Posts in Category: flowers
Maine! Wood Lilies
I am not sure what is happening with the Wood Lilies this year? I found only 2 plants in bloom where there are generally hundreds out on the Kennebunk Plains Nature Conservancy. I will check again this week but I am not hopeful…as the plants I found were in full bloom already. Wood Lilies are particularly hard to photograph as there is so much dimension to them, and every part is interesting and deserving of correct focus. This is an 8 deep focus stack, and again, hand held. (For those who do not know…when focus stacking the camera takes however many exposures you tell it to, varying the focus for each one, and then combines them in-camera so that every part of your subject looks in focus. It is particularly effective on close-ups. This produces a image that is much closer to what your eye sees…but it might look a bit strange in a photograph, as we expect to see the narrow plane of focus of the camera. 🙂 OM Systems OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom at 246mm equivalent. Program mode. Nominal ISO 200 @ f5.6 @ 1/640th.
Maine! Grass-pink Orchid (focus stack)
Grass-pink Orchid: Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farms, Wells, Maine, USA — I always go check for the Grass-pink Orchids too early…before they bloom…and then, sometimes miss them…getting to the little remnant bog at Laudholm Farms too late. This year I caught them (though there were no Rose Pagonias, the other orchid of that bog). The OM Systems OM-1 does in-camera focus stacking, and the 100-400mm zoom focuses to just over 4 feet at 800mm equivalent…making the system pretty amazing for flower macros (or close-ups at any rate.) I know from past experiences with other cameras (I have been photographing these Grass-pinks for many years now) that it is very difficult to get a close up of the flower with every part in focus in the same image. The flower is just too three-dimensional. Focus stacking (hand held here…and a tripod would not have helped as there was breeze and the flowers were moving) gives us the depth of filed needed. It took a couple of tries because of the breeze, but it is hard to fault the results. 770mm equivalent (to frame the flower from closest focus). Equivalent exposure ISO 200 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th.
Paramo
After the Resplendent Quetzals at dawn, and after a hearty breakfast at the lodge, we drove up to the very top of the Talamanca Mountains to Buena Vista peak…also called Cerro de la Muerte…one of the highest accessible peaks on the Continental divide and the highest on Pan American Highway, at 11,500 feet. On a clear day the mountain justifies its Buena Vista name, as you can see what looks like the length of the Talamancas, and both the Pacific on one side, and the Caribbean on the other. On a not so clear day, it can seem to justify its name as the Cerro de la Muerte…mountain of death…with a visibility in feet, and bone chilling cold…and that is when the wind is not blowing a gale. On any day, the fascinating plants of the Paramo, above tree-line, hugging the ground for survival, are a source of wonder. Take 2 minutes to view the slideshow. Sony Rx10iv. Assembled in Apple Photos.
White-fringed Bog Orchid: Saco Heath
White-fringed Bog Orchid: Saco Heath, Saco, Maine, USA — We are taking a break from my coverage of the Panama trip for today’s photos. My friend Stef and I spent a morning at Saco Heath…a remnant raised (or domed) peat bog in Saco, Maine…the most southern such bog in Maine. We were too late in the season for most of the bog specialties…we only found one Pitcher Plant…but we did find a small stand of White-fringed Bog Orchid at the far edge of the last hummock before the Atlantic White Cedar Island. A beautiful plant that, despite its common name, also grows wild in wet meadows and forests…though I have never seen it anywhere but in a bog in Maine. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. These are actually two identical frames. The close up is just heavily cropped to show the flower detail, and then expanded in Pixelmator using their Machine Learning tool, for pixel count. ISO 100 @ f7.1 @ 1/1000th. Minus .7EV exposure compensation to hold detail in the whites.
Asian Lily
An Asian Lily in late afternoon light. From our front yard. 🙂 Happy Sunday!. Sony Rx10iv at 447mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 640 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Yard flowers
Just some pretty flowers from our yard for Sunday morning. 🙂 We don’t have a super abundance of flowers but we do have a good variety. iPhone SE on auto with smart HDR. Processed in Apple Photos and assembled in FrameMagic.
Beach Roses in the view
The beach roses (Rugosa Rose) are in bloom in southern Maine. Beach Rose is an invasive species, originally from the Asia, that was imported and planted to stabilize dunes all along the Atlantic coast. You see it everywhere through most of the summer here in Maine. The flowers develop into Rose Hips…and are made, not so much in Maine, but in other Atlantic states, into a jam or jelly. They do make a great foreground for the skies of June…or this June at any rate. We have had a lot of these days lately. iPhone SE with Sirui 18mm lens. Auto with intelligent HDR turned on. Processed in Apple Photos.
Wild Iris
Wild Iris (Blue Flag Iris): Kennebunkport, Maine, USA, June 2022 — It is wild Iris season in southern Maine. I see them first in the ditches along roads, and then they spread out across wet fields in the creases where water collects. You can see the royal blue patches breaking the green from way across the fields. Close up they are beautifully ornate, with that touch of yellow on the petals setting off the deep, almost purple, blue. I found these at the edge of huge wet field which is cut for hay later in the season, in one of the drainage ditches, near Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport. Sony Rx10iv at 65mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5 @ 1/1000th. Minus .3 EV exposure compensation.
Antidote to ugliness…
I offer this collage of May forest flowers as an antidote to all the ugliness in the news today. Take hold of hope. Take hold of beauty. Take hold of love. Sony Rx10iv. Program mode. Processed in Pixelmator Photo, Apple Photos, and FrameMagic.
Lady Slipper Orchids of 2022
Lady Slipper Orchid: Kennebunk Plains Sanctuary, Kennebunk, Maine, USA, May 2022 — We interrupt our coverage of the warblers and song birds of Magee Marsh in Ohio and the Biggest Week in American Birding to bring you breaking news from the woods of Maine. The Lady Slipper Orchids are in bloom. I went to Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge where they grow along the loop of trail behind the current headquarters buildings, and found them almost too late, and then yesterday took my eTrike out to the Kennebunk Plains to check the extensive stand in a hidden spot in the woods there. Again this year there were well over 500 orchids in bloom, all along the bank where it rises from the stream. The dappled light and shade provide lots of options for photography. These Lady Slippers are among the most healthy I have ever seen (unlike the ones at Rachel Carson which seem to be more faded each year)…intense pink verging on purple depending on the light…tall and stately, and sometimes half a dozen to a bunch. It is an amazing and an inspiring display of this threatened flower. Sony Rx10iv at 68mm (the macro) and 97mm (the wider view). Program mode with HDR. -.3EV. Nominal exposure: ISO 100, f3.5 @ 1/160th and 1/200th.