mid-summer in pittsburgh

July 4 is mid-summer and I went out to the community garden down the street to shoot the hollyhocks and the bees. The garden sits on a vacant lot that some of the residents have appropriated and planted. I'm always surprised to find hollyhocks in cities, they are farm plants. But they are one of my favorite summer flowers with their simple, fat trumpets. Inside of the white/green horn a bumblebee was rolling in pollen, drunk with summer. Bumblebees swarmed the flowers. It was an all-you-can-eat brunch. The bumblebees weren't the only visitors. Lightning bugs, their fluorescence extinguished, were mating in the morning sun, a daisy's stamens their bed. Had they found each other the previous night in the mid-summer twilight?

The last four images were shot at Brenckles Garden Center in the North Hills. I buy my flowers at Brenckles and have always wanted to shoot the palette of summer colors vibrant from the chemical-mix they force feed each and every plant. The garden center is huge covering a hillside with glass-houses and miracle-grow colors. It was like being in a candy store, I didn't know what to shoot first, so I began in the first greenhouse and shot my way through the complex.
(The thumbnail points to the large image.)