The Black-eyed Susan’s are still going strong at North Mountain Park. I was really trying for a lot of nice flower blur in the background on this one and I think it was pretty successful. This was shot with the Lensbaby Sol45 on the Canon M3. I toned down the saturation on the yellows and oranges because it was bit overpowering. The usual high pass filter and a texture.
North Mountain Park was on my path again today so I stopped by for just a few minutes. It was getting pretty windy which is not the best for flower photography but it was also cloudy which is good for flower photography because then you don’t get a lot of shadows. I was framing a shot on this pretty zinnia and the bee just came along and posed at the right minute. Shot with the Sol45 and the M3. I’m still blown away about how sharp that sweet spot can be when you hit it right. This was one of those where I thought, “Oh, it doesn’t need a filter” but when I tried one I thought I wasn’t even going to like I went Oh, yeah, that works. Otherwise just a high pass filter and a little touch up with the spot healing brush.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to find to post today. But as luck would have it I arrived at my hotel in Vancouver at noon and they adamantly refused to consider allowing me to check in before 4pm. So I left my bags in their custody and bought a ticket for the Hop on Hop off tour bus. I hopped off at Granville Island which has a public market and of course, no public market worth it’s salt doesn’t have at least on flower stand. I chose the Calla Lilies because they were something I haven’t done yet this project. And then, who doesn’t love a Calla Lily phot. Channeling Robert Maplethorpe is so much fun. But now I must dash as the Road Scholars are gathering for our first dinner together.
It’s been a busy day and I had at first thought to post something from the archives but I got another new toy today. and had to try it out though at over 100 degrees I did not want to go outside so I clipped a flower from my black-eyed susan from the nursery and took it up to the tiny studio. My new toy is another lensbaby lens. This one fits on my mirrorless camera and gives me three looks a twisty background, a velvety look like the velvet and a sweet look like the sweet 50 but at 28mm. It took me awhile to figure out how to make it work but I’m excited about the possibilities. On this one I used a lightroom preset to desaturate it a little and added a texture.
Today’s field trip was to the Grower’s Market. They always have such lovely flowers. I refrained from buying a bouquet to take home and photograph but that may happen yet. Not much post processing here. Just a little sharpening and some tweaking of exposure and spot healing off some pollen.
I’m working on an online workshop on food photography. Half the fun has been shopping for props like the antique spoon and silver sugar bowl seen here. I was about to despair of finding affordable and tarnished silverware at the local antique mall when I stumbled upon a vendor with bins full of spoons and forks for $1.00 each. I made a haul of assorted patterns so have lots to choose from now. This was shot with the lensbaby Velvet 85 which is rapidly becoming my favorite lens, especially for macro work.
And for you haiku fans:
Food Photography
Two of my favorite things
Luscious pursuit.
Merganser Haiku
Common Merganser
You look so unlike your mate
Could God not decide?
-Jeanne Hoadley
Well, not many poems about merganser’s that’s for sure. I even had a Mary Oliver poem picked out but I could not find it online and I was not about to type the whole thing in. So, you get my Haiku instead. I decided since it is the last week of the project I should pull out all the stops and go to my favorite places to photograph. So, in spite of being a major snow wimp, I made the trek over the Greensprings to the Klamath Basin. There were patches of ice on the road but the Honda performed like a champ and I reminded myself this is why I insist on having all wheel drive. There were lots of hawks, lots of blue herons, a few ducks, and a flock of geese way out in the middle of the lake sitting on the ice. This may be the first time I have been to the refuges and not seen a bald eagle, and this is supposed to be their best time of year. I dithered between a hawk, a heron and this image but I love the expression on the male’s face, turns out he was thinking about flying away, which he did in the next frame.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
I could not find any good poems about Christmas lights or holiday lights, or the winter solstice or the darkening of the days and we lead up to the solstice but that is what I was thinking about and this quote from Martin Luther King seemed appropriate. It was only recently that it occurred to me that we put up lights around the solstice as much to drive away the darkness as to celebrate the holidays. One more week of increasing darkness and then we can begin to celebrate the coming of the light!
Harvest Celebration
“Rainbows: The gift from heaven to us all.”
― Anthony T. Hincks
Well I did feel like I’d been given a gift when I looked out my office window on what promised to be a dreary gray day with not much to recommend it photographically. So, I grabbed the camera and ran outside getting just a couple of shots before it faded away. I can also tell you that there are many many bad poems about rainbows on the internet and no good ones that I could find.