Posts in Category: flowers
Wood Lilies
I can clearly remember my excitement when I found my first Wood Lilies growing along the Kennebunk Bridle Path a few years ago. (See my post from 7/10/2010.) Such a wild beauty! And such an unlikely flower for me to have missed for 60 years of my life! I have been back each year since, looking for them where I first found them, but they are not there. I am tempted to blame the Town and their bushhoged attempts to widen the Bridle path, but the lilies have not returned even where the bushhog never trod. It is possible someone dug them out to replant in a shady corner of a yard. The Wood Lily is evidently well distributed in Maine, but it is threatened or endangered in parts of its range…and it not so well distributed in Southern Maine that I have been able to find another since 2010 in all my roaming about the woodlands and fields in search of birds and bugs, wildflowers and wild views.
Until last Sunday that is. I discovered a good sized patch of them in a place I go on a fairly regular basis (I will not say just where this time, just in case 🙂 They were growing within sight of a road that gets a fair amount of recreational travel…and looking more like a Prairie Lily (an alternative common name in many parts of the US) than a Wood. The Wood Lily is not very tall, but it has a bloom the size of a Day Lily…at least 4 inches across and sometimes larger. The open center makes it look very different than a Day though. Just about knocked me off my scooter when I saw them!
There were maybe 15 Lilies in various stages of full bloom, and a fair number more that were past. A good sized patch! The light was not ideal for great depth of field, but I was able to photograph a number of plants, and catch the range of oranges. I don’t know if the color variation is something to do with the plants themselves, the soil under them, or just the age of the bloom.
A stunning flower altogether! Now I will just have to wait until next year to see if they come back again!
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Macro mode. 24 and 34mm equivalent fields of view (except for the group shot which was at 460mm). ISO 100. f3.4-f3.6, 1400-1/500th.
Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Powder Moth on Meadowsweet. Happy Sunday!
The helpful folks at Project Noah’s Maine Moths Mission identified my moth as the Power Moth (Eufidonia notataria). Project Noah is an internet based network of nature observers who submit “spottings” of wildlife of all kinds, including photos and location information, from bugs to bears. When you post a spotting, it is simple to check the “help with this identification” button. Under Project Noah there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of “missions”…targeted requests for spottings of a particular kind for a particular region.  The Maine Moths Mission is one of them, and it seemed an obvious place to look for an id of a moth I had never seen before. I had the id within an hour of posting. (Project Noah has mobile apps for both iPhone and Android as well as the website… search for “Project Noah” in your app store.)
I could find little information on the moth itself, beyond its name and place in the scientific order. I still have no idea how it lives or why it lives. But it is, to my eye, a beautiful creature, from the lacy pattern on the wings to the fringe at the wing edges. The fact that it is on Meadowsweet, one of my favorite trail-side flowers of this season, is a distinct bonus, and, in the case of this image, adds to the beauty of the composition.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Smart Auto…macro mode. 24mm equivalent field of view. f3.2 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Cropped for composition and scale and processed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone in PicSay Pro. Auto Enhanced by Google+.
And for the Sunday Thought. The Samsung WB250F was a pure indulgence. I love my Canon SX50HS and I could just as well have taken this image with the Canon. I did not need another camera. But I am certainly having fun with it! As a piece of photographic technology it is amazing…from its Smart Auto modes, to its excellent “no tripod required” in-camera HDR and dedicated Macro and Panorama modes. Fun. As a piece of connected technology it is even more amazing. With the touch of a few controls I can wirelessly transfer the images to my Galaxy S4 for processing and sharing (or I can do limited processing right in-camera, and upload them directly to Facebook or Google+ Photos, or email them to myself). I can share a fully processed image in a matter of moments after it is taken. From wherever I have phone service. Amazing. And so much fun!
Project Noah I just discovered yesterday while researching my Powder Moth. What an idea! A national network of dedicated nature observers and photographers feeding sighting data on all kinds of life into a central data-base where they…and the whole scientific community…can have easy and instant access. And the concept of Missions, to focus the collections, is brilliant. We are on a mission to record all the Moths of Maine. Yes. I can identify with that! And think of the possibilities. With the mobile app, you can upload an image of whatever you see and enjoy quick (if not instant) help from hundreds of enthusiasts and many experts. The day of “I don’t know” is fading fast. What I don’t know is now out there in cloud, just waiting for me to access it. My mind no longer ends at my own senses and my own experience and memory. I can almost instantly tap into the knowledge of thousands of other keen observers, stretching back a generation or more.
Of course, at times, I will only find the limits of what we, as a species of observers, know, or have shared. What does the Powder Moth eat…well, whoever knows that…if anyone does…has not made that available in the cloud just yet. 🙂 (Or not that I can find.)
And what does this all have to do with the spirit? It is the Sunday thought after all. The technology of the connected cloud is giving us a taste, right in the world of time and space, of what we experience in the spirit, behind the world of time and space. It is the core experience of the mystical in all religions…and the root of faith. We are all one. All one mind. All one experience. All one love of life and eagerness to learn and to share. And yet we are totally individual. One eye (I) in the eye (I) of all.
We are the namers of creation. We are the numberers. We are the mind that sees and shares. And we are each one and one in all. And even a technology assisted taste of that is a good thing! Happy Sunday!
Meadowsweet and the Lady (bug)
The Meadowsweet is in bloom along the Kennebunk Bridle Path (and along the edge of meadows everywhere in Southern Maine). It’s tall cones of flowers make it unmissable…but up close the flowers themselves are wonderfully delicate, frilly, and and almost, dare I say, demure. Add a Ladybug to complete the Victorian scene. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Macro Mode. 31mm equivalent field of view. f3.4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Cropped slightly for image scale and composition. Processed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone in PicSay Pro.
Knapweed and the Bug
Knapweed is generally tall enough when if flowers so you don’t get this view. For some reason there are some low growing Knapweeds along one of the Quest Ponds. And this one comes with a buggy bonus. Some kind of bee I think.
This is another shot from the Samsung WB250…macro mode…transferred to my Galaxy S4 for processing in PicSay Pro, and upload to Google+ photos. Like the Galaxy S4 camera, the Samsung WB250 records minimal exif data in any of the Smart Modes…so I can’t share exposure information. It must be a Samsung thing 🙂
Social Camera
Owning the Samsung Galaxy S4 has opened a slightly new photographic world for me. It is not that the camera will do anything in particular that my Canon SX50HS will not…but I find myself pulling it out a lot for the quick HDR (when I do not want to set up a tripod for the Canon…no tripod necessary on the phone), or certainly an occasional panorama, and certainly if I think there is any chance I will want to share the image before I get back where I can work with it on my laptop. PicSay Pro on Android is a very capable image editor…I like both the way it works and the results it produces…and it works with full resolution files. Then too, Google+’s Auto Backup is a formidable attraction. I don’t have to do a thing, and my images from the S4 are uploaded to my Google+ account. Once there, Auto Awesome does some interesting things. For instance, if I take a conventional sequence of exposures to use with an HDR program later, Auto Awesome recognizes them as such, and makes the HDR…again, without my intervention. And it does a pretty good job! Then too, I can I can instantly share my PicSay Pro edited image on Facebook, email them to friends and family, etc. etc. The Galaxy S4 is a social camera…and its instant and painless connection to the social side of my life is one of its main attractions.
So that lead me to take a look at “real” cameras…you know, with a real zoom lens, and other creative options…that might provide some of the same experience. The obvious choice would have been the Samsung Galaxy Camera, which is every thing my phone is (except a phone) and a pretty much a real camera at the same time. However it is 1) relatively expensive for a Point and Shoot, and 2) I suspect, due for an refresh (as in Galaxy Camera 2) before the end of the year. So I looked for cameras that would connect to my phone and transfer images painlessly so that I could do the editing and sharing almost instantly on the phone. I knew from past experience with Eyfi cards, that I wanted a solution that let me choose which images got transferred to the phone. The Eyfi cards and their like just dump everything you take onto your connected device. You can fill the memory on a phone or tablet really fast during a full day in the field with your camera. That narrowed it down to a few wifi equipped Panasonics and, of course, the Samsung Smart Camera line. The Samsungs were less expensive and had as good reviews, I am already familiar with how the camera apps in them work, and they got the best ratings on the ease of using them via wifi with a phone or for direct upload to cloud storage, Facebook, etc.
So this is among my first shots from the Samsung WB250, 14mp biCMOS sensor. 18x zoom starting at 24mm equivalent (the wide angle is a requirement for me). All kinds of shooting modes, including in-camera HDR that does not require a tripod, auto bracketing for real HDR (ditto on the tripod), a great Macro mode, waterfall mode, night scene, shot, smart-zoom (automatically reduces the pixel count to maintain quality over the 18x mark), etc. etc  I have only begun to explore. This image was taken in my yard, transferred wirelessly to my phone, edited in PicSay Pro, auto-backuped to Google+ Photos, and now shared here directly from Google+. It all works really quite well. It will not replace my Canon SX50HS for most of my work…but it is a great Social Camera, and goes well beyond what the camera in my S4 can do.
There is probably a Galaxy Camera in my future, when they get around to a refresh, but the WB250 seems to do exactly what I need for now!
Rose, with Transient
With our very strange weather here in Maine this spring/summer, only one of our roses is blooming, and so far it has produced only one flower. But what a flower! It even survived the last three days of heavy rain. Not only beautiful, but strong. I think, on closer look, the transient of the title (on the left) might be a mosquito…any port in a storm…I will grant even a mosquito that. Especially after three days of heavy rain.
This is an Rich Tone / HDR shot from my Samsung Galaxy S4’s excellent camera, as I was walking around the yard seeing what the storms had left standing. It was processed on the phone with PicSay Pro.
Wet Blanket!
Today’s micro theme on #macromonday, is “liquid”, and, since our Super Moon was blotted out by thunder storms last night, and everything in the yard is still soaking wet, I went out early to see what I could find to match the theme. This is Gaillardia…commonly known as Blanket Flower, hence the title 🙂 It is a showy flower under any circumstances, and here the colors, in the indirect light of a foggy morning, are particularly rich. Add the water drops and it qualifies for a wet macro…or a wet blanket.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 24mm macro setting, plus 1.5x digital tel-extender. f3.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 250. This could not be done without the excellent Canon IS!
Processed in Lightroom. Cropped for composition.
Hard to impress. Happy Sunday!
I did not actually see this frog through the electronic viewfinder of my Canon SX50HS. I was just framing the luminous water lilies with the long end of the zoom, for effect. When I edited the image in Lightroom, the frog was there, making his frog face, big as life.
Some critters are just had to impress. I mean, there he is, surrounded by exceptional beauty…I love the way the light is cupped in the pink lilies and the patterns the pads make in the water…and Mr. Frog still has his business-as-usual frog-face on.
Canon SX50HS with the usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday Thought: We are already half way there. Some critters, and people, are hard to impress. There were lots of people…boaters, fishermen and women, joggers, dog walkers, and picnicers…at Roger’s Pond yesterday. I wonder how many of them gave more than a glance to the water lilies? I wonder how many of them, like froggy here, were too absorbed in the day-to day to take time to admire what the sunlight was doing with the lilies?
Or am I being unfair to the frog (which clearly is a more important question to me than it is to the frog). Frogs just have that unfortunate face, from our particularly human point of view. We read misery, displeasure…boredom at the best…into those bulging eyes and that down-turned mouth, because, obviously, in humans that is what it would say. We attribute feelings to froggy which, in fact, he almost certainly does not share. For all I know, froggy was as enraptured as I was by the light in the lilies. Or not. Probably not. Enrapture might well be one of the perks of the particularly human point of view. It might in fact, be part of our common inheritance as children of the Creator God. I suspect it is.
But then, am I being unfair to all the other people at Roger’s Pond that day (which is clearly a question that is more important to me than it is to them)? If enrapturement…a deep and satisfying appreciation, an arresting appreciation, of beauty…is a human characteristic, then certainly more my fellow humans around the pond might have been experiencing it in the presence of the luminous water lilies. Yes? Despite appearance to the contrary.
I can’t read anything into the attitude of the frog. Maybe I should avoid reading too much into the attitude of the humans.
After all, I did not even see the frog in the image until I looked closer in processing. Some people are just hard to make an impression on!
Happy Sunday.
Prairie Wildflowers
Spring on the Prairies of North Dakota, like spring all across the US, was late this year. Flowers that were in full bloom when I was in North Dakota last year, were not even in bud this year. The season is 10 days to two weeks behind. Even so there were many flowers blooming on the prairie.
This is White Onion. It only grows a few inches tall and is easy to miss in the much taller grasses around it. It is an actual onion, with a small swelling on the root that has a delicate onion odor and taste… more like chives that actual onion.
Then you have the Puccoons. Hoary followed by Fringed.
And to finish off the yellows, this is Wallflower, with a Hover Fly in attendance.
And of course, no post on Prairie wildflowers would be complete without Prairie Smoke. First the actual flowers (which really shows how late the spring is) and then the seed hears from which the plant takes its name.
All with the Canon SX50HS with my usual modifications to Program. Macro at either 215mm or 25mm plus 1.5x tel-converter. Processed in Lightroom.
Rhododendron Abstract: The Yard
The Rhododendrons in our yard, and on the boarder between our yard and the yard next door, are in full bloom these past few days. The weather was variable yesterday so I got two series of images of the flowers…one in the subdued light of the overcast morning, and one in direct sun, a little after noon. This is from the sunny shoot, and is close enough to turn the image, almost, into an abstract. I like the way the light is just catching on the two anthers and the tip of the stigma, which stand out against the bokeh of the petals in the background.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. In order to create this effect, I backed away and shot at 1800mm equivalent field of view, from about 5 feet. f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.