁️⛅️🌤☀️✨🌻✨☀️🌤⛅️☁️
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August 1, 2023 at 3:21 PM
This group is exciting, Linda! The first photo hovers exactly in that intriguing middle ground between abstraction and realism – or is it pure impressionism? 😉 #2 is stunning – the image transforms from being dominated by fuzzy verticals to being dominated by crisp horizontals – who knew that was possible? I love the colors. This is one of my favorites. But #3 is beautiful as well, with a similar look that arrives at a different feeling. Gorgeous depth in this one.
#4 is fun because I want to know what’s making that ripple on the right. The shapes in #6 are like a mosaic; the patterns in #7, with all the overlapping circles, are beautifully seen. #8 & 9 are fun together but I prefer #10 for the complex, subtle colors and strong composition.
Oh no, there’s so much more! Can #11 be my favorite, too? 😉 Two things going on there – leaves underwater and leaves reflected- I know this is hard to do and you blended it all perfectly. I love #12 and think it might be even more appealing – to me anyway – if it was cropped to eliminate the reflection on the left, leaving just three diagonal bands, if that makes sense.
#13 & 14 say “autumn” beautifully. I like the inclusion of the ICM photos and the palette of the final photograph. What a delight this series is!
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August 6, 2023 at 9:56 PM
I’m so glad you like this series. It was a lot of fun to put together even though going through hundreds of photos of the Back Pond took some time. I can’t say for sure, but the ripples on the right side of #4 could have been made by a pollywog coming up for air as he transitions from tadpole to frog. I have caught them doing that, but the photos are not worth sharing. Ripples create that mosaic look when the rings intersect at right angles. Number 10 is one of the oldest if not the oldest photo here, taken in 2002. I liked how the branches divided the picture plane. Thanks for looking long enough at #11 to see the underwater leaves in the cloud reflection. I’m sure it would be hard to take a photo like this; I’m sure I did it all by accident. I have to agree with you on your suggestion about #12. Thank you, Lynn!
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August 6, 2023 at 10:31 PM
2002, that’s nice that you have photos from 20 years ago on hand and they’re relevant (and usable) today. Of course, our interests and aesthetic predilections have been brewing for a long, long time. No, you didn’t do #11 by accident, I don’t buy that. 😉 It was definitely worth the time going through your photos to get this post together.
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August 7, 2023 at 1:58 PM