Category: Flora

Day 94 – Gladiola

Glad

My enthusiasm for this project definitely waning but I guess it would be pretty uncool to give up with only a few more days to go. I worked at the Genealogy Library this morning and was inspired to continue my research this afternoon so no new captures. There really isn’t much left to photograph anyway. So I went to the archives and found this one from day two when I was perusing my neighbors’ gardens. It was taken with the Velvet 85 on the R and was a little soft as is normal with the velvets. So I sharpened the edges with a high pass filter and added a couple of textures to give it a little more artistic look.

Day 90 – Leaf with Ice

LeafwIce

It’s a good thing I got extra pictures yesterday because the wind is fierce out there today. The tree outside my window reminds me of the whomping willow. But this image is interesting because the leaf has an icicle on it. I think someone must have forgotten to turn off the sprinkler system because I can’t think how else the water got on the leaves as it hasn’t rained in some time. This was taken with the Burnside and I like that I captured the swirly bokah which is one of the Burnside’s characteristics and also was able to take advantage of it’s close focusing distance. The hard part was finding a leaf that was not way over my head. In post I opened up the shadows and toned down the highlights. Also added a high pass filter which really helped define the leaf. 

Day 88 – Autumn Leaves

AutumnLeaves

I had good intentions of taking a camera walk today but it got so windy I knew it would not turn out well. Now the wind has died down some but I’m all out of the mood. So, I reverted to my walk in Lithia Park on October 15. I’m sad to see that many trees have already lost their leaves. But they were still going strong ten or twelve days ago. This was captured with the Sweet 50. In post I added a high pass filter and sharpening and a vignette to help the main leaves to stand out from the background.

Day 86 – Weeds

Weeds

While new images were made today, the energy and time to upload and process them were lacking. So, while I was very tempted to blow it off for today, I turned to the archives and came up with this image of dying weeds from my last trip to North Mountain Park. This was captured with the Trio 28 on the M100 and I love what it did with the background. It was a little bland so I increased the saturation and vibrance and added a green texture to help it along. I also denoised it in Topaz DeNoise and added a high pass filter and sharpening.

Day 82 – Mushroom

Mushroom

We had a very short walk in the forest this afternoon but I was overwhelmed with the selection of mushrooms available for photographing. Many had flat tops but this one with the pointy top was my fav. I opened the shadows and bumped up the exposure a little. Then added a high pass filter. I may have to go back on Friday with the big girl camera and have more fun with mushrooms.

Day 79 – Chrysanthemum

Mum

Three times today I thought of getting something posted so it would be done. Three times I got distracted by something else. Then I went downstairs to relax and oh, groan, it never got done. Good thing I had this one in my back pocket from the other day when I took the fisheye lens to North Mountain Park. Such a great example of what the fisheye can do when the subject is right and the focus is in the right place. I added a high pass filter and tweaked the exposure and that’s all. Twenty one days never seemed so long. 

Day 77 – Maple Seeds

Seeds

Well, it’s a good thing I took lot’s of pictures yesterday because today was a busy day and now it’s raining.Maybe there will be raindrop pictures in my future. We’ll see. I could wish that this one had just a bit more depth of field for more focus on the right side of the seed couplet but I do love the beautiful blur of the red leaves of the Japanese Maple trees and the subtle bokah. I did add a high pass filter and some sharpening to get as much detail as possible in the seeds. I also added a texture to create a little more interest in the background. Oh, yes, this was shot with the Sweet50 on the M3.

Day 76 – Leaves

1_Leaves

I decided to forego the grower’s market today in favor of a walk in Lithia Park. So glad I did as the Park is pretty close to peak right now. Even the Japanese Garden which has been peaking closer to November 1st lately. Plenty of color there now this year though.  I also decided I have refrained from using the Sweet 50 long enough and it proved to be the right tool for the job where fall color is concerned. My problem was getting things focused where I wanted them. This one turned out pretty well. I did have to bump up the exposure some. I added a high pass filter and added clarity and vibrance. It still didn’t look right to me so I nudged the brightness and contrast and now I’m very happy with it.

Day 75 – Grasses

Grasses

Well, the good news is it’s day 75. The bad news is there are still 25 days to go. The latest offering from lensbaby is not a lens at all but what they call a creative filter system. I got my Omni last week but today was the first day I really had to play with it. I’m afraid it is going to take a little more practice to get the effects I really want but I do see some potential here. The Omni consists of a ring that attaches to your lens that has some magnetic sockets to which you can attach wands and move them around in front of the lens. It seems to be helpful if you are shooting into a light source. the wand I was using here created a sort of bokah effect as the sunlight bounced off the edges of the wand. Moving the wand around, keeping the image in focus and trying to get the right effect is a bit of a three ring circus. the other wands offer a rainbow effect and a stretching effect. There are also three more supplemental wands that you have to buy separately but I didn’t get around to them today. I considered going black and white with this one but I liked the gold tone so I added vibrance and saturation and a couple of textures with a gold hue to try and tease that out a little more. Well the whole point of this exercise is to learn and I have much to learn about the Omni, which for the record does not come with an instruction manual.

Day 74 – Sunflower Bouquet

Bouquet

Another busy day between church activities and a family dinner. So, I’m reaching into the archives again. This one is from the trip to the Grower’s Market last week. Sadly, they are winding down. This was taken with the Burnside. You can see a bit of the swirly bokah in the background through I added two texturees with dark corners to tone them down a bit. I also adjusted the exposure, and opened up the shadows.