The Blooming Lilacs at Jello Mold Farm

Lilacs at Jello Mold Farm

“Is any moment of the year more delightful than the present?  What there is wanting in glow of colour is more than made up for in fullness of interest.  Each day some well-known, long remembered plant bursts into blossom.”
— Henry A. Bright, from A Year in a Lancashire Garden

Blossoms abound this time of year.  One can hardly keep up with the newest blooms.  This year, in the midst of tulip season, the lilacs are already bursting into flower.  Since we were in the Skagit Valley to see the tulips, we decided to swing by Jello Mold Farm to see what was happening there.  And lilacs were abounding.  These are indeed long-remembered plants to me.  My mother had a large lilac bush by her garden, and the scent of lilacs brings back memories of my childhood on the farm.

Here are some photos of the lilacs at Jello Mold Farm:

Syringa hyacinthiflora ‘Sister Justena’

Syringa hyacinthiflora ‘Asessippi’

Syringa vulgaris ‘Krasavitsa Moskvy’

This variety of lilac has unusual multi-petaled flowers

Watercolor sketch of lilacs

Another attempt at painting lilacs

 

 

What’s Next?

I have completed one year’s worth of Wordless Wednesdays, and I am ready to look around for another project.  The weekly exercise of making 12 photographic views of a subject was fun.  Sometimes I had to stretch myself to find enough interesting perspectives, but usually I had little difficulty with coming up with 12 photos that I liked and wanted to share.  Maybe I needed to set the bar higher  — 20 or 50 views — to begin to break any creative barriers.

Digital photography makes taking multiple photos of a single image or theme quite easy.  I think going forward I will remember not to settle for the first “easy” shots, but to keep on photographing from different angles and perspectives.

I’m not sure how much I’ve grown as a photographer this past year.  I wonder why I think growth has to come from discomfort or stretching past habitual ways of doing things.  I sometimes think that if I find photography easy or natural, then I must be settling for mediocre shots.  Can creativity actually be easy?

 

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views of Angel’s Trumpet Flowers at the Volunteer Park Conservatory

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 View of Fallen Acorns

 

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views of a Birch Tree

 

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views of This Season’s Pears

 

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views from the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views for Lovers of Libraries and Books

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Views of Summertime (from My Photo Archives)

John, Dad and Ben baling hay

 

Wordless Wednesdays: 12 Close-Up Views from a Single Photograph