Tag Archives: garden

“Specs”

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140223_Spectacles by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MarkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/8.0, 1/640 sec, ISO 400

Exploring our back yard, I saw what looked like a pair of large dark spectacles sticking out of the bright snow.  As I got closer they looked back directly up at me.  Shapes have always intrigued me.  When I was just a kid, I use to just lay on my back and look up at the clouds for hours imagining the different animals as they moved across the sky.  Today, I can easily become fixated on an object’s shape and imagine what it could be if it had a choice.

 

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Old Stump

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140221_Stump in Snow 1 by © 2013 Karl Graf. Canon 5D MarkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 58mm, f/5.6, 1/2000 sec, ISO 400

Karen use to sit on this old stump when she worked out back in our garden.  Over the years the termites have taken over.  It is now just a garden feature out back, a little piece of nature along a fence.  It does make an interesting subject covered in snow.

 

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Tiger Lilies

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140220_Lily in Snow 1 by © 2013 Karl Graf. Canon 5D MarkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 400

The pods of these spent Tiger Lilies looked like mouths opening up to feed.  They look like they are struggling for survival to keep their heads above the snow.  They are quite different than their summer budding.  The image below was taken from about the same spot last summer.

140220_Tiger Lilies by © 2013 Karl Graf.

 

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Back to Reality

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140219_Weed in Snow 1 by © 2013 Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 38mm, f/8.0, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400

We had another snow! The temperatures warmed up a little (high 20’s).  With this little incentive, I went exploring in our back yard, walking in snow up to my knees at times.  Everything was beautiful with the fresh coat of white.  What caught my eye the most were the the little spent seed pods that were sticking above the snow.  These were meant for black and white conversion.

I will post a few more gems I found during the next few days.

 

 

 

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Where Did the Sun Go???

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131210_Sunflower in Snow by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MKIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/8.0, 1/80 sec, ISO 1600

This spent sunflower hung its head over when it couldn’t see the sun.  The ice crystals added to the “over the hill” state of the flower.  Even under the weight of the snow and ice, the stalk remained strong.

I normally do not use the presets in Silver Efex Pro, but this one (film noir #1) seemed to highlight the image I visualized.

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First Snow

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131209_Leaf in Snow by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MKIII with EF24-70mm f2.8L @ 62mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec. ISO 800

Fall color is gone.  We just had our first snow fall, quickly followed by freezing rain.  I got up early to capture the moment before it melted.  The fresh snow was covered by a thin layer of ice leaving interesting ice encased shapes.  To capture the contrast of the dark leaf against the bright snow, I over exposed by +2 stops.  Treatment in B&W captured the dreariness of the morning.

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Fall Color: Last Bloom

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131207_Fall_Last Bloom by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MKIII with EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 66mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec, ISO 1600

Looking down on a brilliant bed of fallen leaves, I noticed this single geranium bloom soaking up the early morning sun rays.  It stood out stretching its neck out to show off its last hurrah.  The rest of the plant had withered away preparing for the winter ahead.  I will have to wait until the end of May to catch its first bloom of the new year.

 

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Fall Color: Leaves in the Grass

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131206_Fall_Leaves in the Grass by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MKIII with EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 63mm, f/8.0, 1/400 sec, ISO 1600

The color of fall in Eastern Pennsylvania has all passed.  This entry is the start of a series of posts of an early November morning shoot in our back yard capturing the last of the fall color.  The early morning sun caught these fallen leaves just right to pop them out from the frosted grass.  Simple things tend to catch my eye.  I constantly look down as I walk through the landscape.

On this shoot, I was testing out the low noise performance of the 5D.  There was  a steady breeze which required me to use a fast shutter speed.  I also normally use a tripod where ever I go.  This day I wanted to be “free” and capture images quickly as I saw them.  With a high ISO of 1600, the 5D performed exceptionally well and allowed me to capture the images that I was targeting.

 

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When You See Red

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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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Emerging: Bleeding Hearts

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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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