Posted on August 2, 2012 in Black and White, Flowers, Nature
My most favorite flower is the water lily. Back before dog photography became my passion, I spent quite a lot of time photographing at the Longwood Gardens water lily ponds in Kennett Square, Pa. It’s still a place I dearly love visiting, even though I haven’t been there for several years. I have a small pond in my garden with one water lily plant. It’s the treasure of my garden even though it only produces 3 or 4 flowers each summer. They appear for a very short time so photo opportunities are limited. On top of the small number of flowers, there is also the fact that the blossoms are closed when I leave for work in the morning, open during the day, and closed again by the time I get home. So unless the flowers are in bloom on a weekend, I don’t get to enjoy them very much. When I came home for lunch yesterday, I glanced out of the window and there was a beautiful water lily waiting to greet me. I grabbed my camera and took a few images before heading back to work. This is one of them – converted to black and white. The flowers are a very light yellow with a deeper yellow center. Just lovely!
Posted on July 12, 2012 in Flowers, Lensbaby, Macro, Nature, Soft Focus
I spent a little while last evening photographing the lilies in my garden with the Lensbaby. The Lensbaby has become my very favorite lens for flower photography as I just love the way everything except the “sweet spot” is softly diffused. The fragrance from these flowers was delightful….the mosquito bites I received from my time in the garden, not so much! Below is another Lensbaby lily image with a little bit of texture added.
Posted on June 9, 2012 in Abstract / Graphic, Flowers, Lensbaby, Macro, Nature, Painting Effect, Soft Focus, Topaz
This afternoon I spent a little while photographing the flowers in my garden. My most favorite, Honeysuckle, is in bloom and the fragrance in the garden is delightful! With the mild winter and lots of rain we’ve had this spring, my flowers are blooming better than ever! The Honeysuckle is starting to fade, so I wanted to snap a few images before it is too late. When I came back in the house, I turned on the computer and visited some of my favorite blogs. I found a beautiful post by my friend, Sam Gray, featuring a Honeysuckle. Check out his post here and be sure to visit his photo blog often – his work is amazing: http://designbysamgray.com/blog/2012/06/09/sweet-smelling-honeysuckle/
Below are some more images of “What’s In Bloom” currently in my garden: Clematis, Daisy and Spirea.
Posted on May 13, 2012 in Flowers, Nature, Painting Effect, Spring, Still Life
I love visiting the garden center in Spring. I’ve been there 3 or 4 times already this season and have come home with not only top soil, but a few new treasures for my garden – Bleeding Heart, Columbine and Iris plants. The other day I took along my Olympus point & shoot camera in the hopes of capturing the feeling of the garden center overflowing with spring color. Along the way I found this still life scene and thought it would be fun to process with a bit of a watercolor effect. This scene just says Springtime to me! P.S. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms and doggie-moms!
Posted on May 4, 2012 in Flowers, Lensbaby, Macro, Nature, Spring
What…no dog image? No! I thought I would change things up for today and post some images that I took in my garden this afternoon. My Bleeding Hearts, Columbine, and some yet unidentified purple flowers that are actually weeds are in full bloom, so I brought out the Lensbaby and macro lenses and had some fun in less than ideal conditions. What do you try to avoid when photographing flowers outside? Well, nighttime would be one thing….but WIND is the other! Unless you are going for a purposely blurred look created by moving flowers, that is. Today there was a bit of wind and the bleeding hearts were on the move. They grow on fine stems that wiggle at the slightest breeze, so it’s best to photograph them on a really calm day…which rarely happens. Also rare is finding bleeding hearts that are perfectly aligned in a row. So today I concentrated on the “heart” portion of the flowers! A couple more images from the garden are below…. Notice the little critter hitching a ride on the bottom flower.
