Archive for the 'Flowers' Category

Helleboreae

Warren, Connecticut. My friend Zarinna had a bowl full of these flowers floating in water. What a great idea and the water made for a great "armature" to hold the flowers upright for shooting.
Hellebore on wikipedia.

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Begonia propeller

Warren, Connecticut. We’re feeling rather wiped out today from a big Thanksgiving dinner, guests, and the inevitable cleanup, and it’s gloomy out so out comes the tripod and macro lens for a different perspective on the world. This flower is not doing well but has some nice little blooms on it.

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Coneflowers

Click the image above to start a slide show of the various image in this set. The slide show application has various tools including a button at bottom right to zoom to full screen. Let go of your mouse or trackpad and the slideshow will run automatically to the end or until you stop it. [...]

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Click the image above to start a slide show of the various image in this set. The slide show application has various tools including a button at bottom right to zoom to full screen. Let go of your mouse or trackpad and the slideshow will run automatically to the end or until you stop it. [...]

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Coneflowers

Warren, Connecticut. After our globe thistle session Gary and I drove down the road to Zarinna’s house to photograph her unusual coneflowers. Many of them were going by and their petals were shrinking but that made them all the more interesting.

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Globe Thistles

Click the image above to start a slide show of the various image in this set. The slide show application has various tools including a button at bottom right to zoom to full screen. Let go of your mouse or trackpad and the slideshow will run automatically to the end or until you stop it. [...]

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Los Angeles, California. I love pods and unopened flowers of all kinds; they’re totemic. This pod was sticking out into space with a nice bed of color behind it. Perfect spot to make impressionistic (Monet) bokeh sauce with a fast lens.

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Poppies

The Huntington Gardens, Pasadena, California. While most of the tourists were in the magnificent rose garden, my mother and I snuck into the small and out of the way herb garden where there were some nice poppies. Some of them looked suspiciously like opium and were oozing some kind of sap. No, I didn’t test [...]

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Daisy

Pasadena, California. The Huntington Gardens. I was hoping for lots of things to be in bloom but it was slim pickings today. There was a nice bed of these daisies and I set up the tripod low and sat there on the grass waiting for the breeze to die down. Numerous photographers stopped to see [...]

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Warren, Connecticut. This is just a quick test of my 135mm f/2 L lens with my 1.4x extender which makes the resulting combination 189mm with a max aperture of f/2.8. I’m considering the Canon 200mm f/2.8 L lens and wanted to see if what I have already with this combo might do the job.
Alex thought [...]

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Bud and bokeh

Los Angeles, California. There are many things in bloom Inside the labyrinth that is Robert Irwin’s Central Garden at The Getty Center. I shot this plant hoping that the colorful blur behind it might be as or more interesting than the plant.
For those of you who are interested in such things, note that this was [...]

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Warren, Connecticut. I’ve been driving by this group of globe thistle flowers in front of the author Francine du Plessix Gray’s house for the past week and finally stopped to shoot them. The group of them looked like it might lend itself to long lens impressionism. Maybe us long lens shallow depth of field painters [...]

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Coneflower clutter

Warren, Connecticut. I found a kaleidoscopic clump of coneflowers in all stages of development, baby to just about gone by and it was hard to know how to set the aperture to make a pleasing background with such coneflower clutter.

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Coneflower

Warren, Connecticut. I just can’t resist coneflowers (echinacea), they’re so dramatic, colorful, photogenic. I wonder what makes a flower photogenic, or, better, I wonder if the same things that attract us to flowers also attract bees and other insects? If I were a bee, I’d be all over these stamen.

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Wilted yellow daisies

Pasadena, California. I guess high summer is not the best time to photograph the herb garden at the Huntington Library and Garden. Most of my favorite plants had gone by or were wilted in the heat. Of course, I have an eye for flowers in decay and tried to make the most out of it [...]

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Daisy turbine

Warren, Connecticut. I feel like this daisy looks: wilted in the humidity. It’s hard to find the energy to get out and shoot when the dog days come, and it’s not even August yet.

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Yellow daisy after a rain

Warren, Connecticut. We just had a very fast and violent thunderstorm, poured rain with lightning and thunder for a half hour, then it was over as fast as it started. Everything’s soaked, dripping and steamy and I’m thinking flowers and water droplets. The good news is, now lawn mowing today. Yes!

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Dogwood from outer space

Warren, Connecticut. I spent an hour photographing beautiful, perfect dogwood blooms and then I ran across this old one going by. Some might say that young, beautiful flowers are the thing, but give me old flowers going by, they have character and are much more interesting to photograph.

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Lavender

New Preston, Connecticut. We were early for yoga class this morning and next door to the building the class is held in is a small herb garden. Anne rolled her eyes and groaned when I broke out the macro gear to see about a picture of this lavender plant before class started.
I didn’t know lavender [...]

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Bug on weed

Washington, Connecticut, Macricostas Preserve. This little flower is about one half in across (this is not a daisy) and after going to all the trouble to set up the tripod and get things lined up, an intruder dropped in. I figured he’d leave soon enough but he stayed for twenty minutes so I gave up, [...]

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