Went to the lavender festival with friends last weekend. I was experimenting with a wide angle zoom I’ve had for awhile and never liked because it is too heavy. I didn’t change my mind about it even though this shot turned out OK.
Category: Macro/Closeup
RedPoppy
I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties and I was a little late for the red poppies at North Mountain Park. This one was not bad but the background was boring so I added a texture for some color and visual interest.
Pink Dogwood
My neighbor’s Pink Dogwood is always hard to resist. The new Lensbaby Sweet 35 with macro filters was the right tool for the job.
Anemone
This was among the first images out of the new camera. I’m sold. And it was handheld! Unfortunately the hot weather wiped out these beauties a few days later.
Trillium
I came to the coast planning to have a full on photography weekend but I stupidly left my tripod at home. I had a bit of adventure finding the Oregon Redwoods trail because there is no sign at the turn going in, only coming out. So, I got to explore about 20 miles of forest road I would not have otherwise. But, when I finally got to the Redwoods trail the salient feature were the trillium just freshly opened. I added a couple of textures to darken the edges and let the flower be the star.
Pollinator
I was busy trying to photograph my neighbor’s grape hyacinths when this bee happened along. First pollinator I have seen this year.
Pomegranate
It has been incredibly windy this week so I was forced into the tiny studio for most of my daily images. Eight days in and I’m already wondering why I did this to myself. But I’m hoping as we get into spring and better weather and better subjects things will go more smoothly. It’s really about making photography a priority which is hard to do when other alligators are nipping at my heels. Anyway, this pomegranate was shot using my Velvet 28 which, though wider than I usually prefer, focuses as close as two inches which makes it perfect for this kind of closeup shot.
365 Days of Lensbaby
Today is the first day of my new 365 days of Lensbaby project. The objective is to take at least on photograph each day using one of my many Lensbaby tools and lenses. Today I initially set out for Lithia Park but quickly realized I was going to have a long hike to where I wanted to photograph, assuming I could find a parking place at all. So, I made a new plan and headed to North Mountain Park. My favorite thing to photograph at North Mountain Park this time of year is birds but, unfortunately, Lensbaby, has not yet branched out to telephoto lenses. So, it had to be Macro. I captured several pleasing shots but I just loved the simplicity of this one. It was captured using the Lensbaby sweet 80 on my Canon M6 with a 2x macro filter. Some might argue that extension tube might be a better choice because it doesn’t put more glass in front of the lens but with Lensbaby you are looking for blur anyway and I just got the macro filters and have to put them through their paces. I probably should have tried the same shot using extension tubes but didn’t think of it at the time. I don’t expect to be posting images every day on this site but I am going to try to do better with getting the best image of the week posted.
Lavender
I took the Southern Oregon Lavender Trail yesterday and while some of the fields are not yet in full bloom, I found plenty of good things to photograph, including this young lavender sprout found at a nursery out beyond Williams.
I love the blurred background in this one but I added a texture just to see how it would look and it added a richness and depth I wasn’t expecting.
Image of the week returns
So, this year didn’t get off to a very good start and I seem to have lost my photo mojo somewhere along the way. But, I’ve decided the best way to get it back is to recommit to the image of the week. This one was taken last week with my new camera. I looked at a lot of options and decided an upgrade from the Canon M3 to a Canon M6 Mark II was the way to go for me. It is still the smallest, lightest option for a good quality travel and walking around camera but with higher resolution and a few more bells and whistles than the older model. So far I’m pleased though I did have to spend some time figuring out how to make it work with my Lensbabies. This Dahlia was shot with the 28mm macro I already had in my stash.