Category Archives: Flora

Lesson From Tony and John

131110_Leaves with red background by Karl Graf.

This image is based on a couple of lessons I have received in the past.  The first one is from Tony Sweet:  “When you see a cool background, find something to put in front of it”.  The second lesson is from John Barclay:  “When you see red … shoot”.  Walking along a trail in the woods a patch of red leaves caught my eye.  By themselves, they were not very interesting, but their combined color made me look twice.  I walked around and saw this scrawny branch with green leaves hanging down.  Again, by itself it was just ho-hum.  But when I lined up the bright green against the red background, the image “popped” in my mind.

Tony would have further critiqued this image and suggest that the green leaf in the top right corner should be removed.  He would also have commented that the small white dot in the top third of the red background be cloned out.  Tony is a sticker on details.  So here is the corrected file:

131110_Leaves with red background_v2 by Karl Graf.

It does make a difference!

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When You See Red

130815_RedFlowers_Entryway by Karl Graf.

From John Barclay,  “When you see RED … Shoot!”  Yesterday evening I walked out our front door and saw this Salvia “on fire” from the early evening sun.  I ran inside to get my camera and try to capture the brilliance of the light.  I walked around the Salvia to find a suitable background to set the red against.  I stood on my tip toes to see if I could get it against some dark green foliage.  I got down on my back to see if I could set off the red against a cloudless blue sky.  I finally rolled on by belly and look up against the house and this is what I came up with.  I spent about 20 minutes trying to beat the setting sun to find this one image.

 

Lessons employed/learned:

 

1.  When you see red > shoot

 

2.  Find a good background, then put something in front of it.

 

3.  Explore all angles.

 

4.  Wait for the image to come to me, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

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Welcome Summer !

130621_YellowZoomTwist by Karl Graf.

 

Welcome Summer!  This Spring has been very interesting … periods of heat, cold, wet, and dry conditions, all mixed together.  Right now we are between periods of rain and warm days.  It is hard to tell which is growing faster, our flowers or the weeds.  One thing for sure, our knees are getting their workout separating the two.

This image is a multiple exposure created by simultaneously rotating and zooming around the center flower.  Karen’s garden creates an abundance of photographic opportunities.

More of the Fonthill Study coming …

 

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Making the Best of It

 

130617_HersheyRoses1 by Karl Graf.

Karen and I had planned a trip up to Hershey, PA to see the Hershey Rose Garden for quite some time.  We delayed the trip one day due to an extremely severe rain and lightning storm that passed through the area.  We knew that the gardens would be impacted, but went the next day anyway.  The day was a beautiful bright summer day in the 80’s.  However, the roses had been damaged by the previous day’s storm as expected.  It was not the best for photography.  It was time to get creative and try some different things.

The image above is an “in-camera” multiple exposure of a group of roses with a water fountain in the background.  The first image was taken with a moderate depth of field at normal exposure.  The second image was defocused and slightly overexposed.  The combined image was adjusted for brightness with NIK Viveza and NIK Color Efex Pro.  A painterly look was then added with Topaz Simplify.

No matter what the condition, there always seems to be something worth capturing.

For reference below are the two images that were combined.

130617_HersheyRoses2 by Karl Graf. 130617_HersheyRoses3 by Karl Graf.

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Emerging: Bleeding Hearts

130509_Emerging_BleedingHeart_1 by Karl Graf.

I was after a subdued image of our Bleeding Hearts on a bright early morning.  I stood above these “hearts” and shot through an Atlas Cedar.  A slight gap between the branches framed the “hearts”.

I next got down on my belly and shot the macro below focusing on the simple two heart image.  I added a little contrast and darkened the background to highlight the “hearts”.  I plan to use this one for a Mother’s Day card for Mom.

130509_Emerging_BleedingHeart_2 by Karl Graf.

This post will be my last of my “Emerging” series  … at least for a little while.

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Emerging: Lilac

130508_Emerging_Lilac by Karl Graf. I saw this emerging Lilac blossom against the bright red of a Flowering Quince and could not resist shooting an image.  As they say, “When you see red, shoot!”  The red background tends to overwhelm the Lilac buds.  I tried to separate the two with a shallow DOF.  Later in post processing, I added a little structure to the Lilac and added a little blur to the Quince which helped the separation a little more.  Just experimenting …

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Emerging: Magic in the Wind

130507_Emerging_Redbud_wind effect by Karl Graf. I was experimenting with swipes and pans on this Redbud tree to create some interesting images for backgrounds.  While I had my camera set for a blur (f/32, 1/4 second, ISO 200), I let the wind create a little magic on its own.  I just held the camera still, waited for a gust of wind, then snapped the shutter.  It’s pretty amazing what nature can do!

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