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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 1h

TORONTO, and underneath it a second one, upside down and patchy where the pool has gone dry. The water keeps the red and lets everything else go murky. Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto #ColorADay #RedWed #photography #toronto #architecturephotography

The large TORONTO letter sign in red and white, flanked by a medicine wheel and a red maple leaf, stands in front of the two curved towers of Toronto City Hall, with glass high-rises and construction cranes against a clear blue sky. The low sun lights the tops of the towers, and the sign is reflected upside down in a partly drained pool in the foreground.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Sun coming in low from the top right, flaring through the leaves and catching just the tops of the rocks. The stones carry your eye up the frame until the log stops you, and the first red leaves sit up in the canopy. #RockinTuesday #31DaysOfHalloween #photography #landscapephotography

A dry creek bed filled with rounded grey rocks runs from the foreground up through a dense green woodland, with a fallen log lying across it in the middle distance. Low sunlight flares in from the upper right, lighting the leaves and the tops of the rocks, with a few red autumn leaves in the trees and small pools of water among the stones at the bottom left.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Three bands, top to bottom: hard blue sky, dark green woods, dry brown grass. The pale branches cut across all of it, every fork picked out like it was traced in chalk. #BlueSkyMonday #31DaysOfHalloween #photography

A large bare, pale grey tree with many forking branches stands in a small clearing in sunlight, set against dark green and yellowing woods with a few red shrubs. A deep blue sky fills the top of the frame, and dry brown grass and seed heads fill the foreground.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Rust on every branch, and it still looks deliberate. Pale deadwood up the trunk, moss in the pot, a jar waiting in the corner. The whole courtyard seems arranged around one small tree having its autumn. #Stunday #ArtYear #31DaysOfHalloween #photography

A bonsai pine in a shallow terracotta pot sits on gravel in a courtyard, its twisted dark trunk streaked with pale deadwood and its needles turned rust-orange. Behind it are a peach plaster wall, a wooden lattice window, a dark wooden baseboard, and a large olive-glazed ceramic jar in the corner.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Stone slab on two stacked stone legs, tucked under an old birch that's been peeling and growing moss for longer than anyone's been sitting here. The little plaque on the edge says someone put it here for someone. #ColorADay #GreenSat #31DaysOfHalloween #photography

A stone bench, a thick slab resting on two stacked stone legs with a small plaque on its edge, sits beneath a large old birch whose mossy, peeling trunk splits into two limbs on the left of the frame. Around it a green park lawn scattered with fallen orange leaves stretches back to shrubs and slender white-barked birches under soft, even light.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Photos make standoffs look calm. In the frame it's a deer neatly tucked between leaves and bark; in the moment it was two of us holding still, each waiting for the other to move first. #ForestFriday #photography #wildlifephotography

A white-tailed buck with branching antlers peers out from dense green forest undergrowth, his body partly hidden behind a large, rough-barked tree trunk on the right. He looks straight at the camera, ears spread wide, with blurred leaves in the foreground framing him.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Copper roof gone green with age, a spire thin as a needle, and a ridge of hills parked right behind it. The tower pokes up out of the garden like it's checking whether anyone's coming. #PalacesAndGardens #WhatsNext #photography #travelphotography

A multi-storey temple tower with a green copper roof and a tall slender spire rises in the middle distance, framed by a pine and leafy trees on either side and a dense glossy hedge along the bottom. A grey tiled temple roof, a few city buildings and a line of forested hills sit behind it under a blue sky with thin clouds.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Cream against slate. The bark went cold and bluish, with one rusty streak down the right side, and the cluster sits there as the only warm thing in the frame, though it's just as wrinkled as the tree it's growing on. #MacroMonday #31DaysOfHalloween #photography

A dense cluster of pale cream mushrooms with curled, wrinkled caps and twisting stems grows out of a tree trunk, sitting left of centre. The surrounding bark is deeply furrowed and cracked, mostly blue-grey with patches of rusty orange and a few small holes on the right.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Narrow lane, two walls of shopfronts squeezing in from either side, and all of it funnelling your eye to one point. The sun sits just behind the roofs and takes the detail down to silhouette in places. #Stunday #photography #architecturephotography #travelphotography

A tall five-storey wooden pagoda with wide tiled eaves and a long bronze finial, seen from a narrow sloping lane that funnels toward it. Traditional shopfronts with Japanese signs and a hanging curtain line both sides of the empty street, and the sky behind the pagoda is pale blue with thin cloud, the sun just out of frame to the right.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Test shot. Camera up, check exposure, carry on — and two hours of walking later nothing beat it. Bird on a bare branch, a flat grey sky, done. #SmallBirdSaturday #BirdOfTheDay #photography

A small bird perched near the end of a long bare oak branch, almost entirely in silhouette against a flat pale grey sky, with a faint red mark on the back of its head and speckled underparts just visible. Dark oak leaves and branches fill the top and right of the frame, and a second bird sits half hidden among the leaves on the right.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A voracious forest: the red gate almost swallowed by the green, and then the pond hands back a second one, wobbling. Everything else in the frame is some version of leaf. #ForestFriday #Scape #photography #landscapephotography

A dense wall of layered green forest canopy rising above a still, olive-green pond. On the right, a red wooden torii gate and a red fence are partly hidden among the leaves, with the gate's reflection visible in the water below. Pale pink blossoms hang in the lower right corner.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Half the frame is tree. The shrine roofs get squeezed into a thin band along the bottom, the sky stays pale and does nothing, and the green takes the whole picture. #HumansOfBlueSky #PalacesAndGardens #ItsAJungleOutThere #AOFoto #photography

A woman in a white top and peach skirt walks alone across a wide, empty stone shrine courtyard, looking up at an enormous broad camphor tree whose green canopy fills the upper left of the frame. Low wooden shrine buildings with grey tiled roofs and a rack of wooden votive plaques line the right and middle distance under a pale, lightly clouded sky.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A handful of red berries hanging off a thin stem, and that's the whole event. The leaves above still hold their shape — veins, chewed edges — and below them the woods just dissolve. #Abstractia #leaves #AOFoto #photography

Close-up of a small cluster of glossy red berries hanging on thin stems beneath a branch of green, maple-like leaves. The background is a soft wash of out-of-focus green with one pale round spot of bokeh in the lower right.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Horizontal bands all the way up: asphalt, pavement, concrete wall, boardwalk, sand, surf, sky. One person sitting on the seam between the town side and the beach side. #TidesOutTuesday #AOFoto #photography #streetphotography

A young man in black clothes, a white-brimmed cap and earbuds sits on a low concrete seawall holding a red phone, looking off to the side. Behind him a busy sandy beach with red and purple parasols, sunbathers and swimmers, choppy sea and clear blue sky in harsh midday light. The frame is built from horizontal bands: asphalt road, paving slabs, wall, boardwalk, sand, water, sky.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Dark wet leaves behind, white flower heads in front, and the exposure only had room for one of them. The greens fell away almost to black and the little star-shaped florets kept everything. #MacroMonday #photography #macro

Close-up of clusters of small white star-shaped flowers on a shrub, set against dark green leaves still wet from rain. The background falls off into near-black, leaving the flower heads as the brightest part of the frame.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Point a lens straight into the sun and it invents a halo you never asked for. The crown splits the light into spokes, the white stone goes warm, and the face stays calm about the whole thing. #Stunday #AOFoto #photography

A giant white Kannon statue seen from below, seated with hands unseen behind a temple roof, the sun flaring directly behind her crown into a starburst against a blue sky with thin cloud. Dark green trees rise on either side, and a row of carved lotus panels tops the roof in the foreground.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The path curves off into the trees on the left, the maple saplings lean in from the right, and the bench waits in the one patch of ground where the leaves have gone brown. #ColorADay #GreenSat #photography #landscapephotography

A narrow dirt trail curves through a shaded deciduous forest, edged with dense green maple saplings and tall thin tree trunks. On the right sits an empty white metal bench with a forest scene cut into its backrest, surrounded by brown fallen leaves.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Everything in this frame is green or grey except two stripes of paint, and that's enough to pull your eye all the way to the top of the hill. #ForestFriday #Scape #AOFoto #photography

An empty two-lane asphalt road with a double yellow centre line running away from the camera and cresting a low rise, enclosed on both sides by dense green deciduous forest. A weathered yellow diamond warning sign stands on the left verge among brown fallen leaves, in soft overcast light.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Three buildings from three different centuries, all squeezed into one frame: tiled temple roof, steel lattice, glass tower. The cyclist rolling past the gate doesn't look up at any of them but gives us the scale. Tokyo #UrbanGaze #HumansOfBlueSky #photography #tokyo

Tokyo Tower, red and white, rises against a deep blue cloudless sky directly behind the dark tiled roof of a temple hall. A tall glass skyscraper and other high-rises stand to the right among green trees, while a man on a bicycle and a walking pedestrian cross the open forecourt in front of the temple.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A cardinal picking his way through the wet grass, and the hedge behind him went dark enough to leave him the only thing in the frame. Feathers a bit ruffled, tail straight out like a rudder. #ColorADay #RedWed #BirdOfTheDay #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Do ducks queue for the good rocks? Looks that way from up here. The shoreline curves, they line up along it, and the branch in the corner leans in like it wants to be part of the picture. #RockinTuesday #BirdOfTheDay #photography

A group of around fifteen mallard ducks resting in the shallows at a lake edge, most with their bills tucked into their wings, standing on wet moss-covered rocks. The water is dark green and grey, with grass in the bottom left corner and a leafy branch hanging into the frame from the right.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Three quarters of this frame is green and blue, and the eye still goes straight to that one red roof. The ridge behind, the city carrying on below, and the temple sitting between the two. Kyoto #MountainMonday #BlueSkyMonday #AOFoto #photography #kyoto

View over Kyoto from a wooded hillside: a red and dark-tiled pagoda and temple roofs rise on the right above dense green foliage, with the pale low-rise city spread across the middle distance and a long blue mountain ridge behind it under a wide sky of thin clouds.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Nobody in yet. Rows of burnt-orange velvet waiting on a crowd, while Tokyo behind the glass goes pale and flat and stays out of the way. #ColorADay #OrangeSun #photography #tokyo

A high-floor lounge filled with burnt-orange velvet banquettes and fluted tan leather armchairs, with grey upholstered chairs and small round wooden tables between them. Floor-to-ceiling windows on the left open onto a hazy, pale city skyline, and warm light washes over the whole room.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The heron stood on that rock like the gardener had placed it there, same as the stones and the clipped hedges. It never moved the whole time I watched. #BlueSkyArtShow #golden #BirdOfTheDay #photography

A grey heron stands upright on a flat rock at the edge of a garden pond, its long neck raised and beak pointing left. Behind it are clipped hedges and a maple tree in green leaf; the still pond in front is lit a deep golden brown and holds a clear mirror image of the bird and rock.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

One tree, and the whole hill arranges itself around it. Backlit into a silhouette, so all you get is shape — no bark, no color, just that heavy round crown sitting where the ground rolls away. #Scape #photography #landscapephotography

A single large tree stands in silhouette on a prairie hillside, backlit by low sun. Horizontal bands fill the frame: mown green grass in the foreground, tall golden prairie grass, a low rolling ridge, and a blue sky with thin wispy clouds turning pale orange near the horizon.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

A break on the way up the hill. Empty cobbles, warm sun on the eaves, and the only two people in the frame tucked into the bottom corner where the shade is. Everything else is wood, tile and sky. Kyoto #HumansOfBlueSky #UrbanGaze #photography #travelphotography #kyoto

A narrow, empty cobbled lane in old Kyoto climbing between wooden machiya houses with tiled roofs, a tall five-tiered wooden pagoda rising against a blue sky at the far end. In the lower right corner, two people in pale kimono sit on a low step in the shade of a wooden gate, one looking at a phone.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Vermillion at that scale stops being a color and turns into the weather. Sun coming over the hill just left of the gate, lighting up the underside of the eaves, and the pagoda behind picking up the same red. Kyoto #ColorADay #RedWed #photography #travelphotography #kyoto

A large vermillion-red temple gate with a dark tiled roof sits at the top of wide stone steps at sunrise, the sun bursting into the frame from behind the hill on the left in long rays. A red pagoda and a smaller red hall stand to the right against a pale teal sky, and two small figures with a tripod stand on the steps below the gate.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Grey sky did me a favor: no harsh shadows on the moss, so the pink and all that green stay calm and even. The standing stones are the ones that will still be here in a hundred years, but the crape myrtle in bloom gets all the attention. #RockinTuesday #photography #travelphotography #garden

A temple garden with large upright stones set into a thick moss bed, a crape myrtle tree in pink bloom leaning across the frame, a white-walled tiled-roof building on the left and a long covered wooden walkway on the right, under a flat grey overcast sky.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

How many blackberries before it stops being fruit and turns into texture? Get this close and the depth of field collapses. Tongoy market, 2025 #MacroMonday #photography #macro

Extreme close-up of a heap of ripe blackberries filling the frame, their tiny glossy drupelets catching the light, some berries deep red or split open. Behind them sit stacked green plastic market crates, blurred, with a blurred market stall beyond; the bottom of the frame falls out of focus.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Orange canopy, blue sky, white panels — three flat colors stacked up and not much else going on. I just love how the low sun caught the far edge of it. #ColorADay #OrangeSun #PaintByWords #FallColors #photography

A large tree with a full canopy of bright orange and red autumn leaves stands beside a modern white office building with tall glass windows. The sky is clear blue, low evening sun warms the right edge of the frame, and fallen leaves cover the green lawn in the foreground.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I just love how the falling water turned into a soft curtain while the jets kept their spiky shape. The spiral sits right in the middle of it, quietly doing its thing. #BlueSkyArtShow #undulating #photography

A large ribbed spiral sculpture, pale white shading to teal, sits in a shallow turquoise fountain pool beside tall jets of water. Behind it a long curved wall pours a sheet of water past stone columns, with green trees above in soft overcast light. A slow shutter has smoothed the falling water into a misty curtain while the jets keep their spiky edges. Two people sit on a bench at the far left of the pool.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Layer after layer of tile and wood stacking down the hill, green mountain closing it off at the back. The person on the steps is what gives it all a sense of scale. Kyoto #HumansOfBlueSky #UrbanGaze #AOFoto #photography

Looking down a wide stone stepped street in Kyoto lined with traditional wooden shops and tiled roofs. A single person in a red checked shirt and blue trousers walks away from the camera down the steps, with layered grey-tiled rooftops and a green forested hill under a pale blue sky beyond.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Red doing all the work here. The only break from it is the worn stone underfoot and a little green slipping through the gaps. Kyoto #ColorADay #RedWed #PaintByWords #stairs #photography

A stone stairway climbing through a long tunnel of vermilion torii gates, their posts and beams filling the frame and receding into the distance. Black kanji is painted on the pillars, dark stone bases line both sides, and green foliage shows through gaps between the gates.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

First photo of mine I've posted in almost six months. Turns out the cure for the creative rut was a change of place. A quiet morning path, damp stone, one umbrella coming toward me under all that green. Japan #photography #travelphotography #japan #streetphotography

A woman in a long plaid dress walks toward the camera on a wide stone path, holding a tan umbrella. Tall green trees arch over the path on both sides, and a large wooden torii gate stands in the soft light far behind her.

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

That soft hazy light turning the whole Chicago skyline warm — old stone towers, glass curtain walls, the river below, all pulled into the same golden wash. The tugboat helps. Chicago, March 2026 #ColorADay #OrangeSun #stunday #chicago #architecturephotography #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

All that red — the bus lane, the Muni livery, the colorful Mission storefronts behind it. Flat winter light, which somehow made the colors pop more, not less. San Francisco, January 2026 #sanfrancisco #streetphotography #ColorADay #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Late golden hour filtering through the redwoods, leaves carpeting the ground, and the dog heading straight for the light like she knew exactly where to go. Berkeley, CA, January 2026 #forestfriday #sunburst #berkeley #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Marina City never gets old. The grain matches the texture of all those repeating curves. Overcast sky keeping it all flat and graphic. Chicago, March 2026 #urbangaze #monochrome #BnW #architecturephotography #chicago #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

That red sign does all the work, but the L train cutting through the frame at just the right moment is what makes it. Gray winter light, layers of the city stacked up behind it. Chicago, March 2026 #ColorADay #RedWed #chicago #streetphotography #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Late afternoon sun catching the Oski bear just right — that warm golden light against an almost impossibly blue sky. Hard not to stop and point a camera at it. Berkeley, CA, January 2026 #animalarttuesday #coloraday #bluetue #berkeley #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

That hazy morning light softening everything — the redwood bark, the concrete, even the pale sky. A quiet corner of the Berkeley campus. Berkeley, CA, January 2026 #sharemondays2026 #berkeley #morninglight #architecturephotography #photography

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Flat winter light on still water, trees reflecting the sky like a mirror. That in-between moment when the snow is almost gone but nothing has greened up yet. Madison, March 2026 #stunday #photography #landscapephotography #madisonwi #wisconsin

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

The soft greens of the needles with that warm cone center—there's always something satisfying about finding these small patterns up close. Madison, Wisconsin, March 2026 #photography #macrophotography #greensat #coloraday #madisonwi

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

That orange and silver against all that cool blue — the aquarium light did something unexpected here. Shedd Aquarium, 2026 #fishyfriday #photography #aquarium #underwater #sheddaquarium

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Flat midday light, the whole skyline compressed into the corner, and then these two just walking through the frame like they own it. Chicago, March 2026 #photography #streetphotography #chicago #UrbanGaze #HumansOfBlueSky

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The repetition got me — floor after floor of balconies, all those warm lights glowing against the cool interior. There's a certain vertigo to it. Chicago, March 2026 #photography #architecturephotography #chicago #WindowsOnWednesday #WallsOnWednesday

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Two jellyfish lit against pure black — one cool violet, one burnt amber. The contrast feels almost compositional, like the tank arranged them. Shedd Aquarium, March 2026. #photography #animalarttuesday

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

That stillness between seasons — frozen marsh thawing, bare trees holding on. The pale sky reflecting in dark water was the whole reason to stop. Madison, WI, March 2026 #photography #landscapephotography #madisonwi #wisconsin #sky #sharemondays2026 #blueskymonday

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Against the Grain @gr37.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

The way that golden light hit the ornamental grasses while the building stayed in shadow—loved the interplay between warm and cool tones, brightness and darkness framing the path. Madison, WI, January 2026 #photography #goldenhour #madisonwi #light #shadow

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