Our rose garden is still full of color. However, most of the blooms are past their prime and are a little tattered. It is hard to find a full crisp fresh rose without a few defects in the petals. So with my macros, my focus is on color, shape, and lines. I am continuing to work with creating “softness” with some of my rose images. I combined two images, one in focus, and one out of focus and blended them together to achieve the above result.
So here’s a little brightness for your day! There is always something in the world to celebrate.
As I was photographing in our rose garden, I came across these two roses snuggled together. I remember thinking, “How soft and peaceful.” In post processing I tried to enhance that feeling.
There are so many interesting things to focus on in our Heatherwood garden. I have a difficult time really working a specific image since there are so many other distractions all around me. I tend to hop from one flower to another flower, vignette, or view constantly. When doing so, I tend to fall into a “photo-snapping” mentality and loose my contemplative creativity. I really need to work on this.
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.
As the temperatures hover in the high 90’s, our new meadow continues to display a variety of color. I long to be able to get our among the flowers and become one with my camera and the beautiful blooms. For the next several weeks, I will need to be content with viewing alongside and from above. Patience is not one of my strongest virtues.
We just finished carving out and planting a new meadow in the lower section of Heatherwood. The colors are already bursting out for its first summer season. Reds, purples, yellows, blues, oranges, and all different shades of greens are scattered about. We have a lot of bark covered ground showing through most of the areas. It will take a few years for the perennials to fill in. We have patience and are enjoying the individual plants as each one breaks into bloom. Hopefully we will have a flow of changing color throughout the summer and early fall. This is just a start. We will record the activity of the meadow and adjust as we go along. It will also be a “Never Ending Journey.”
I created this image today. It was my first time out photographing since I had my foot operation. I’ve been hobbling around for the past three plus weeks. I still can’t put any weight on my foot, so I got a little creative and hopped on my lawn mower and drove around our new garden meadow. I stopped and recorded many images from above. Getting the best perspective and composition was very difficult, and sometimes impossible. But, I just had to get out with my camera. When I started processing the images, I noticed that they were all a little out of focus. I guess the high frequency vibration of the lawn mower didn’t help my unsteady hand. So, I decided to cheat a little and convert the images into a blurred impressionistic versions. Thank you Topaz!
I have been to Longwood Garden’s orchid display dozens of times. On a recent visit I wandered through looking for a different way to capture the beauty of the display. I thought a double exposure of some orchids rotated about 45 degrees might be interesting. I added a little Topaz Impression to achieve the final result. It is a bright image to start a bright new September. Have a good one!
I enjoy experimenting from time to time. It inspires me to look a little deeper.
Wildflowers – Snow Mountain Ranch, Cowiche, Washington
I took a day to explore and photograph wildflowers. I tried to capture both the overall feel of the large masses of flowers and their place in the countryside as well as individual vignettes of little scenes of flowers and interesting subjects.
This image I attempted to capture the field of bright wildflowers set against the green hillsides covered with sage brush and bunch grass and the interesting clouds in the background. My objective was to capture the feel of the beautiful, cloudy, peaceful day.
Today is a special day. It is a day to celebrate the wonderful life Karen and I had together. What a better way to celebrate than to take a nice walk and enjoy the wildflowers of early Spring. It was a beautiful day. The hills were covered with brilliant wildflowers … yellow, pink, purple, blue and the lush green of spring grasses. Peace surrounded me. It was a wonderful time to reflect on our lives and what is right in this world.
Canon 7D MkII, EF 100mm f/2.8 IS Macro @ f/8.0, 1/640 sec, ISO 400
As I was coming in from my morning shoot of our garden, I saw these two blooms intermingled in a clump of white and yellow daffodils. They reminded me of two close friends , one whispering in the other’s ear.
I cannot recall how many times that I have been getting ready to put my camera away for the shoot when that one last image pops up in front of me. It seems to be one of my most alert times. On multiple occasions, this last image is my select from the whole shoot.
Lesson Learned: Always be ready for the image to come to you!
