Susan Brandt Graham Photography
Life from a Southwest Point of View
Miniature rose Incognito has long been one of my favorites. In usual years, it produces some perfectly formed blooms. The colors are always amazing. The Albuquerque area had a very mild, dry winter. While that does not bode well for the summer and potential for fires, the spring bloom of roses has been the best I have ever seen here. I’ve been here for over 30 years. This little bloom and bud gave a delightful splash of color. Finally, the bloom had perfect form.
Spring color is everywhere in Albuquerque. Everything looks so fresh. The roses are a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. Because the weather is not hot yet, the roses haven’t become crispy critters, as they sometimes do. Everything around town seems colorful and clean. Of course, nothing beats a sunrise here! A riot of floral color makes things that much better!
Days of wind and roses certainly characterize Albuquerque in Spring. That seems to have been especially true for the wind this year. The wind has blown ferociously! Yesterday morning I was surprised to see not that a few roses were blooming, but that the blooms appeared fresh.
This little beauty is the miniature rose, “Ruby Baby,” a sport of the classic miniature, “Hot Tamale.” My “Hot Tamale” died some years ago, but “Ruby Baby” has hung on surprisingly well.
Wishing everyone a “grounded” weekend.
Autumn roses seem especially sweet. Maybe that is because they will soon disappear until Spring. This past spring I had too many distractions and demands to take good care of the roses then. But, the monsoon season was good to my yard. That inspired me to get out and work to get a few things in better shape. I was happily surprised with the roses available to photograph this weekend. Also, I’m playing with a new program, so I feel a bit like a kid with a new set of finger paints. Thank you for indulging me.
We are supposed to get more rain in the middle of the week. I put a few pansies out this weekend, and rain would be good for them as well as for the long-standing roses.
For my rose friends who read here, the final ARS Guidelines for Judging Rose Photography includes a National Challenge Class that will first be offered at the ARS Spring 2018 Convention. This is a heads-up, because photographing bloom cycles requires some planning. I do think this is a worthy national challenge class.
I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ The Viet Nam War. Throughout, I have thought about people I’ve known, and where they are in life and in their heads today (for those still alive). Last night was a little different. The episode covered the Tet Offensive to the assassination of Robert Kennedy. That is, Spring 1968, when Martin Luther King was also assassinated. I remember watching Lyndon Johnson’s speech, and many other things that had slipped into the deep recesses of my mind.
I was a student at the University of Chicago in the Spring of 1968. The University is on the south side of Chicago. I had come from a university that might consider tearing down a library if necessary to expand football. The University of Chicago had torn down the football field and was in the process of building a new library. I lived in a 12th floor apartment, that looked south. I could see Rockefeller Chapel, the Museum of Science and Industry, and a tiny glimpse of Lake Michigan. The university had its own bus for students, a bus that continually circled through Hyde Park to shuttle students to and from classes and back home. Most days I had the same bus driver.
Martin Luther King was assassinated on a Thursday. Friday morning was calm on the south side of Chicago. By the end of classes Friday afternoon, the tension was palpable. I caught the bus to go home. I was the last person off. The driver, who had gotten to know me over the year, said, “I’m going to drop you off at the door to your building today (instead of about 1/2 block away). Don’t go out tonight. Stay in your apartment.”
That weekend, first of all, and for days, I could look out and see the south side of Chicago burning. As a result, the heavily armed Military, not just police and National Guard, were patrolling the streets. Most of all, I remember looking out and seeing the Army camped on the grounds of the Museum of Science and Industry. Military tents completely covered those grounds. Maybe that is what I have remembered most of all.
I watched the helicopters hover over the meeting between the Blackstone Rangers and police, as they tried to work out a truce.
I have not thought about these things in a long time. What stood out to me from last night’s episode was the Marine, who had fought in Viet Nam, who was ordered to go to one of the cities with civil unrest. He refused an order to go, which essentially ended his military career. He said in essence, “I thought we would be sent for regular police work, protecting buildings, that kind of thing. Then they started issuing the same equipment we had had in Viet Nam: flak jackets, the same bullets, all the same things. I said I was not going.”
That was 49 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I half-apologize for the digression.
ARS Rose Photography Update: the American Rose Society’s Board of Directors has approved the final version of the First Edition of Guidelines and Rules for Judging Rose Photography. Editors are completing the final editorial review. The text will appear shortly on the website of the American Rose Society. Members will be able to access it by going to “Resources”and scrolling down. In the meantime, members may see and download six PowerPoint programs explaining use of the Guidelines. The PowerPoints appear alphabetically rather than by topic, so be sure to scroll through.
Because some readers may not be ARS members but still interested in the PowerPoints, I’m posting links here. Click on the links to view.
The current six are:
Shrubs, Old Garden Roses, etc.
How to Mount and Mat an 8×10 Photo for ARS Shows
While those are the current six, watch for additional ones in the future. In addition to these, planned are One Bloom, Macro Photography, The Enhanced Sections, What’s New in the 2017 Guidelines, and People, Not Cameras, Create Images.
You may view the current ones, as well as new ones as they appear, at a PowerPoint Library at Southwest Desert Gardening.
One does not have to be a member of any rose society to enter roses, arrangements, or photographs in ARS sanctioned rose shows. Anyone can enter!
Monsoon rain and roses have been outstanding this year!
In July, I showed the first real rain at my house of the 2017 monsoon season. It was unusual, dropping 2.5 inches of rain in 40 minutes. Overall, I’ve gotten almost 7 inches of rain this monsoon season. The transformational power of rain in the desert is remarkable.
July 17, 2017:
August 21, 2017:
The roses have responded in like manner.
The hybrid tea ‘Gemini’ has put out many sprays, which will appear at a later time. The one-to-a-stem blooms have had the perfect form for which this particular rose is known. This image is from the other night, after a brief monsoon shower. The new ARS guidelines that will be coming out later this month strongly suggest avoiding images with water droplets on the petals. I agree with avoiding such images if the light is wrong and the droplets light up as blank, a real distraction. But raindrops on roses after a gentle life-giving rain in the desert? I will photograph and show such images, happily. ‘Gemini’ is one of my favorite hybrid tea roses to grow in Albuquerque. “Raindrops on roses…” The stucco of my house, against which most of my hybrid teas grow, is the background.
Another of my favorite hybrid tea roses in the desert is ‘Veterans’ Honor.’ It has also responded to the monsoon rains. While I frequently get sprays on ‘Gemini,’ most ‘Veterans’ Honor’ blooms for me are one-to-a-stem. However, it produced a spray this year. This is not any kind of classic spray form by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, I kind of like the almost ‘golden spiral’ effect of this spray, the always-gorgeous color, and healthy foliage seen here.
Although Albuquerque will see some additional rain this year, the monsoon season is rapidly drawing to a close. From my perspective, as well as that of my yard and flowers, this has been a great – and much needed – monsoon year!
I didn’t feel like writing anything. These are some rose photos. I hope you enjoy them.
Independence Day 2017: A rose and wish for my friends in the USA:
And, for friends who might want to know, this is the miniature rose ‘Tammy Clemons.’ David Clemons hybridized this beauty.
Finally, wishing everyone have a safe and joyful Fourth, no matter where you are or how you are spending your day!
Rose sprays – the appearance of two or more blooms on a single stem – have been exceptionally abundant in my yard this year. After doing one draft of a PowerPoint presentation about photographing them, I decided I really needed to create two or three separate but related presentations. These would be for rosarians planning to enter their photographs in rose shows. But many of my photographs of roses do not meet the new ARS Guidelines (even though I helped write them, at least at the beginning), but would be quite acceptable in other venues. Sometimes I enjoy putting quotations with my images. That is what I felt like doing today. 🙂
This is a spray of the shrub rose, ‘Distant Drums.’ Those of you who know this rose know that these blooms are long past their prime, and lack many of the defining characteristics of the variety. But, the light was so glorious, illuminating them at early dawn.
And, I thought of this quote from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera:
“Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.”
Several years ago I developed a habit of photographing a rose from “the back” as well as from “the front.” Those of you who aren’t into roses know that is really a meaningless distinction. In roses, “the front” most usually refers to what you would see in a rose catalog. That is because the American Rose Society was founded by rose hybridizers to encourage the sale of roses. Photographers, in contrast, look for interesting angles.
This image is of two different views of a spray of the hybrid tea rose, ‘Gemini’ with three florets. Visually, I prefer the one that would not be seen in a rose catalog.
I have enjoyed photographing the abundant rose sprays this year! 🙂 You can expect to see more over time. 😉
Summer Solstice – the most amount of daylight in one day for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, and the official beginning of “Summer.” I never heard of National Selfie Day before, but the Twitterverse says it is so. For me, I do not have to see an eye doctor or a skin doctor again until November. I really have nothing to complain about, because my issues were minor and fixable, but the process seemed to drag on from last October until today.
In that time, I have learned a lot about sun protection for everything, including eyes and ears. I now have UPF hats, shirts, neck coverings, etc., etc., as well as UV A&B protective glasses with dark gray lenses and my favorite, amber lenses. I want to do a few more photographs, and then I’ll post those in a post at Southwest Desert Gardening. All gardeners everywhere need sun protection, some just more than others. 🙂
But today, for Solstice (and National Selfie Day 😉 ), I wanted to say “Hello,” dressed appropriately for summer: hat for ear and face protection; UPF 30+ shirt, and very dark glasses as UV protective as possible. I should have been dressed more or less like this all the time I have lived here.
What looks like a BandAid is a silicone pad designed to to help flatten the scar from where skin was taken for graft to cover part of my ear where a little skin lesion was removed. It is all healing up very well.
‘Mermaid’ is just about finished with its first bloom, but I thought this bloom this morning was really pretty. I hope you enjoy it, too.
Happy Solstice, and may the summer not be as hot throughout as it is today.
