A sunny, cool morning, destined to give way to a vibrant, warm spring day. The last few days have been damp and cool, effectively slowing spring’s tumultuous trajectory towards a green world, but the mad dash will be renewed this week!

A few years ago my mother-in-law gave me her old digital camera. It is an excellent Cannon, somewhat limited by being only 6 megapixel, but coming with a fine array of lenses. Lately I have not used it, as it has been supplanted by a newer, much lighter, Nikon and a marvelous, pocket-sized Sony.

The other day Jennie and I were going through odds and ends we were considering taking to recycling. In the pile was a lens box. Opening it, I discovered the lens to be a 77-300 mm macro zoom for the Cannon. These lenses are widely viewed as problematic, as they are neither properly a zoom nor a macro, and fascinating. True to form, the lens turned out to be both problematic and great fun.

There is not much I am drawn to photograph right now, as we are effectively between seasons; still, I grabbed the camera and headed out. My foray to the outside world was complicated by the day being thickly cloudy and breezy. The macro lens slows the already turtlish shutter which makes photographing moving objects, including wind-blown male flowers, challenging; it also creates the potential for some really intriguing shots. Fortunately, I am willing to play, so I snapped a few shots just to see what might happen.

Somewhere in the back of my mind there is a creative project brewing. All I know right now is it combines images and words and is shaped by the arc of story; how that occurs, and the subject matter, are a mystery. I’m curious whether the macro lens will play a role in that project. We’ll see where all this goes.