Drying conifer cones: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, August 2025 — I am taking a course in Mindfulness and Photography, which it turns out is pretty much superficial mindfulness techniques with little or no direct connection to photography…but hay, they tried. The one thing it has reminded me to do is to look more attentively for the images that are there waiting for me to see them. I am good at doing that with birds and wildlife…but I forget sometimes to look down at the ground, or out at the landscape. I have a vague feeling that images like this one are just slightly pretentious…like making a sows ear into a silk purse. Still, I like the image. Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 102mm equivalent. My macro mods. F13 for depth of field. Processed in Photomator.