Posts in Category: flowers
3/10/2012: Bougainvillea Photopaints
Over on Google+ where I am active ( +Stephen Ingraham) there is quite a large group of photographer/artists who are expressing their visions of the world by creating painterly renderings of photographs. Quite a few of them use Pixelbender within PhotoShop. I use Dynamic Auto Painter 64x Pro, which is a program that attempts to mimic the effects of different classic painters by analyzing your photograph down to basic shapes and colors and applying the master’s brush methods to recreate it as a painting. It is a fascinating program to watch work, as it builds your image from a bare canvas, one brush stroke at a time.
I also do some finger-painting on my Xoom’s touch screen, using PicsArt Studio to selectively apply various effects with my finger tip, and then PS Touch to add a texture layer or to do final processing.
My offering today is a gallery of examples based on the same photograph…a sprig of bougainvillea against a terra-cotta brick wall at Mission Bay in San Diego. This is a shot that I actually took with painterly processing in mind. I liked the color and texture contrast as a photograph…but I was definitely thinking of it as a painting when I pressed the shutter release. The original looks like this.
The first image (at the top) is done in the style of Van Gogh. Following, we have the same same photograph rendered after a Matisse’s Lily Pond, followed by the same pic again, this time rendered after a work of Cezanne.
Finally we have the same pic again, finger-painted on the Xoom using various effects in PicsArt Studio, with a photo-texture layer (macro of a pocket handkerchief) overlaid in PS Touch.
Clearly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what do you think? I will chime back in if comments warrant it 🙂
3/2/2012: Bird of Paradise, San Diego CA
I have only ever been to San Diego in February or March so I can’t testify to anything beyond a very narrow window in the spring, but for me San Diego will always mean Bird of Paradise flowers. A quick look at wiki tells me they are native to South Africa, but here on Mission Bay, and I suspect everywhere in San Diego, they burst out of their big banana like leaves…bold, brash, beautiful and abundant. They are colorful in any light, but with low sun behind them, they simply glow. They burn almost too bright to effectively capture.
I photograph them every visit. These were literally at the foot of the hotel stairs I go down every morning, on a little island between the hotel and the parking lot. My room faces east and my first morning in San Diego, the early sun was full on the flowers on my way out to the car and some errands. A common planting for Bird of Paradise is up against a building, so this isolated stand with access to every side provided a unique opportunity. It took me a half hour to get by this plant 🙂 and I took way too many pictures, from full on portraits, to abstract macros where the light captured in the petals (or bracts or whatever they are) becomes the subject.
All shots with the Canon SX40HS either at full telephoto or full wide and macro. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and vibrance (though they would not take a lot of added vibrance before the orange blocked up).
And I am certain that next year, come my March visit to San Diego, I will photograph them again!
2/26/2012: Redbuds, Swamp Maple. Happy Sunday!
The Eastern Redbud Tree is common in Virginia around our offices there, and it is a truly beautiful tree in bloom. This is not it. The Redbud blooms purple. In early spring Redbuds look like purple smoke in the understory of Virginia forests and the margins of Virginia lawns.
This is the humble Swamp Maple, which really does have red buds, growing in an untended area along the catchment ponds of our industrial park. It was taken in the soft light of dusk, barely enough light for the camera to focus, at the long end of the zoom, from about 5 feet, which accounts for the interesting bokeh, and the slightly magenta cast to the reds. In fact, the light was low enough already to push the ISO to 800, which puts this shot in the “not possible a year ago with a Point & Shoot” category. It is great when the technology catches up to your vision, even by tiny steps.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view, f5.8 @ 1/40th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and –!/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought. I love Maple blossoms. They appear on the branches well before the leaves, taping the last of last summer’s store of energy, braving late frost and spring winds, to stain the Maples with a tinge of the red they will carry in abundance at season’s end. They are always such a hopeful sign of the coming spring, among the first. And, close up, they are delicately beautiful…tight scaled buds, almost like tiny red pine cones, that open to miniature roses with long lacy filaments of red or yellow (depending on the species)…so small you have to be within inches to realize they are flowers at all. And of course, these tiny blooms are, most often, at the branch tips of massive maple trees, 4 stores high, and spreading over whole yards…or, in mass, shading acres of forest. The contrast could not be sharper.
They are brief…having seen these open in Virginia I can now see them, since I am looking, already formed on the branch tips of the Maple outside my window here in Maine, but they will not open here for several weeks yet. They will open, bloom a day, or a week at most, and be gone, as the leaves push right in behind them. (You will probably see more shots of them before long.)
I like them too, because, at winter’s end, they match the little blooming of my spirit. While we are here on Earth we are as much seasonal creatures, and creatures of the season, as is the rest of life around us…and this is true in the spirit as well. There is a spirit of winter, a spirit of spring…a spirit of each season. No, not that kind of “spirit of spring”…some kind of green leafy lady with a flower face…in the pagan sense. There is only one spirit…but that spirit is, in my experience, colored by the season. The hue of spring is hope. The hue of spring is quickening. The hue of spring is awakening. I feel it in my spirit as the days lengthen and the sun climbs…as the Maples bloom. Early and brave, despite the fact that winter storms are yet due, the Maples bloom. And so do I.
2/24/2012: Crab Apples in Bloom, Virginia
I arrived in Virginia in a mini-blizzard, and spent my first morning trying to keep my feet dry and still get out to see a bit of the snow shrouded landscape. Of course the snow was mostly gone by the end of the day, and by Thursday, yesterday, the temperatures were in the more seasonable upper 60s. When I left work at the sun was still a half hour from setting, birds were calling, and the pansies in the industrial park plantings were bright. I had to take a little photo-prowl.
I am pretty sure these are ornamental Crab Apple blossoms. There are many of these trees in the industrial park, and, since the park is about 30 years old now, the trees are well grown and put on a brave show every spring. This is one of those industrial parks with landscaping. There are lawns and hedges, pine groves, a whole series of catchment ponds with fountains, rock walls, gazebos, ornamental reed beds, etc. And I would love to have the pansy concession! Here is another view of the Crab Apple blooms.
The difference between the shots is that the first was taken at the long end of the zoom, at 840mm equivalent from about 4.5 feet, for a telephoto macro effect…with the subject well isolated against a soft background. The second shot is a wide-angle macro, taken from less than a quarter inch, and I had to find a clump of flowers that I could catch sharp against the mass of flowers above and behind.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) f5.8 @ 1/125th @ ISO 800. As you see, the light had already about gone by the time I got to the trees. 2) f4 @ 1/50th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
2/14/2012: Happy Valentines Day
Not in season, but, still…for Valentines Day…for my Valentine.
Tame flowers from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Bath Maine. Cultivated as only love can be.
and wildflowers from the Kennebunk Bridle Path. Wild as only love can be.
10/5/2011: Eisenhower Bee
While at Eisenhower Park on Sunday, there were multitudes of bees working the flower borders. They munst know how short the season is now, and must be driven to harvest while the harvest is still here.
And I was practicing with the new zoom. It has a great close focus, even at the long end. With the Nikon P500 I have been using, I would put the camera in Close Up mode to engage close focus and then be able to zoom out to about 600mm and maintain macro focus. With the Canon, in my experiments so far, macro does not appear to work well above about 2 feet at the tele end (though it focus down to 0 cm at the wide end…you can focus on something that is touching the outer surface of the lens)…but normal close focus at the long end of the zoom is 4.6 feet (and very fast)…which certainly gives you a tele-macro effect.
This shot was at 840mm equivalent field of view from about 5 feet. Not bad!
Canon SX40is at 840mm equivalent, f6.3 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Program.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
10/4/2011: Eisenhower Park Veterans Memorial HDR
Eisenhower Park in Nassau County New York on Long Island is beautiful park filled with war and civic memorials. There is a 911 memorial there, and this is the Veterans Memorial. As you see, a series of terraced wall fountains and pools bordered with flowers runs down the hill toward the lake.
This is a 3 exposure HDR, from –2.6EV to +1.4EV. The Canon SX40IS has a very flexible auto bracket, though it is limited to 3 shots. The shots were blended and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro and final processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom.
Canon SX40IS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Programmed Auto.
And just for fun…here is a single shot comparison, processed only in Lightroom. Which goes to show, you don’t always need HDR.
9/26/2011: Just a touch of fall on the marsh…
Another shot from Saturday’s fotoprowl®…just to prove I did eventually get out of the yard (see yesterday’s post). The trees, as of Saturday, had just been touched with the earliest color of fall. Things will progress rapidly now, and indeed, by Sunday morning the color had advanced far enough to leave no doubt that the season is upon us. In this shot, an in-camera HDR, I tried to catch the marsh at this delicate balance between the seasons, with maybe the last of the Beach Rose among the Asters and Goldenrod in the foreground, the unique fall greeny-yellow-brown of the marsh grass, and the few red maples in the background. As you see, it was fully overcast, so I also worked to bring out at least a little detail in the clouds. If I were a purist I would edit out the dead branches obtruding from the left…but I am a realist…and I actually prefer to leave them in.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Backlight/HDR mode. 23mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure f3.4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160 (nominal because an in-camera HDR is the sum of several very rapid exposures with different settings).
Before uploading to my laptop, I also used the in-camera Quick Retouch, which, when applied to an in-camera HDR, restores some of the contrast, brightens the foreground, and sharpens the whole image. The combination, while not as good as a three exposure HDR processed in Photomatix, is pretty satisfying. Final processing in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped slightly at the right to eliminate a half post leaning out of the frame.
9/25/2011: Fotoprowl, The Yard. Happy Sunday!
Though it was raining heavily when I wrote yesterday’s post, by 10AM the rain had become light enough to get out for a Satruday fotoprowl. Fotoprowl®. I coined that word yesterday on Google+ in describing my adventure. Or I think I did 🙂 Someone may well have come up with it before me. Fotoprowl: an exploratory walk or ramble with camera in hand, intentionally hunting for images. I think it describes what many of us do. There comes a moment when the hunger for an image overtakes us, and we pick up the camera and head out the door…only thinking of destinations as we go…as likely places for pics…not setting out to see any particular thing or place, but going in search of whatever might make an image.
Yesterday I was headed for our back marsh and my pocket sanctuary along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, but it took me a half hour to get from the front door of the house to the car door. Now that the Japanese Beetles are gone, we are getting our first really good roses of the season. This giant pink was just begging for a pic.
And this yellow was growing right next to it, head hung over and still dripping from several days of rain, but still striking.
Then, only a few steps away, the tiny massed flowers of the Sedum caught my eye and the camera’s lens. The rain water still sitting in the flowers and the subtle light of an overcast day deepened the pinks toward red.
Then on the way to the car I looked up to see the first touches of fall color, literally touches, across the street. The flow of cooler air along the pavement touches the exposed leaves of Maples earlier than the season. And I have always suspected that the higher levels of carbon monoxide above the road have something to do with it too. Later in my fotoprowl, I found trees more fully touched, but I like the way the partial color here is framed against the pine needles.
And finally, reaching the car, I found that fall had gotten there before me.
I eventually did get in the car and get on with my fotoprowl behind the beach and along the Bridle Path…but that is a story for another day.
So what is the Sunday point? Those of us who have chosen photography as a way of celebrating the world around us…as our creative medium for sharing our vision…are driven by the creative urge to our occasional or habitual fotoprowls. That fact, simple as it is, never ceases to fill me with joy, and with a deep and abiding quiet satisfaction that is indistinguishable from deep gratitude. Not every fotoprowl results in a great image…in a image that takes on a life of its own…a true creative capture…but that does not diminish the satisfaction, or the gratitude. The satisfaction is in the prowl itself. We do not hunger so much for the image as for the hunt…for the state of mind…for the intentional openness and heightened awareness that is the essence of the prowl. In the fotoprowl, the photographer is fully alive. And that is why we do it…and what we are thankful for.
9/22/2011: Everybody’s got one, this is mine. (sunflower)
Take one giant sunflower, add camera toting human being, give it about a minute, and you will have one pic of a sunflower. Everybody’s got one. This is mine.
I like the way the backlight on this allows the full play of the various textures and more subtitle colors. And I like it that, even in its own shade, it just looks so cheerful! That’s sunflowers for you.
Meadowbrook Marsh Sanctuary between Port Clinton and Marblehead OH.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode. 32mm equivalent field of view (CU default), f3.7 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.