Old Dog Photography

I thought that for a little macro experimenting, I’d use a bit of local color as a subject. Here’s a mountain mahogany seed — in all its twisty, fuzzy glory:

Mountain mahogany (a.k.a. cercocarpus) is a shrub that grows here and there in the foothills along Colorado’s front range (but also in a variety of other dry spots in northern Mexico and the western U.S.). The plant’s seeds have their odd shape to aid in their dispersal – they’re so light and fuzzy that they catch the slightest breeze, and their twisted shape makes them natural helicopters (helping them stay airborne).

This also means they are a natural bit of fun in the fall around here — grab a handful of them and blow them at your friends and family members with just a puff of your breath!

Anyway, I took a few dozen shots of this little guy and a friend of his, on a variety of backgrounds. I tried cloth of various colors, a mirror, and finally settled on this scheme — a piece of clear acrylic sitting on white paper. It makes the seed look as though it’s levitating — I liked that, along with the fact that you can see a nice, slightly blurred shadow on the paper. I’m not so wild about the seed’s reflection off the acrylic, but couldn’t figure a way to get rid of it.