On Touchstone and the Noon kie oo nah yeah

I spent the weekend at the Touchstone Center for Crafts near Farmington, PA, trying to learn a bit more about photography.  It was a pleasant time of year to be in Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands.  The class was taught by Daniel Salitrik, who's more or less my contemporary, but who has been serious about photography his entire life.

My three classmates presented a mixed bag:  an artist/painter from the corporate side of advertising, a business professor with a background in fine arts, and a hospital employee who likes to shoot weddings and flowers.

I stepped out of my comfort zone to experiment with shooting people in some other classes, trying to vary the shooting speed in order to capture motion.  Results were not impressive.  It was good, however, to see and critique people shots with this kind of group.

So while others were telling stories of people in pictures, I found some sunlit spots in the forest that held my own interest.  These two variations of the same shot are perhaps my personal favorites.  Meet the Partridge Berry (Mitchella repens), growing amid some moss.  While this is the beginning of Fall, this subject looks more like a Christmas theme.  The only thing missing is snow.

I first thought that the plant and berry were Wintergreen, but I knew that Wintergreen is a solitary plant, whereas this plant trailed along the ground.  An interesting Wikipedia factoid about the Partridge Berry is that it is native to both United States and Japan.  That's quite a separation.  If you're still at a loss as to my title for this piece, the Wikipedia entry cited above says that "Noon kie oo nah yeah" is the Mohawk Indian name for this plant.