This feels like the busiest week of the term, he thought with some trepidation, fearing that the thought alone would bring more in some not-too-distant week. This week, then, was perfectly neutral and doesn’t have any more, or less, work or stress than any other one before it, he tried, hoping to balance the karmic imbalances, but he knew it was a fib.

My contribution to the cause today was this. I shot and directed two promotional videos we’ll be releasing to incoming students sometime soon. One was in a darkened gym — couldn’t talk our way into getting the house lights brought up. It’s a straightforward monologue and we’re putting a lot of B-roll with it. The fun part, of course, was the creative challenge of finding making regular B-roll look intriguing and new. Another was a different monologue in a small room with the same concept. We’ll put B-roll with the presenter’s voiceover. Two of these in one day is plenty of a creative challenge for me.

Yesterday I directed another video. That one was a two-camera tracking shot that works through three rooms and lighting configurations. One guy talks for about 90 seconds.

I have one more of these to shoot, tomorrow.

The still ripening fruit from a sycamore tree. I think I took this one because everything is yellow.

But I took this one because, even though the leaves are yellow, the petiole is red.

I wanted to concentrate on the chokeberries — rich in pectin, so a fine candidate for tasty jams and jellies — but then I noticed the fine hairs, the trichomes on the leaves.

Look at the snout on this guy!

Here’s the nearby poke sallet. These berries are slightly toxic.

Seems odd to see a dandelion this late in the year, but that could just be me.

Weeds are only weeds if you don’t want them there. And if they flower, I sorta want to see them stay where they are.

How can this one little branch have berries of all of these different colors?

I forget why I took this photo, but now that I’ve stared at it trying to remember, I found that I sorta like the chaos of it anyway.

Some sort of cotton weed, ready to let go and spread seeds in an empty patch of land.

The fight for plant supremacy continues, no matter what happened in those videos I’m working on, no matter how warm or cool it is, or how tired or energetic you feel. There’s something comforting about that.

Unless these guys are trying to work their way onto your property.