pink

You are currently browsing articles tagged pink.

The windflowers in the last post are wilting away, unfortunately before I had a chance to re-visit them. Instead, the bleeding heart flowers are in full bloom – such is the cycle of life.

The bleeding heart, also known as Venus’s car, Dutchman’s trousers, lyre flower or by their latin name lamprocapnos spectabilis is originally from Korea and north and western China, but it seems to do very well in almost any temperate climate, so it is a very popular garden plant.

We simply let it grow and cut the wilted stalks short in the fall and they come back year after year.

Bleeding Heart Flowers in a Row

Bleeding Heart Flowers

In order to take the photo, I mounted the camera on a tripod and used an insane amount of extension (over 50 mm for a 70-200 mm lens). Despite an aperture of f/16, the depth of field is extremely shallow, about 2-3 mm in my estimate. That, combined with the light wind that moves the flowers like swings on a playground, made it challenging to get sharp images.

What really amazes me is how the lower white parts of the blossoms are textured. I had never noticed this with the real flowers before taking these pictures. Which just goes to show how photography can expand your awareness of the world. 🙂

Lately, we have experienced some trouble with our oven. Overcoming these difficulties (by application of an oven thermometer and dialing in some temperature compensation) my wife has managed to bake one of her wonderful cheesecakes to her satisfaction again. Here is what it looked like in all of its scrumptious goodness before our guests found it:

Cheesecake with Pink Rose

Cheesecake with Pink Rose.

I think that Andrew will be most pleased; now that harmony has been restored, my wife can try his delicious cheesecake recipe. 🙂

In case you are interested, I deliberately underexposed by about -2 EV to get rich, saturated colors. Yes, the browns are now very dark, so the edges look like they may have been baked a bit crispy. If this was for a cookbook (instead of a mood shot), I might use a mask in Photoshop to lighten the edges of the cake. As it stands, I prefer the mysterious, moody richness hinted at in this image.

The anemones have just begun to bloom. I love these flowers and relish the opportunity to take pictures of them. Here is this year’s first (good) anemone picture:

A pink anemone flower photographed against the light.

Pink Anemone Flower

I like anemones for their delicate beauty which is so visible when you look at the colored veins and spots against the light. Can you see the tiny hairs that line the petals? And the shadows the flower throws on itself in the sunlight?

Have I mentioned that I really love these flowers? No, I do not think you could have guessed. 🙂

Cactus Flower

Cactus Flower No. 10

Cactus Flower No. 10

Early in the morning I saw that one of the cacti on my window sill had started to grow a long appendage carrying a flower bud. By about 8 p.m. the bud started opening up.

Around midnight the flower was in full bloom with delicate pink petals spread wide to allow some desert insect to spread pollen and repeat the circle of life. Sadly, that would not happen on my window sil. 🙁

By the next morning the flower had wilted away again.