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Stormy Landscape

January 14, 2011 in grass, landscape, Photo, storm, storm clouds | No comments

I’m a bit behind with my photos, so here is another one from the fall:

Stormy Landscape

We were visiting friends and as I looked out the window, the incredible light in the storm clouds caught my attention. Fortunately, my friends know me and did not comment when I grabbed my camera and ran to the door.

A few hundred meters further lay some fields, which made a wonderful counterweight to the clouds in the sky. While I was still standing and thinking about the composition, the sun broke through the clouds and shone on the grass below. In that moment, everything came together and I simply pressed the shutter release.

Autumn Foliage

November 1, 2010 in Photo | No comments

Autumn has been around for a few weeks now, and for the last two weeks or so, we’ve had some pretty fantastic light, especially in the morning. And for the last two weeks or so, I have either been unable to shoot at all or the images did not turn out the way I wanted them.

You can image my delight when, this weekend, I finally got everything just right …

This one was taken very early:

Autumn Road
Autumn Road

and this one later, when the sun was already up a bit, but still mostly behind clouds:

Autumn Treescape
Autumn Treescape

Both are the same row of trees, jut very different perspectives.

Water Lily

October 30, 2010 in black and white, flower, Nymphaea, Photo, water | No comments

The water lily (a.k.a Nympahea) in the image below was in a pond in a public garden. It was evening (we actually made it out just as they where locking up) and rapidly getting dark. I did not have a flash ready, so I shot a few frames as ISO 800, meaning to capture the wonderful dark pink color of the petals and the rich dark yellow of the stamina against the reflections of the dark water.

It turns out that I dislike the noise in the color image to the point of finding it objectionable. Noise reduction did not really work for me, because it removed all the texture from the petals due to smoothing. Before tossing the image, I decided to try it in black and white (thanks, Lenswork, for reminding me that black and white is not dead! But that’s for another post.)

In black and white, I like the slightly gritty texture on the petals that is caused by the noise.

Water Lily
Water Lily

What is, unfortunately, not visible here is the huge number of tiny drops on the petals. You can
see some of them (as splotches) on the petal in the 9 o’clock position, but there is a huge number of them on most of the petals. Either they are too small to be seen at this size, or my skill is insufficient to make them visible at this resolution – they are definitely there in the full image.

Does anyone want to purchase a print? 😉

Bee on a Tattered Heliopsis Flower

August 29, 2010 in Photo | No comments

I have been doing a lot of macro work lately, mostly studying my favorite summer garden flowers: oxeye (aka heliopsis).

The oxeye blossom has an interesting life-cycle, that may be the subject of a future post. In the following image, I found a blossom near the end of its lifespan: the petals are coming apart and the whole appearance of the flower is … tattered.

Still, there was apparently enough pollen and nectar left in the center to make it interesting enough for bees to come visiting.

Bee on a Tattered Heliopsis Flower

Because there was a slight wind causing the blossom to sway on its long stalk and because the bees where buzzing about, I decided to shoot hand-held, not from a tripod. Despite the bright afternoon sun, I needed some additional flash in order to get the short exposure time required to eliminate motion blur.

So there I was holding the camera in my left hand and a speedlite attached via a short cord in the other hand … No idea what the neighbors where thinking, but then, they should be used to me by now. 🙂

I think I will get a flash bracket real soon now.
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Pink Anemone XXV

August 10, 2010 in anemone, flower, macro, Photo, pink, yellow | No comments

About three quarters of a year after Anemone against the Light I have created another image of a pink anemone flower, this time lit from the front.

Anemone XXV
Anemone XXV

The flower was growing in the shade of a hedge, so a speedlight to camera left provided additional light. I used a reflector to camera right to soften up the shadows.

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