Sofia (and by inference Patty) have asked for wonderous moments banned into a photo frame. I’ve always taken photos but only once I got a digital camera I’ve started to take it a bit more seriously (the operative word here is “a bit”). I’ve made wonderous discoveries, seeing things and scenes that I might not have paid so much attention to before. I still marvel at insects in close-up or macro mode but the firsts are stuck in my mind, when I first learned about these wonders: a combination of the things themselves and the fact that I was able to catch them, to trap the moment and the image.

This is one of my first digital photos. It’s spring time in the Odenwald, I liked the colour, the freshness, and I was at the time quite chuffed with the framing.

The Bernese Alps have held many wonderous sights for me. The Alps are breathtaking all by themselves. Being able to catch the reflection of these giants in the lake was all but overwhelming.

I’ve posted a similar photo before – the first time I took a close-up photo of a common dandelion and saw it on the large monitor of my pc I learned about those little curlicues, the stamens of this flower. I had never seen or maybe just never noticed them before. A new world opened up.

I had never seen a hawkmoth, my mind boggled. I thought I was seeing a colibri – in Europe? Luckily, I had somebody with me who could tell me what I was seeing and at what I was marvelling. But my awe continued once I looked at the photos I had taken and I could see its proboscis, rolled up in flight and extending to take in nourishment.

And there are all the wonders of small creatures. Did I know beforehand that there were bees with smooth bodies and fuzzy bees? I don’t know but in close-up I could see a difference. And then there were these huge black carpenter bees. I had never noticed such big bees and they weren’t even all black but had the most amazing delicate blue wings. And it leads me to another wonderous thing – because I take the pictures (and post them here) I feel the need to research at least superficially what I have on my photo. I had never thought about bees and now I know at least a bit, like the fact that carpenter bees don’t live in hives but are individual loners.

And as a final photo I want to show this first. We were in Cyprus when a flock of more than 50 flamingoes decided to grace us with a fly-by, actually several of them because they kept sweeping by the beach on which we were and then flew out to sea and returned for another showing which allowed me to be prepared for them. I’d seen flamingoes in zoos, I have seen birds standing in the distance but I’d never seen them in flying formation. And I managed to get photos of this wonderous event! How marvellous!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Wonder

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