Un Rêve de Printemps (A Dream of Spring)

I look out my office window and I see snow everywhere and more snow falling. But I won’t make photos of the new snow today. Instead I’m thinking about spring. I’m dreaming…

The weather forecast for this week is depressing, snow, snow and more snow—when I am longing for the arrival of spring. I am already tired of winter and wondering how long it will take to melt all of the snow we already have. Though I thought I might photograph the snow covered trees this morning, my internal child stomped her foot and shouted, “No! No more snow photographs!”

So this morning I opened an old catalog of my photographs (from the years 2013 – 2016) and perused through photos of spring springing. It did my heart good to dream a dream of spring.

Making Plans for a Short Photo Trip

I am beginning to plan a trip to southeastern Minnesota for spring ephemeral wildflower photography in early May. I love photographing flowers and being in the woods early in the spring is magical.

Last week a photography teacher that I’ve taken workshops from sent out a notice of a class he was offering to photograph wildflowers in the driftless area of southeastern Minnesota in early May. I was enthusiastic about joining the class but decided that I would really rather wander on my own at my own pace. (This instructor likes to do lots of sunrise and sunset photo shoots which I love, but I find several days in a row at his pace exhausting.) So now I’m planning a several day trip to the driftless area to explore and wander in an area I’ve visited in other seasons but never in springtime.

As I dream of spring, this poem came to mind today…

Mornings at Blackwater

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.

― Mary Oliver, Red Bird