Along with the Chrysanthemum, I picked up a Rudbeckia at the nursery. I had purchased on earlier in the summer which looked fine until I planted it. Then it died. I’m beginning to wonder if my soil is tainted so many things just crash after I plant them. I may just put this one in a pot for it’s own good. This was taken with the Sol 45 and I just added a high pass filter, a texture and a vignette.
So I knew I was going to be over at Mountain Meadows this afternoon so thought I would just stop by North Mountain Park for a while to photograph flowers. As I was snapping away I happened to look down at the back of the camera and saw “Cannot Record” Well, I knew immediately what had happened. Checked the card slot, sure enough no card, went home and straight to the computer and there was the card. I have to say that on a project like this the only surprise is that it doesn’t happen more often. I just wonder what I did with my spare card when I cleaned out my camera bag before my last trip? Now I know why I should always carry one.
Anyway, Plan B was to stop by the nursery on the way home and see what they had in bloom. Yea! The chrysanthemums have arrived. And for an extra bonus they were just watering them and the drops were still there when I got them home. This one was shot with the Sol 45 on the M3, high pass filter, slight color adjustment, and one texture.
Two thirds of the way through! Woohoo! I have to attend a family gathering at Lake of the Woods so won’t have time to look for flowers to photograph today. This one is from my camera walk yesterday, just up the street at my neighbor’s house. I really liked this composition but it was a bit overexposed so I decided to take it in a painterly direction. I gave it a Cezanne treatment then added a texture and vignette. Lots of futzing with opacity and masks to make it look just right. Although I wanted to get rid of those black spots on the petal on the left which were added during the painterly process but Photoshop balked so I said, fine we’ll keep them.
Happy September everyone! I took a short walk over to the Talent pollinator garden to see what might be in bloom this morning. The blanket flowers were definitely the stars of the show. I have to give myself an A- on this one for clipping off the tips of the petals on top. It was captured with the Sweet 50 on the M3, getting to be my favorite combination for flowers. Today is the first of the month and that means two new sets of textures from my texture club! I can assure you I have enough textures to last me a lifetime but it’s just too much fun to try out the new ones every month. In this case I just did a high pass filter and touched up a few spots on the flower before adding the texture and a vignette overlay to darken the corners.
Another day of breathable air! Yea! So, I took the sweet 50 out for a walk and found these marigolds blooming away for a nice spot of color in someone’s yard. I love the detail in this where you can see the little petals all curled up and ready to open out. Nothing new or unusual in post processing, tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter, adjusted the color a little as it looked pretty green, and added a texture.
It was another one of those days when I almost spaced out that I was supposed to post a flower image. So, it was back to the archives. This one was shot at Van Dusen Botanical Gardens in Vancouver. One of my favorite stops on the tour. These are fairly modest flowers but what makes this image work is the contrasting colors. Orange and purple are opposites on the color wheel and that always makes for good image design. I shot this one with the Sweet 50 lens on the M3. In post I added a high pass filter, tweaked the exposure and added a texture which I masked out over the flower.
Every Tuesday I plan to go over to the Growers Market and take pictures of the lovely flowers they have on display. Every Tuesday I balk at taking the time to drive all the way over to Ashland to spend half an hour walking around the Growers Market. I’ve been using the smoke as an excuse but today I have no excuse. But I had a vase of flowers on hand that I picked up at Fred Meyer and it felt more comfortable to work with those instead. After 25 or so clicks of the shutter this is really the only one I liked. I wish the composition had put the center of the rose a little more out of the center of the picture but otherwise it is exactly what I am looking for in a rose picture. In post processing I adjusted the color a little but I still did not get the deep red that the flower actually was. I am noticing that the M3 does not do well with reds and purples. I also added a high pass filter and since I was shooting at high ISO I ran it through a denoise program.
This sunflower was captured back on July 11 when we still knew what blue skies looked like. It was one of those days when I hemmed and hawed over which image to post then went in another direction. But going back I think this one is definitely worth of recognition and possibly better than the one I ended up posting on that day.
I had already processed it before but in keeping with the spirit of the project I felt I needed to process it again today. I opened the shadows, actually had to tone down the saturation a little, added a high pass filter and did some spot healing of blemishes on the flower. Oh yes, it was shot with the M3 and a normal short telephoto zoom lens.
So, for the first time in weeks we had breathable air this morning so I set out for a walk with the M3 slung over my shoulder with the Sol45 lens on it. Unfortunately I forgot to add an extension tube so I couldn’t get too close to any of the flowers I found. But since the destination I had in mind was the sunflower field over across the freeway it didn’t really matter. I did get some intriguing pictures of the sunflowers but since there was a fence, a steep slope, and an irrigation ditch between me and them I could not get as close as I would have liked and I thought these sweet peas turned out a little better. The trouble is now I can’t get that song from the ’60s out of my head. “Oh Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me….” over and over.
In post processing I opened the shadows, added a high pass filter (notice the detail on that lower left blossom). I always tell myself I don’t need a texture but then I decide to try one and it ends up looking so good I have to keep it. Which is what happened in this case.
So, one of my photography gurus pointed out that if you had the lensbaby creative bokah filters they fit perfectly in the Sol 45 to create some interesting background texture effects. So, of course, I had to get some. This morning I went out to my sweet hydrangea (which seems to be putting up more shoots for even more new blossoms!) and practiced. Probably not the best setting but you can see a little cross hatching in the background blur of the flower. Some filters were more subtle than others. They are really just little pieces of cardboard with shapes cut into them. I can’t wait to try them on Christmas lights!
In post I tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter and a vignette. I also adjusted the color a little because I thought the flower looked too pink when it is supposed to be purple.