For reasons completely unknown to myself, I began wondering if there were dogwood trees in Arkansas the night before I arrived. I checked Google and the answer was yes. So when I stopped at the first Arkansas rest area the next morning for a map, I also asked the woman at the information desk if she happened to know whether the dogwoods were blooming yet.
This is the kind of question that generally elicits blank stares from people, but she immediately said yes. When I asked if she happened to know where I might see some dogwoods, she said, “There’s a pink one on this side of the building and a white one on that side.”
I grabbed my camera and found both trees. Dogwood blossoms have always appeared to me to simply float in the air and that certainly seemed to be true of the white ones (above).1 I hadn’t seen dogwoods in bloom (or at all) for over four decades, so happening upon them was a delightful and unexpected bonus.2
I actually saw many more blooming dogwoods during the day-and-a-half I spent in Arkansas but almost all were in people’s yards, along side roads with ditches instead of shoulders. Pulling over was a virtual impossibility and even if I could’ve stopped, trespassing didn’t seem advisable.
I roamed around much of that first day in Arkansas looking for a place from which I could take eclipse photos the following day. Mostly what I learned was that there aren’t nearly as many public lands in Arkansas as in the west. At one point I saw the old red pickup above, nestled amongst the trees, and had to stop right then and there — on the road itself, avoiding the inevitable ditch — to get a few shots.3 Spring was much further along there than it is here in Albuquerque.
The next day, I settled in on a small, sandy beach at Greers Ferry Lake to await the eclipse. I set up three tripods and put cameras with sun filters on two of them. I set each to automatically take shots of the sun every few seconds and got both started shortly after the (partial) eclipse began. In the meantime, I was carrying around a third, older camera with only a modest telephoto capability. My plan was to shoot wide-angle time-lapse video of the lake during the course of the eclipse.
Before I could put that camera on the third tripod, however, I noticed two beautiful butterflies flitting around: the (yellow) Tiger Swallowtail and the Tailed Blue above. They were very, very close to me and weren’t nearly as skittish as New Mexican butterflies. I experienced a few moments of indecision. I’d just driven a thousand miles to see the eclipse, not butterflies, so it seemed as if I should focus all my efforts on the eclipse. On the other hand, those butterflies were virtually posing for me, which never ever happens, except in my best dreams. I chose to take photos of the butterflies and started the time-lapse video 10 minutes later.4
It was several days before it occurred to me that both butterflies may actually have been much more sensitive to the beginning of the eclipse than I. Butterflies open their wings to absorb more of the sun when they’re cold, and they’re more sluggish in the cold as well. At the time, it seemed as if I was ignoring the eclipse, but now I’m wondering if I accidentally documented part of its effect, at least on a couple of butterflies. I’ll never know for sure, of course, but that’s my current story and I’m sticking to it.
I almost always prefer colorful flowers to white ones, but realized the opposite was true for dogwood blossoms. The color in the pink flowers seemed to make the floating effect much less noticeable.
I’m amused to note that this is my second post this month with photos taken at a rest area. (Are rest areas actually photographic treasure troves I’ve been missing all this time?)
Happily, that particular road was much less traveled than some of the others I’d been on.
I wasn’t pleased with the resulting time-lapse video for multiple reasons, not the least of which was the way the camera automatically adjusted its exposure throughout to make the lighting more consistent (the exact opposite of what I’d hoped to show). If I had it to do over, I’d make very different decisions, including using a more capable camera.
Hmmm. . . Maybe butterflies find YOU!
Beautiful butterfly photos & so enjoyed your commentary on your adventures! Dogwood lovely!