A childhood memory
It has been a very long time that I saw lupines in the wild.
When I was a child a very long time ago they were always growing along the roadsides around the place where I grew up and I remember my mum sending me and my sister to go and get some for the vase at home. With me leaving home at some point in my life, that didn’t happen any longer, obviously. And so I cannot really remember when the lupines disappeared exactly, yet they did.
For years if not decades they were nowhere to be seen unless maybe in fields where they were deliberately farmed for their protein rich seeds. Our local councils had always kept the roadsides empty and clear of anything that looked nice and like nature so that traffic wouldn’t be affected or whatever other reason they had.
Some things change for the better
Fortunately, we know better these days and the roadsides have changed their appearance again for a while now. More and more country-roads are really beautiful now throughout the seasons and it seems that lupines have also found their way back.
So, when a few days ago I rode on a local bus I saw some again in a place where they definitely hadn’t been for at least 20 years. And I decided I would take the next opportunity I would get and see how I could photograph them.
Today I took my camera and headed out to see what I could find there to photograph. It had rained quite heavily the night before, so I wasn’t sure how well they would have faired. Yet, they looked fine and I knew that I would be able to find something worth photographing. I always do once I start looking closer.
Nature never disappoints
And nature didn’t disappoint – she never does. Once I did get closer I found all kinds of interesting and beautiful details beyond the flowers themselves. The big bumblebees searching for nectar – who could ever not see or hear them? –, bugs small and large, grasshoppers (well camouflaged I might add), caterpillars, spiders; all kinds of creatures I love to photograph so I can later see all of their beautiful details on my large computer screen. Details one never sees with the naked eye.
Typical
A nice and also typical – as I find – experience I had when an old lady who walked past me with her daughter asked what I was looking for with my camera. And when I told her “the lupines” she responded that, yes, she had also already looked at them but that there wasn’t really very much to see, right? Oh boy, how wrong she was.
Now, see for yourself and decide if you would have considered it worth your while looking closer.
Enjoy.
