During a recent trip to Bend, my wife and I did a little exploring around the area. We took a drive to Tumalo Falls during the middle of the day. The mid-day sun did not do this beautiful waterfall justice. To capture the bright greens without washing the bright water out, I blended two exposures together; one taken for the water and the other for the green trees.
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 …
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.
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.
This post will be my last of my “Emerging” series … at least for a little while.
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 …
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!
The sweet smell of the Holly blossoms greet me as I go out our back door. Who could help not noticing these small blossoms especially when they are highlighted by the sun-lit red Japanese Maple leaves in the background.
The early morning dew drops highlighted this emerging Lady’s Mantle leaf. This was a gift of nature just waiting to be noticed. It was a beautiful morning!
Late afternoon sun provided the brilliant illumination of these emerging flowering plum leaves. The blossoms provide the background.
Below is different perspective of the blooms.
The lesson that I was exploring as I took this image was from Tony Sweet: “Pick a background and put something interesting in front of it”. The late afternoon sun brilliantly lit up the new spring grass. The blossoms in the pear trees lining our driveway were in partial shade. Normally I try to pick dark backgrounds with light shining on the foreground subject. This time it was just the opposite. I kept a moderate aperture size to blur the background and keep the blossoms in acceptable focus.