Category Archives: Abstracts

Attempts made to break outside of my engineering mentality

Go With the Flow

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“Rudbeckia & Grasses”
Heatherwood Garden

I saw these spent rudbeckias blowing against flowing grasses in our Heatherwood garden. I did not see the individual flowers or the grasses but instead visualized swirling orange, brown, and yellow colors and textures. When I reviewed several of the images I took, none seemed to catch the feeling that I had when I was out on my walk. Instead of moving on to other images, I decided to experiment a little by creating a multi-image blend in Photoshop. Voila … this is the result!

Abstract Thinking

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“Sunrise Through a Pear Tree”
Heatherwood Autumn

A walk through the garden on a autumn day is always full of color. Today, I was focusing on color and texture as I was walking around with my camera. Our flowering pear is at its peak of fall color. The early morning sun came out for a moment to backlight the tree in brilliant color. I decided to create an abstract texture using a nine-image multiple exposure.

Here’s to a bright and shiny new day!

Leaves in the Grass

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“Leaves in the Grass”
Heatherwood, Fall

The wind was blowing and leaves were falling. It was time to go out and play with my camera. Walking around looking at the blowing trees, I wasn’t coming up with anything that really grabbed me. I looked down at my feet and saw patches of leaves in the grass. I decided to try a slow diagonal pan using multiple exposures. Here’s the result.

A Different View

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“Mary’s Perspective”
Yakima Area Arboretum, Washington

This image is Mary’s view for my previous post. She sees the world through “bright and shiny” lenses, hence the beautiful tones of aqua and yellow. The following is her perspective:

Extraordinary

Sometimes reality just doesn’t do it for me.
I want to see a world as I think it should be
and, maybe, not exactly as it is.

One of my favorite colors is teal or almost any
combination of blue and green.  Those colors conjure
both seawater and plants, some of the real necessities for life.

So why not make the tree leaves teal?
It’s true that they don’t usually come in that exact shade.  
I know that, but just once I want this tree to be how I want it to be.

Thank you for playing around with the color
and making blue/green leaves and warm, yellow light peeking through.
It’s a little thing and maybe a trick, but I think it is beautiful. 

For a few moments, this tree is just a little bit extraordinary. 

Mary Dahlin Graf

Thistle by Georgia

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“Thistle Impression”
Heatherwood Meadow, Summer

It’s time to come back home and add a couple more images from our Heatherwood garden. I used to think thistles were just weeds, but we decided to plant a couple of different varieties in our meadow. This one is planted between white daisies and yellow yarrow. It provides a nice contrast in the meadow. With the hot temperatures (>100 degrees) these thistles have quickly bloomed then lost their color. To accentuate the artistic flair of the thistles, I added a little Georgia O’Keeffe impressionism to it.

Nature’s Little Wonders – 1

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Paperbark Maple
Yakima Arboretum, Washington

This post will start a series of images depicting nature’s little wonders. These images are from a photo excursion I took in the Yakima Arboretum over a year ago. From time to time, I give myself an assignment to practice a specific type of photography. This trip I focused on looking for little things that caught my eye whatever they might be. Some were abstracts, others were macro details of pieces of nature.

Interesting bark was one of the things that caught my eye. The texture and color contrasts of the peeling bark of a paperbark maple (Acer griseum) creates a beautiful abstract that highlights a winter scene. We have planted two acer griseums in our yard, one at the entry of our Japanese garden and one in the middle of our front lawn. They are striking in the summer and gorgeous in the winter, especially covered with a little snow.