Posts in Category: flowers
Form and Light (otherwise Flower)
Sometimes it really is about form and light and how they interact more than about the subject itself. Abstract is too angular a word, too, well, abstract, to describe the pure play of light we occasionally see and catch in nature, but I can not, off hand, come up with a better.
What I like here are the big bold colors obviously, orange on green with spikes of red…but it is more about the range of the orange, the shadings and shadowings, the texture of the orange surface, the burning translucency, contrasted with the solid points of the furled petals. And running through it, the single filament of spider web, catching the sun. (If you look closely you can see the author of that thread on the third spike from the left 🙂
This is, I believe, some sort of giant exotic iris from the demonstration gardens at the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle Washington. It is part of at least 3 blooms, stacked by the telephoto perspective.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view, taken from about 15 feet. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
The Bee and the Chicory
Another shot from the Center for Urban Horticulture and Union Bay Natural Area in Seattle. This was out on the trail in the Natural Area. I was walking along, talking to other birders I had met there, when I looked down to see this bee hovering over the Chicory. It never did land. This is the new Canon SX50HS at its best. 1800mm equivalent field of view…1200mm optical zoom plus 1.5x digital tel-converter function. Hand held.
Of course asside from the technical stuff, I just like the vibrant blue, and the bee caught in motion.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/500th @ ISO80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Turtlehead in the Rain
I have a new camera. I replaced my Canon SX40HS with a newly released SX50HS…longer zoom (50x, 24mm to 1200mm equivalent, faster focus, etc). It came on Wednesday and it has rained non-stop ever since. Still I had to brave the drips to take at least a few shots around the yard. This is a shot at 1200mm from about 8 feet away. ISO 800. Not bad at all.
I like the total wet look, the depth of the color, and the extreme bokah.
f6.5 @ 1/100th. Program with iContrast and – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Tiny Flowers on the Kennebunk Plains
This might not look like a macro, but it is. The flowers are presented at close to twice life size (unless you are viewing this on a phone). They were growing in clumps of low leafless branches the last week in September down among the taller grasses and left-over Blazing Star stems on the Kennebunk Plains (a sand plain prairie or heath remnant in Southern Maine). They have woody stems, so I am thinking some kind of very small shrub rather than a wildflower. As you may have noticed, they have resisted identification so far. The second shot shows more of the stem and growth pattern, and the 3rd and 4th show the massed effect of the clumps.
It is not any of the common heath berries: blue (low or high-bush), bear, cran, or huckle, and it is not a heather, as they all have bell like flowers which do not open to show five distinct petals like these. I would guess this a member of the rose family, but I can’t get any closer than that. Any help would be appreciated.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. The macro shot is 24mm macro plus 1.5x digital tel-converter function. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Turtle Head Revisited
You may remember that, two Friday’s ago, I posted a shot from our yard of purple Turtlehead blossoms. I mentioned at the time that from my casual research that morning it looked like the tall purple, garden variety, Turtlehead might be a cultivar of the native, wild, white Turtlehead that grows right at the water’s edge in the eastern half of the US. A bit more research this morning shows that the tall purple-pink Turtlehead is actually a different species than the shorter white…and both are both native and wild in the eastern US.
In fact, since that first post, I have found the short white Turtlehead growing along two streams in York County, and I am sure it is more common than I thought. This specimen was right at the water’s edge along the Mousam River between Old Falls and Old Falls Pond. In the wild, it is not an easy plant to photograph, with its feet in the water on steep banks so to speak, and most often in deep shade.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-converter function). f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
What the light did to the wet Petunia
This is another shot from the back deck on that Sunday morning when the sun was reflecting off the glass of the sliding doors to provide natural fill light for the flowers we keep there, balancing the strong sun coming from behind. The water drops, left over from rain the night before, only add interest to the unique light. I especially like what the light from the back is doing with the center of the flower.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm macro with 1.5x digital tel-converter function for image scale and working distance. f4 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. I also cropped this shot from the right to get the flower out of the center, and used the Selective Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to carefully paint the backgound in darker.
Tall Aster with Monarchs
The bright purple,
blooming stand
of tall aster,
against the wood’s edge,
behind the cattails of the marsh
draw me…
but it is the Monarchs,
wild for nectar on migration
mobbing the aster…
that hold me
at the edge of breath
for moments out of time.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Turtle Head, The Yard
A few years ago, this strange plant appeared along the edge of our yard. It blooms in late August and through September, when most of the rest of our yard flowers are dying down, so it is very conspicuous. The thing is, my wife did not know what it was and could not remember planting it.
A little research turns up the fact that this is a domestic cultivar of wild Turtle Head, which is white. I recently found white Turtle Head growing its natural habitat, actually on the left side of the photo from yesterday, along the Kennebunk River under the bridge, right at the water’s edge.
Since the original stand in our yard is so hardy, my wife has started transplanting it around in shady areas (which in our yard is most of it). We are still not certain where it came from, but a friend seems to remember giving my wife a few plants a few years ago. ?? At any rate, we enjoy its vigorous color…and appreciate it for what it is…a first sign of fall in Maine.
I love the furry tongue.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm macro, plus 1.5x digital tel-extender for scale and working distance. f4 @ 1/125th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Another Back Porch Geranium
On Monday I posted an image of this Geranium plant with rain drops from our back deck (here)…in a unique light that was a serendipitous mix of direct sun and bright reflected light from the sliding glass doors of our kitchen. Studio perfect lighting, but due to no effort of mine. I also posted the pic and text to Google+ as my Pic 4 Today over there. For whatever reason, it went, shall we say, relatively viral. It gathered, in 24 hours, 905 +s, 120 shares, and 230 comments. It was viewed (on Google+ that means it was clicked on and opened in the viewer) by over 183,000 people! For the rock stars of Google+ that might only be bacterial, but for me, when compared to my average 30 +s, 2 shares, and 5 comments, it is definitely viral 🙂
This is another blossom. And again, what makes the image special is that blend of direct sun and reflected light, and what it does for the drops and the texture of the petals. This is a complex blossom, with a second blossom attempting to grow out of the center of the first.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm macro, with 1.5x digital tel-converter for image scale and working distance. f4 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Back Deck Geraniums
Sunday morning, when I went to the kitchen for tea, the sun was coming in over the deck rail at just the right angle to reflect back from the windows of the sliding doors and strongly illuminate the large pots of Geraniums my wife had placed on the deck. It was portrait quality lighting, with the mix of direct sun and reflected sun, and the Geraniums glowed with life. I could not resist. And when I got the camera and got out there, I found that the plants were still beaded with drops from the overnight rain. Could not have been better if I had created the whole thing in the studio (if I had a studio :).
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm macro mode, plus 1.5x digital tel-converter for scale and working distance. f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.