Circe Invidiosa IV

Sunday before Labor Day came and went but not before yielding some digital images of a beautiful young women and another photography adventure.  I worked with the lovely Mana de Creveaur, as she calls herself in the modeling world, who arrived to the location on the Main Line from a small town in Delaware, not far from the Pennsylvania border.  Her fashionable lateness afforded me time to explore the Montgomery County estate whose grounds are open to the general public from sunup to sundown.

Large pond - First scene for Circe Invidiosa

Appleford is a beautiful 24 acres estate donated to the township as an arboretum and bird sanctuary.  There is a stream that is dammed in many spots creating ponds and pools full of frogs, tadpoles, coarse fish, minnows and a few hardy gold fish.  I bring this up because the water looks slimy, green, fouled with vegetation and having an odor of thriving organisms that eat food and excrete waste.  Not really an unpleasant ordor, unless you wear wet clothing all the way home.

On my first visit to Appleford I attended a large party, which is the major method of raising funds to maintain the estate.  I was there at night and didn't really get a good look, but I stuck a splinter in my brain that reminded me to return for my photography projects.

It was about two years ago that I stopped by to get a good look at the place.  As I exited my car in the visitor parking lot, my eyes landed on the above pond.  I was enchanted.  As I walked about, I saw a painter brushing oil colors on her easeled canvas and thoughts raced in my head that this pond would be a scene in my photography.  I also found several gardens between the house and my pond.  Beautiful rose, boxwood, perennial and brick gardens within 100 feet of the house and my pond. 

Waterfall scene

For me, Appleford's foremost appeal is the water.  The water starts near the road traveling under the cover of tall old trees that filter the light falling on the moving water.  The dappled liquid then spills over the first dam into a long pool which is broken by the driveway that spans the pool.  The water is now thick with frogs that chirp as they jump into the pool once startled by my approach.  This pool narrows on the other side of the bridge and enters the larger pond.  The water languishes in the large pond before entering a stone walled pool that creates a 6'-8' tall waterfall.  Mana liked the falls and we worked at the large pond, the tall falls and in the rose garden and its pond.

Circe pouring the enchanted potion into the water