I often feel that hydrangeas are just as beautiful as they fade away as they are in full bloom. But it is difficult to capture that in a single image. I’m not sure how successful I was here but I like the colors and shapes. The added texture adds to the feeling. Shot with the Lensbaby Velvet 85 on the Canon 7D.
One of the tricks I’ve learned in my Macro photography class is shooting through a copper tube to create a sort of frame around the flower. What’s fun is it takes on the color of the flower reflected in the copper. This one just had a high pass filter and a texture added.
I’m liking this Macro workshop. I do my homework in the afternoon and then I have something to post the next morning. Yesterday’s lesson was on a technique called free lensing, which basically means taking the lens off your camera and turning it around and holding onto it while you shoot. You loose all the automatic controls so you just have to find your focus by moving back and forth. Out of about 30 shots this was the only one that turned out. I had stopped by Home Depot since it was on my path yesterday and picked up a couple of new plants to play with including this fresh echinacea since the ones in my garden have about given up the ghost. I used the M3 with it’s 22 mm macro lens but you can do this with any lens to get more magnification…not sure about the zooms. But, it’s all about experimentation. In post I added a high pass filter and a lightroom preset that helped to brighten up the colors.
I stopped by North Mountain park again today. It is a little surprising how much things change from week to week. The Morning Glories and Sunflowers are starting to fade but the Zinnia’s and Marigolds are still going strong. The milkweed pods are also bursting forth. They are fun to photograph but are not a flower so you won’t get to see them here. For this one I decided to get out the big girl camera for a change. Shot with the Canon 7D and a 180mm macro lens on a tripod. Once again I tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter and a texture. This was another one where I thought, “Oh, it doesn’t need a texture” but once I got it on there and did the eye Dr. test (No. 1 or No. 2) I had to go with number 2.
I came home from a meeting this morning to find no power so the only thing to do was take the camera out for a walk. I was surprised to find a clump of California Poppies in bloom. I think sometimes plants get confused in the fall when the light is about the same as it is when they should be blooming in the spring. I shot this with the Lensbaby Sweet 50 on the Canon M3. I then took it into Photoshop and spot healed a lot of pollen and blemishes from the flower. I added a high pass filter and a texture and then just for good measure I took it into Topaz Impression and gave it a Georgia O’Keefe treatment which turned out to be a bit much so I dialed it back to about 50% transparency and now I think I have a winner.
Well, it finally happened. It’s been a stressful week all the way around and I got so wrapped up in other things and other activities that I completely spaced out posting an image yesterday. So my options are to go a day longer or post two images today. Since I’m ready for this to be over and the flowers are getting harder to find I’m going to post two today. One from the archives and one from a new shoot which I haven’t done yet as I am still playing catch up on a few other things that have fallen off the table this week. But I will get around to it this afternoon and those of you that have subscribed to my blog will get two images tomorrow. This one was captured at Shore Acres State Park back in August. They have the dahlias so well protected from the visitors that I had to use a telephoto lens on the 7D to get this shot. I added a high pass filter and a texture. Oh, yes, I also photoshopped out a distracting stem on the left.
It’s a good thing I got lots of good pictures at North Mountain Park yesterday because my life just got crazy busy, at least if feels that way after little or no activity since I got back from vacation. But I shall persevere and carry the camera around in case I see any interesting flowers. This one was also shot with the Sol45 on the M3. High pass filter and one texture added.
The thing about these Lensbaby lenses I’ve been using is it is really, really hard to find that sweet spot of focus and you have to try several shots and hope you got one right. But when you nail it, as I did (completely by accident) on this image it is almost jaw droppingly sharp. And the bee showed up at just the right time too. This was taken at North Mountain Park with the Sol 45 on the Canon M3. I added a high pass filter and a texture in post processing.
I’ve been photographing Day Lilies all summer but I don’t know that any of them has ever made the cut. So in perusing the files for something to post I found this one and set to work. First I had to edit out some extraneous leaves, then I spot healed a lot of pollen from the flower. Then I added a high pass filter and a texture. At that point I still wasn’t too happy with it so I took it into Topaz Impression where the Degas Dancers filter gave it the look I wanted or at least something better than where I started.
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.