I’m so happy that spring is finally here! So many flowers, so little time. My newest Lensbaby lens is the Burnside 35mm which has a really close focusing distance so though it is a wide angle makes for some new and interesting approaches to flower. I added one texture to ad a little more interest to the background.
I’ve been working on my year in photographs book for 2018 and I came across this image that had not been previously processed. It was shot with a Lensbaby Velvet 85 lens which gives a soft dreamy look especially toward the edges. I added a texture and voila. A piece of Art I really love.
You may have seen this one before if you followed my 100 days of flowers project. It is getting to be that time of year when there isn’t much new to photograph and it’s time to review what I have accomplished this year, put together a calendar and a year in review photo book. So, while I haven’t been through all the photos yet this one keeps coming up as a strong contender for image of the year for me. It did make the cover of my calendar for 2019 as well as the feature photo for August. I’ve also been working on a sign for a friends new pollinator garden. This one did not make the cut for that because you can’t see the front of the bee but as an art piece I still think it’s a winner.
I’m running late again with the image of the week. I was also late in getting to the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park this year. but I still found some pretty leaves. this one was taken with the Lensbaby Sweet 50 lens. I’m gearing up to put together a show at my newly expanded gallery space at Ashland Artisan’s Emporium which will feature images from the Japanese Garden before its impending refurbishment.
I’m a couple of weeks behind on the image of the week. The trip kept me busy and a little burned out so now that I have recovered I can revisit some of the photos from the trip. I stopped in Death Valley for the first time on my way home and two things were immediately obvious. One, I didn’t allow enough time. I went in with the attitude that it was going to be boring desert and not my kind of photography at all. But I was struck with the stark landscapes and colorful rock formations. All of which lead me to number two, I need to go back and spend a week. This image was shot in late afternoon along the Artist’s Drive. Another thing to note about Death Valley is that it is a dark sky park so a good place to go and shoot starry skies. Yep, I think I will pencil it in for November of next year…. it was still pretty hot in October.
I’ve photographed a lot of Marigolds in the past three months but not many have made it into the blog. I had hoped to get out and shoot today but the weather has not been too cooperative. So, I found this one from July 7 when my potted marigolds were going strong. I just added a texture and touched up a few spots on this one.
I haven’t done much black and white during the course of this project and I am running out of good images and flowers to photograph so I thought it might be fun to look for something that would look good in Black and white. I didn’t have to look far. This Lily was shot on July 1. I just added a Black and white adjustment layer and touched up a few spots.
I started going through the archives looking for something I could use today but either I just wasn’t feeling it or I’ve already used all the good ones. So, I went after my bouquet again with a super macro lens. I think there should be more depth of field in the front. But, it is what it is and I need to move on to other things. I did a high pass filter and added a lightroom preset which helped tone down the saturation. Then added a texture for a little more interest at the edges and masked it out in the center.
Well, I guess this is some kind of daisy but I just bought the bouquet at Fred Meyer this morning because I thought it was pretty and I needed something to photograph for today. Yes, I am kind of going through the motions at this point but at least I have gotten to this point without quitting. I just brought the vase with the bouquet upstairs to the tiny studio and picked up the M3 which had the Sol 45 Lensbaby attached and started shooting. Tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter for sharpening and that’s it.
Monday’s I teach my OLLI class and by the end of it I am totally exhausted. About three times today I thought “Oh, yeah, I need to do a flower.” But it wasn’t until I was relaxing with a glass of wine and Dancing with the Stars that I realized that I never did it. So combing through the archives again. I found this Morning Glory from North Mountain Park. I intentionally shot it with the sunflowers in the background to add that pop of yellow color. I wish the black fence wasn’t there but I guess it is to keep the deer out. And today was new texture day in the texture club so I had to try one of the new ones here.