Posts in Category: flowers
4/24/2011: Happy Easter! Lilies and Daffs
My original Easter post follows, but I could not resist updating with this image from this morning. This, better than any words I could say, says Easter to me.
The Lily is not an Easter Lily, and neither, of course, are the Daffodils…but Happy Easter anyway. To me they carry the Easter Morning feeling. Resurrection in all its glory…in all HIS glory. And overflowing praise which has to be our response.
And these are first results of yet another new camera. The Fujifilm HS20 EXR I have been experimenting with the past few days went, with regrets (but no doubts), back to Amazon. I bought another camera to try yesterday morning. Free advice: never buy a new camera on a raining hard, almost snowing, day. I was reduced to shooting flowers and knickknacks in doors…at the end, with flash!
Still, there is a sunny side. I have these shots for Easter morning!
The top one is natural light. The bottom one is flash. Both are on the macro setting. Both are handheld, testing the limits of the camera’s image stabilization.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 60mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/15th @ ISO 400. 2) 370mm equivalent, f5.6 @ 1/60th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity (very lightly) and clarity. I actually had to turn Vibrance down a notch.
And of course, I have absolutely nothing to say about Easter that has not been said a thousand times before by better men and women than I. It is glorious. It is wonderful. It is amazing. It is the doorway that opens us to an encounter with a living savior…not perhaps the guarantee of our faith…but its ultimate affirmation. What you experience on Easter morning, in the end (and in the beginning) says everything about who you are. I rejoice at the risen one…and I want the whole world to rejoice with me. That is Easter. That is me.
4/14/2011: Catkins, Flowers, and Leaf buds.
Spring is slowly unfolding here in Southern Maine. Catkins are hanging and at least a few trees are in flower. New leaves are just emerging. Nothing showy mind you. We are still weeks from dog-woods and the ornamental cherries in front yards, but a few of the most hardy natives have begun to think about reproduction.
This is a tel-macro shot, at the limits of its depth of field, but I like the colors in the catkin and the form of the flowers and was determined to frame them both. The composition is pretty classic at that. The branches in the back were just far enough away to be pleasingly out of focus. It will actually benefit from a lager view.
Canon SX20IS at 300mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
4/10/2011: Spring will not be denied!
Nothing like a Crocus in the clear light of early spring in Maine. They burst out of the ground and unfold to such brightness, while the grass is still brown and the trees are still bare, pushing last year’s leaf litter right out of the way. This snail’s eye view turns two emerging buds into colossuses of crocus color, commanding their horizon.
And just a few yards away we find one in full bloom, newly opened, and quite full of itself…brazenly flashing that impossible bright burning orange reproductive apparatus, shouting to be noticed. No, the Crocus is not to be denied…any more than the spring it heralds…leading the charging army of blooms, buds, new leaves and shoots, that will sweep southern Maine, willy nilly, into the new season.
Canon SX20IS, 28mm equivalent field of view and Super-macro mode. f4 and f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. (And very thankful I am for the flip out LCD that allows for shots like the first without getting down on my stomach!)
Looking back, I see that both the Crocus and Easter were considerably earlier last year. Easter is an accident of the calendar, but the crocus are delayed, by a full week, by late spring snows. Still the feeling of spring is finally in the air in Maine, and Easter is fast approaching. A season of hope, both in nature and in the spirit…a putting off of the old dead shell of the world and a putting on of new born glory. Like the impatient Crocus, spring, in nature, and rebirth in the spirit, will neither be denied. Happy Sunday!
3/11/2011: Flowers for Friday
A few random flowers for Friday from San Diego. Here from a “restoration project” along the San Diego River Channel (the mile of birds). I could not resist the mass of color and foliage…a low angle and a bit of cloud washed sky in the background make for an interesting shot bottom to top. IMHO.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
3/5/2011: San Diego, Mission Bay Flora
Only in San Diego…at least in the continental US. Mission Bay is a complex of dredge islands developed into upscale resorts and housing, and lots of park area (Sea World is there). This is along a newish looking bit of wide paved path between South Shores boat ramp and the picnic shelter. I’m not sure how old the plantings are but they certainly are lush, and colorful, in March!
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ ISO 80, 1) 1/320th and 2) 1/500. Landscape program.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
12/17/2010: Little Things 4
Sometimes the background is as important as the subject…even if the background is totally out of focus. This furry little plant (or what was left of it by late fall) and black berries were isolated against a patch of ice, with some crystals on the surface that were catching the light. I could not resist :).
Canon SX20IS at 360mm, f5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
8/31/2010: English butterflies
Predictably, I spent my first day in England in a meeting room at the Greetham Valley Golf and Country Club (it was a working trip after all). We only got let out for lunch…and only 30 minutes at that due to a tight agenda. Still, when I got to the dinning room and looked out the window to see my first ever European Peacock butterfly, I had to run back to my room to get a camera with a longer lens! (Simon King, well known British naturalist and film-maker was among our number, and he identified the butterflies for me.) The wind was blowing hard and the rainy day light was subdued. The butterflies were hanging on the flowers for dear life as they tossed wildly about, and staying closed up tight most of the time in the wind. Still I managed a couple of more or less record shots of the Peacock (top) and the Little Tortoiseshell (bottom)…both life butterflies for me. And yes, I still managed to get my lunch down and back to the meeting room in time!
Long-tel-macro threw the background well out of focus for both shots. In the top shot the butterfly is framed against the hill 300 yards behind, but even the leaves inches behind the Tortoiseshell show good bokeh. That is the magic of the long-tel-macro.
Canon SX20IS @ 560mm equivalent and macro @ 1) f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160 and 2) f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 400. Programmed auto.
A bit of Recovery in Lightroom for the flowers, more than usual Fill Light for the colors in the wings in the subdued light, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/25/2010
Giessen Backyard
Still rainy days in Germany when I took this shot. I visited a colleagues home in Giessen in the early German evening, and while he discussed roof repairs with his contractor, I looked around for photo options. This is taken straight down from a balcony on the second floor. I like it as an abstract…the contrast of colors and textures and forms.
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent field of view @ f2.8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
Adjusted Blackpoint, added Clarity and Vibrance, sharpen, and auto white balance in Lightroom.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/22/2010
Window Light
Happy Sunday! I am composing this on a Thursday morning in England, as Sunday morning will find me at the British Birding Fair already at this time. This is another shot from my late rainy evening stroll through old town Wetzlar. One of the reasons I like the old town is that it is full of little corners like this one, along a narrow (10 feet wide at most) cobbled street between half-timbered buildings dating from the 1500’s. I like the contrast of the blue wall, with its interesting texture and the bright red and green geraniums. The golden glow of the light behind the pebbled glass window completes the picture for me.
Windows are always interesting to me as photographic elements, and I have noticed among photographers a similar fascination (among my flickr friends at least…one of my most visited images is a window shot).
For me it is about what they reveal and what they hide. They are meant to provide a view from within and light from without, for those who live inside. But they also. of course, provide a view of the life within to those who are outside. Jesus has something to say about that…about eyes as windows, and about the light that should shine out of them. The title of my SmugMug site comes from one of those passages. I hope my windows show at least such a golden glow on a late rainy evening…even if they are too often, just as obscuring as this one.
This took considerable distortion and perspective tweaking in Lightroom since I shot it an odd oblique angle (to chatch the light in the window). Then my standard Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpen.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/18/2010
Cotton Grass
(Still in Germany)
On the bog in August, about the only thing blooming (or looking like it is blooming), is the Cotton Grass. These tuffs of cottony fiber with their attendant spears dot the marsh and provide contrast with the blueberries that make up the mass of the surface vegetation. I got down low, using Macro on the SD4000IS for this shot (really missed the swing out LCD on the SX20IS!).
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent and macro. F2.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Saco Heath.