Ain’t That Just Dandy

What do you do when you have a blog oriented around travel photography, and the dictates of a global pandemic says, “thou shalt not travel!”

There are two apparent options:

• One, dig into dusty files and see if there are any photos of interest. The challenge here; can I also dredge the dust off my mental files to describe said photos?
• Two, find something within walking distance and try to make it interesting. That’s the tack I’ll be taking today. My challenge – make an ordinary weed look extraordinary.

The subject for this photo essay? The all too common dandelion. I bet I can make it a lot more interesting than this ho-hum start.

Here it is, the bane of spring and summer, the master of the hostile takeover. What can I possibly do to put lipstick on this pig?

I could try a different angle…

(Note: all of these pictures will look more interesting if you click on them for a closer view.)

Or maybe behead it, and float its yellow tresses in a nearby reflecting pool. (Ok, so it’s just a birdbath.)

Getting a close up is always interesting. Why not, it has already powdered its face.

It even has a beauty mole. So what if the mole looks like a gnat.

The ants, on the other hand, recognise the weed for what it is, and go dumpster diving.

The view becomes swirly and abstract. Must be something in that pollen.

Especially from an ant’s eye view…

Generated from the “reflecting pool” shot, believe it or not.

Let’s see what happens if I stack up all my macro gadgets and get really close.

Doesn’t that make your nose itch?

Dandelions go through two phases: their flowering, pollen spreading, it’s kind of pretty but no thank you just the same phase, and the seed phase.

Little balls of fluff, each ball a cluster bomb of future weeding headaches. Up close, they’re an engineering marvel. Each seed, barely attached to its base, topped with a stiff shroud wearing an air-catching wig. A built in parachute, pre-deployed.

Let’s have a closer look, shall we?

Delicate, aren’t they? Each seed head has a radial batch of filaments, each tiny, each waiting for its lighter than air moment.

And what happens if you spray a little mist?

It looks sticky, somehow. Maybe it’s just having a bad hair day. But get even closer, and it becomes a work of art.

I bet you never suspected this hidden world of dandelions. But you need to be careful when you get this close, it can do weird things to the tendrils of your brain cells…

So there you have it. Even something as boring as a dandelion is interesting, if you look closely enough.

Ain’t that just dandy?