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.
Emerging: Flowering Plum
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Category Archives: Our Garden
Emerging: Pear Blossom
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.
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Emerging: New & Old
The emerging new growth of this Exbury Azalea surrounds and seems to protect the old growth from last year. I moved around to get the best position of the old growth between the towering new growth.
Post processing was also simple. I added a little contrast and structure to the leaves as well as darkened the background using NIK Viveza. As a final touch, I lightened the center and darkened the edges with NIK Color Efex Pro.
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Emerging: Wings
Today is the First of May. It is time to appreciate the emerging Spring flora. For the next several posts, I will focus on the emerging buds and blossoms in our back yard. This image caught my eye as I walked by one of our Japanese Maples. It looked like the emerging leaves were wings ready to take off and fly.
For processing, I cropped the image to put the “wings” in the right perspective in relation to the edges. I slightly brightened the center and darkened the background to add a little pop to the leaves.
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Working in B&W
I am continuously trying to train my eye to see B&W. I find it difficult to see past brilliant color and identify the potential for B&W images. A few days ago, I stepped out our back door and saw these two yellow daffodils brilliantly back-lit by the low morning sun. Was it the color or was it the the brilliance of the back-lit subject that caught my eye ….
The following is the color version.
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Spring is Here … Maybe?
Just when we thought Spring was here, the temperatures dropped to the low 30’s last night. This morning was bright and clear, but “finger numbing” chilly. With the wind blowing, I worked hard to come up with the best compromise between a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the daffodils and a depth of field large enough to get some detail in the background. I was not too successful. But it was still a bright Spring morning shot.
Lesson learned: Sometimes a compromise cannot be reached … move on!
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Making Something Simple, Simpler
Yesterday’s post was a simple image. How can I make it simpler??? I just turned it into a “painting” using Topaz Adjust and Simplify. Sometimes it is just fun to play around and see what I can come up with.
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This is Not a Photograph of a Bucket
This is not a picture of a green bucket. It is a visual interpretation of a sore back! Emerging spring flowers and plants are always a welcomed sign of the coming warm spring months. They are also an indicator of a lot of “get down on your knees” and work which contributes to my annual stiff and sore back. Happy Spring!
The image is simple. A green bucked composed in the lower right power point of the image. Emerging new growth and last year’s dead leaves comprise the remainder of the photo. Processing was very minor, just a little contrast, a little brightening of the bucket, and a little darkening of the edges.
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Not Today
No Death Valley photos today. We were planning on working in the garden this weekend. It wasn’t meant to be. A late winter snow kept us inside working on other projects. I did have a few moments to sneak out and capture a couple of shots around the garden.