Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/11, 1/9 sec, ISO 400
With all the people walking around, I switched my focus to close-ups of various things that caught my eye. The only thing that I had to watch out for was other peoples flashes.
Longwood Gardens Conservatory
Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 34mm, f/22, 1/3 sec, ISO 400
The bright light from the ceiling skylight made capturing this photo taken with a small aperture possible. People were everywhere. Patience paid off again while I waited for the scene to clear. I waited over 10 minutes to catch this break. If I would have had a long exposure there would have been people entering the scene. Lessons learned: do not photograph Longwood on a Friday.
Longwood Gardens Conservatory
Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 26.5mm, f/11, 1/10 sec, ISO 400
Now that I have finished the Fonthill Tile Tour, I can finally start to get into the Christmas blogging spirit. All the outgoing presents are wrapped and sent out. Some of my Christmas cards are out, others are still in process. I will be very late this year.
A week ago I was able to get out to Longwood Gardens with a good friend for a little Christmas photography excursion. It was a great day, but my creative juices weren’t really flowing. However, I was able to just step back and enjoy. This image took me forever to capture. People were walking in front of the far end of the water fountain. I waited, waited and waited. It seemed like forever, but I finally got a very short window of just a few seconds to snap this image. It was worth the wait.
Fuji X-T1, XF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/8.0, 1/250 sec, ISO 400
Happy Thanksgiving to all! We have so very much to be thankful for including this beautiful fall day a couple of weeks ago. Each day is a gift to be lived and enjoyed to its fullest.
This was taken in our back yard in the early morning as the sun was breaking the horizon and shining on a little fresh frost on the ground. I liked how the sparkle from the sunlit frost made small globes of light. I then walked around to get something interesting to put in front. This backlit maple was just what I was looking for. It was a moment to be thankful for.
Fuji XT-1, XF55-200mm @ 95mm, f/11, 0.6 sec, ISO 500
Gloomy grey days highlight great fall colors. Add a little artistic flair and voila … out comes an impressionistic painting. The colors here in eastern Pennsylvania are rapidly changing. One day makes a big difference. A great college friend and I took the opportunity to get a little damp and explore some of the countryside and covered bridges here in Bucks County. The colors were great, but most important, just being out with a good friend made the day.
Fuji X-T1. XF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/4.5, 1/350 sec, ISO 1600
Over time, I have learned to frequently look up and see. On a hot day walking along Lake Galena, I looked up and saw the bright sun shining through these maple leaves. In the bright sun, the leaves looked pretty flat. At the time I took this image, I thought about adding a texture. So off I went looking for something interesting. I found an old cherry tree covered with a thin green fungus. The texture caught my eye. I combined the two to come up with the above image.
For reference, the texture image is below.
Fuji X-T1, XF55-200mm @ 105mm, f/11, 1/60 sec. ISO 200
This image is an attempt to just work with color and composition. The deep pink and the adjacent dark green provided a strong color contrast as did the bright yellow and the adjacent dark green. The round clump of pink flowers in the upper right corner was balanced somewhat by the white flowers in the lower left corner. The diagonal strips of yellow and green provided the center focus.
Fuji XT-1, XF55-200mm @ 90.4mm, f/8.0, 1/800 sec, ISO 500
This image was taken looking out our dining room window. I noticed how the emerging leaves of the Ginko were contrasted against the deep pink of a flowering cherry. I varied the depth of field to get a pleasing combination of sharpness of the Ginko and a blur of the background cherry.
Fuji X-T1, XF 18-55mm @ 42.5mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO 800
I simplified this image by isolating one clump of blossoms and shooting against the deep green grass background. I used Color Efex Pro to extract detail in the blossoms without affecting the background. I finally used a simple texture on the background.
Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 35.8mm, f/3.6, 1/480 sec, ISO 500
What would spring be without cherry blossoms. This image was taken on the first day that the blooms popped out of the tight buds. We have seven flowering cherries in our yard. They are my favorite spring highlight. When the cherries bloom, spring is really here. I worked the aperture setting to come up with the optimum setting to capture the sharpness of the first group of flowers and blur the background flowers. They were hard to separate with a standard length zoom lens.