I’ve been thinking about getting back to the rose garden soon. So, I thought I wold take a look at what I might have from the last trip. I had to open the shadows way up while holding the overall exposure down in order to highlight the beetle. I added a texture to help with the edges but I think it might still be a little too bright on the right side.
Well, look at that, half way done. I’m not sure whether to celebrate or shoot myself. This is another one from my tour around the yard yesterday. I tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter to sharpen the edges and threw on a couple of textures.
I was thrilled to see that my Hydrangea, which I thought was done for the year, sent up two new shoots and some fresh blossoms. I’m not sure I like the harshness of this treatment but it is the road I chose to go down so here we are. It has a high pass filter, a lightroom preset, and a texture. Just practicing some of my skills. Now back to the ancestors.
Well, I got all the way to bed before I realized I hadn’t posted a flower yet today. So I went into the archives and chose one from shore acres. Really, you just can’t beat a Dahlia for being drop dead gorgeous. This one took a little exposure adjustment and some sharpening. I think I should have worked on burning in the left side a little more. But it’s late and I’m tired after chasing those 17th and 18th century ancestors all day.
I kind of went on strike today. I had intended to go to growers market and look for flowers to photograph. But the smoke was so bad I decided to cocoon and immerse myself in the 17th and 18th century looking for my ancestors instead. So I decided I don’t think I have posted a daisy yet and I shot this one with the Sol45 the other day. One of it’s special features is it can create it’s own texture effect in the background blur. I added another texture just for good measure along with some brightening of the exposure and a high pass filter for sharpness where it is supposed to be sharp.
It seems as if the only flowers that are thriving right now are the sunflowers and the black-eyed-Susans. I took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday and captured this sunflower that is growing all by itself in the middle of a vacant lot. I assume it escaped from one of the neighbor’s yards. I added a texture to give the background a little more interest but masked it out over the flower. This one was also shot with the new Sol45 lensbaby.
The cone flowers are fading fast but every now and then you find one with a little spirit left in it. I liked the movement in the petals on this one and the colorful blur in the background. This was shot with my new Lensbaby lens, the sol45 and one extension tube. In post I adjusted the exposure and added a high pass filter.
Most of the flowers around here are starting to sag in the heat but the Blanket flowers are still going strong. I just got another new lensbaby lens so I took a walk over the the Talent pollinator garden which is where I found these blanket flowers. It also has some little plastic blades with holes in them that create a textured background but it is a challenge keeping the focus in the right place. I like the soft blur of the other flowers without texture though. All I did in post processing was add a high pass filter.
I took a lot of photos today and very few of them were of flowers. None of them have been uploaded to the computer and I am very tired from driving down the coast from Bandon to Brookings and then home. So, I decided to do a quick and dirty from my last session with sunflowers. I really liked this one for the shape and texture of the petals and the soft blur of the Sweet50 but I thought it might be too much blur the first time around. But I decided to go with and then I added a texture which I thought I would not like but it added just that certain je ne sais quoi that it needed and I love it. I just made a new resolution to print something new to take down to the market each week so this may be the first!
Ever since I started this project I have been jonesing to get over to Shore Acres park to photograph flowers. So, I looked at my calendar this week and decided the time had come and getting out of the smoke would be an added bonus. But as usual I was a little disappointed in the gardens. They are so intent on keeping people out of the flower beds it has gotten to where you need a telephoto lens to take any good pictures. There was another photographer there reaming out the gardeners which I thought was not going to help anyone. But seriously, they are ephemeral, there are supposed to be there for our enjoyment, why not let people get close enough to smell them or take macro pictures or whatever their desire. Anyway, they were less stingy with the cosmos than the dahlias and I was pretty happy with this shot though I did use my 70-200mm telephoto zoom set at f2.8. About as usual on post, tweaked the exposure, added a high pass filter and cropped a little on the left to take out the center of another flower that was a bit distracting.