Tag Archives: Spring

Yakima Arboretum Early Spring IR

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160406_Yakima ArboretumCanon XT-IR, Tamron 18-270mm @ 65mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 400

Cherry trees are in bloom and brilliant green leaves are emerging at the Yakima Arboretum.  It is a great time to get out my old IR converted Canon Rebel XT and try out some IR imagery.  It was a beautiful spring day and I had a little time in the middle of the day to get out and explore.  I chose to work in B&W using Infrared.  The Arboretum was showing its early spring pink and white blooms of the cherries and pears as well as a few trees with emerging brilliant light green leaves.  Tomorrow I will go again with my normal camera.

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Looking Back in History

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160329_Flume and HillsideCanon 7D MkII, EF 100-400L @ 105mm, f/11, 1/400 sec, ISO 400

Looking out my office window, this is what I see.  The wood flume brings our irrigation water down from the upper Naches River.  The flume is around 100 years old and adds charm to our countryside.  Next year they plan to replace it with a pipeline because of the high maintenance.  It breaks my heart to see our history dismantled for progress.

During the next year, I will explore the flume’s path along our neighboring hill side.

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It Is Good to be Back in the Country

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160328_Lonesome TreeCanon 7D MkII, EF 100-400mm L@ 100mm, f/11, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400

This is my first blog entry since the end of 2015.  Since then I have moved from Bucks County, Pennsylvania (between Philly and NY City) to rural Central Washington.  It is good to be back home in the country side where I grew up.  Life is simpler here.

Residential growth has expanded in the rural areas.  The area where I live was an orchard belonging to one of my school mates family.  I remember exploring the area when I was a kid.  There is a lot of rural charm in the area including this tree located on a nearby side hill.  There are still a lot of undeveloped areas to explore.  My challenge will be to get out several times a week, walk the area and find new adventures.

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More Fallen Cherry Blossoms – New Perspectives

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150513_More Fallen Cherry Blossoms-1 by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 60mm, f/11, 1/20 sec, ISO 200

Fallen cherry blossoms covered the ground beneath the trees.  I was able to get a few images before the lawn mowing gang cut the grass and swept away the beautiful blooms.  The past few weeks are typically my favorite weeks in the garden each year.  For a few days we are lucky to have the flowering pears, flowering plum, flowering crab apple, and flowering cherries all in bloom at the same time. It is peaceful and beautiful in the garden.

The image below is a new perspective using multiple exposures while zooming out.

150513_More Fallen Cherry Blossoms-2 by Karl Graf.

A different look is achieved by a long exposure and a zoom pan as seen below.

150513_More Fallen Cherry Blossoms-3 by Karl Graf.

Which one catches your eye?  I like them all.

 

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Fallen Cherry Blossoms – A Different Perspective

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150512_Fallen Cherry Blossoms_ME2-2 by Karl Graf.

Impressionistic Cherry Blossoms.

I was having a lot of fun creating multiple exposures and just experimenting with various artistic ways of processing images when I came up with this combination.  I first started out taking individual images of fallen cherry blossoms.  I then experimented with multiple exposures (5 exposures in this case).  I then further experimented with different artistic presets in Topaz Impression (Georgia O’Keefe II) to arrive at this image.

For reference, below is the 5 image multiple exposure:

150512_Fallen Cherry Blossoms_ME1 by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/8, 1/30 sec, ISO 200 (5 exposures)

Lesson Learned:  Enjoy experimenting, you can never tell what you can come up with!

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When You Are On a Roll

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150502_Pear2_ME by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/8, 1/1000 sec, ISO 200 (Multiple Exposure)

When things are working, keep the ball rolling.  I was happy with the multiple exposure showed in my last post, so I thought I would try another as the wind was blowing the branches around.  The multiple exposure feature of the 5D MkIII allowed me to see the combined image rather than waiting for post processing.

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Flowering Pear – Multiple Exposure

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150501_Pear_ME by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, f/8, 1/1000, ISO 200  (Multiple Exposure)

I was taking images of our flowering Bradford pear.  I could not get anything that really caught my eye.  Then the wind started blowing, the moving blossoms created a surrealistic image in my mind.  How to capture this … why not try a multiple exposure.  I took a 5 image multiple exposure slightly moving my camera, the wind took care of the rest.

Lesson Learned:  Don’t give up.  Work the image.  Visualize and try something else.

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Springtime at Peace Valley

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150425_Male Cardinal by Karl G. Graf. Canon 7D MkII, EF100-400mm 3.5-5.6L IS @ 400mm, f/7.1, 1/1250 sec, ISO 1600

A couple of days ago, I took a couple of hours to visit Peace Valley Park to try to get a couple of nature shots.  As I arrived, three bus loads of kids arrived for a field trip.  There went my opportunity to get any wildlife shots with all the noise.  It was a great day for the kids though.  So I put my camera to my side and just enjoyed the walk in the woods.

When I got back to the nature center, I thought I would try the bird blind.  It provided a good spot to try out my new 100-400mm zoom and the low noise and fast shutter speed performance of my new Canon 7D MkII.  I was pleased with both.

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Buddies

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150422_Yellow & White Daffodils by Karl G. Graf. 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!

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