Ginkgo Fan

Yes, you could say I'm a ginkgo fan.

I never really noticed their elegant, fan-shaped leaves until I worked in Towson some years ago on a three-month contract. It was fall, and Pennsylvania Avenue in greater downtown Towson is graced with quite a few ginkgo trees. Even then, I didn't notice the leaves until they started to turn color and fall.

The ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba, is itself quite intersting. Among plants, it is sui generis, being the only species in the genus Ginkgo, which is the only member of the family Ginkgoaceae, in turn the only family in the order Ginkgoaceae, itself the only member of the class Ginkgoopsida, which is, you guessed it, the only member of the phylum Ginkgophyta.

Even among trees, ginkgos are especially long-lived and have been around longer than any other species - over 200 million years.

For this photo, I made use of a photographic axiom I learned years ago:

"Get close... then get closer."

The macro mode of my digicam (Canon A620) let me "get closer," and some nice late-afternoon sidelighting contributed to make a dramatic image.

Leaf on 21st Street

Our wonderful Israeli cousins Tammy and Itzik were in Washington this past week, and we drove to DC to pick them up at their hotel and spend the day with them. Mindful of the dictum, "it always pays to schlepp one's camera, I grabbed my Adorama Slinger as I headed out from home.

With the exception of our recent Shutterbug Excursions outing to Great Falls, I hadn't taken any decent fall foliage photos... and no fall close-ups or macros at all. But after I dropped my gang off at the hotel and parked my car around the block on 21st Street, I found this classic autumn leaf laying around in the curb. Moving it to the nicely-bricked sidewalk, I saw this ready-made frame and snapped a few shots.

This may have to do for Fall 2008. The leaves are still colorful on the trees, but there aren't too many left.