Category: Flora

Day 1 – Hydrangea

Hydrangea

I had big plans to kick off the new 100 days project with a trip to a Lavender farm but my stomach wasn’t feeling up to the trip (something I ate?) so I headed to the backyard with a variety of lenses instead. I tested them out on my ever faithful Hydrangea bush. And the winner is…. as always, the 180mm macro lens. It is good to do these tests now and then because then when I go into the field I don’t have to haul every lens I own…just go with tried and true. I still love the Lensbaby Velvet 85 too and I’m always surprised at what I can do with a 50 mm lens and an extension tube. I still need to play with the new 70-200 zoom with extension tubes and/or a closeup filter. I also didn’t get out the 100mm macro this morning as the wind was getting too strong. But the beauty of  a project like this is there is plenty of opportunity to do these kinds of tests.

And that brings me to why am I putting myself through this again? Because my photography was getting stagnant and I was sitting around playing computer games when I should have been out shooting. Now I have a commitment to shoot every day and that means I will be polishing my skills and looking for new places to capture great images, as well as finding the great images, literally, in my own backyard.

A word on post processing. This one was cropped, spot healing brush liberally used to get rid of flaws on the flowers. A vignette to darken the edges and a high pass filter to sharpen up the edges.

Bumblebee

Bumblebeew

I knew this was going to be the image of the week after I took it a week ago but I never got around to publishing it. I seem to be very undisciplined about my photography lately so I’m thinking about taking myself in hand to do another 100 days project. The theme for this one will be 100 days of flowers. I have to get started right away as this will take me into October as it is. I should have started 15 or 20 days ago! But this is spontaneous so what the heck. I’ll just see where it leads me. The good news is I have a garden tour coming up at the end of July so that should play right into my theme.  This Bumblebee, by the way, was captured at North Mountain Park in Ashland.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea2

I spent some time last weekend rearranging the furniture in my guest room in order to make the tiny studio more functional. At the same time my Hydrangea was bursting forth in full glory and I got a new 24-70mm zoom lens with macro capability so I took advantage of this cosmic alignment to create this still life. I added a couple of textures to give it a more arty look.

Peony

Peony

A neighbor gifted me with some beautiful peonies. So, of course, I took them straight to the tiny studio for photographing. I am also breaking in a new computer so it was a good test of whether I have everything working right. Aside from the brushes needing to be reloaded in Photoshop I’m doing well. But I just realized I’m going to have to load Notepad before I can post this to my website. Love the new computer. Hate the hassle of getting things back to normal.

Anyway. I shot this with the Lensbaby Velvet 85. Took it through Nik detail extractor, did some noise reduction, had to brighten one side so used masks on the part that didn’t need it. And I used the spot healing brush to hide some blemishes on the outer petal. Oh, and I cropped in to get rid of an ugly grey background. Overall. I’m pretty pleased with the result.

Blossoms

Blossomsw

It seems like overnight we went from winter to spring. I had to wait a couple of days to get out without rain but the blossoms were fresh and lovely thanks to all that moisture. I used the short telephoto on the mirrorless for this shot because it has a closer focusing distance than the long and because I needed to be able to maneuver to get the best composition which the tripod would have inhibited. In post processing I ran it through Nik Color Efex Pro to add detail and a vignette to help highlight the blossoms.

Spring

Spring

Last week I went on strike because the weather had been so cold and gloomy I didn’t even get out to photograph. This week spring is asserting itself again. So I went into my backyard to look for signs of spring. Photographing  my blooming forsythia was a challenge but I also found the leaves on my hydrangea bush starting to unfurl. Crocuses and daffodils are blooming all around but this shot really spoke to me of the unfolding of spring.

Crocuses

Crocusw

It was a busy week and weekend so I’m just getting around to the image of the week for last week. Didn’t do much in the way of new captures but I was inspired to start a new series from existing flower images using grunge textures and clipping masks. I started with cocuses as I have been starting to see them in bloom.

Milkweed Black and White

MilkeweedBWw

Can’t say that I have been very productive this past week. I think I was fighting off the flu that is going around so I will use that as an excuse. I did spend some time working on my Black and White photography course and this was one of the images I converted for my homework assignment. So with little else to work from it gets the nod for image of the week.

Day 99 – Maple seeds

MapleSeed

Samara (Maple Tree Seeds)

Paper whirly-birds.
They look so much 
like pairs of insects’ wings, 
spi-
ral-
ing
down
to the ground, 
helicopters landing
on springy tarmacs
to deposit
next year’s forest, 
gently, 
like precious cargo.

Sweet to think
that trees
once had wings
and flew. 

-Sonny Rainshine

The weather turned out to be not as bad as forecast this morning so I was able to get out for one last trip to Lithia Park. I started out looking for wood ducks but they appear to have not arrived yet. I proceeded on to the Japanese garden photographing rain droplets on branches along the way. But I really like this close up of a maple seed still hanging from the tree. We used to call them helicopters and play with them as children. So I could really relate to the poem I found to go with it.

Day 98 – Rosebud

Rosebud

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

-Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Well my good intentions of photographing every day this week have been preempted by the need to help my Mom get ready for Christmas and a rather nasty turn in the weather. We’ll see how tomorrow goes but for today you get another one from the rose garden. When I looked at this picture the first line of this poem just popped into my head so I thought, well, why not. We might say the same of autumn. It is going, going…and soon will be gone.