HPH photo diary / 13. tree shadows and new walks

Some photos from recent walks this weekend.

If this is the first of my Photo Diary posts you’ve seen, this series is a way of sharing the everyday photos that I snap— quite often when going for a walk, or little details I notice at home. This series started off as individual images back in 2019 under the title Ephemera, as a section on my website to share the transient moments I document, as ephemera derives from the Greek ephemeros — meaning ‘lasting only one day, short-lived’.

When I moved last year and during lockdown, I started sharing my walks and daily observations over on my Instagram stories and after such a positive response, I wanted to share a slice of the everyday here on my website too, but as a curated collection of images every few weeks, in ‘photo drop’ style. These are saved under the Photo Diary tab and are collections of my day to day photography that I put together every few weeks or so as a punctuation to the longer form plant care posts. They also have ended up acting like a visual diary of sorts.

I think it’s safe to say that most people who have an interest in plants also develop a wider appreciation of nature and feel a deeper connection to the outside world in general. You’ll notice that the seasonal shifts are not only marked by the change in temperature and light but also what is flourishing or fading; your houseplants, in your garden, or the plants and trees lining the streets you walk everyday. That’s a flavour of what you’ll see in these posts + I hope you enjoy!

tree shadows and new walks

When things get busy I like to walk. Stumbled across an old church last weekend that could have been straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Silence except for the rustling of statuesque trees, then peering in through stained glass windows. Elsewhere swathes of dandelions. Dappled light and canopies of green growing dense with foliage. The poppies are out — jewel-toned reds dropping petals like confetti. Petite Icelandic poppies accidentally appearing in everyones gardens and nestled between plants, popping up from cracks in the pavement. One day the setting sunlight casts bright orange patterns across the wall and the houseplants are thrown into shadow. A few Irises are lining the fence on my walk around the block, I keep checking for blooms — any day now. Iris was my Grandma’s name and she always used to have a handkerchief with her initials and an Iris embroidered on it, so I have a fondness for these purple flowers. Washing lines with tree shadows dancing across white sheets, blackbirds and sparrows and swallows singing their hearts out.