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 made a half-hearted attempt to go out and photograph my neighbors’ sunflowers this morning but the wind was not cooperating and I’m still struggling to find the sweet spot on my Sweet 50 lens. But this one which was completely in blur out of the camera cried out for some digital artistry. So after several iterations of Topaz software and several textures I came up this one which I rather like. Not sure I would hang it on my wall, but on the other hand, printed on wood? I might have something here.
I know we’re all tired of the smoke and it took me awhile to force myself out the door for a trip to North Mountain Park. But I have to say that the soft light created by the murky skies is really nice for flower photography. I just love the feeling of peace and all’s right with the world that I get from this one. It was shot with the 7D Mark II and a 180 mm macro lens. Minimal processing with a high pass filter and a little tweak to the exposure. I thought about putting texture on it but I didn’t want to mess up that beautiful soft blur.
I’m having a hard time getting excited about going out in the smoke to photograph. Hence one more from Vancouver. This one is from the rose garden in Stanley Park. I added a texture and vignette to soften the background but masked it out over the rose itself.
I made it to my Mother’s house but didn’t have time to do much photography. I did snap a few pix of here pretty little Calibrachoa in the front of the house. I was in the mood to try something a little painterly so put on a texture then ran it through Topaz Impression and dialed the opacity back to about 50%.