Something for today

bald cypress Taxodium distichum in Jones Lake, NCI’ve got some current content that will be coming soon, but I’m a little tired right now and have to crash for a short while, and by the time I’m awake again it’ll be tomorrow, so I’m sneaking this in now, a trivial thing but it’s been on my mind for a couple of days.

At right is the context image, a bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum) in the ‘middle’ (not really) of Jones Lake, near Elizabethtown NC. One of quite a few images that I got while we visited, this one in particular was a favorite of The Girlfriend’s and was framed in the hall at the old place. Presumably it’s still around somewhere after the move, but I’m not sure where, and I probably should reprint it and find a place for it.

All that aside, I did a variation of it at the time that I just came across again, and it’s been digging at my mind because I happen to like it, but I can’t really pin down why. Which might mean that it’s simply a quirk of my tastes, or alternately something that may appeal to a variety of people and I just don’t know exactly why yet. Thus, you’re welcome and invited to express an opinion on it (and, really, on any of the images here or in the gallery) so I can determine if I’m as weird as we all suspect. It’s not a question of whether or not I’m weird – I am – but how weird, like faintly eccentric at times or the guy that everyone knew was gonna start conversing with fire hydrants some day.

That’s an adequate introduction, I think. So here’s the variant:

bald cypress Taxodium distichum in Jones Lake bearing Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides
The Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is what makes this framing so distinctive, and I haven’t yet decided if it’s better this way or if I should crop it right above the waterline and make the trunk and moss completely dominant, if a little more abstract. I definitely like those branches and the cypress leaves/needles, how they add a little color against the textures of the monochrome moss and bark. But does it pop? Does it have zazz? Does it have… it?

Let me know.

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