Some of my lavender seemed to bloom forever this year, but for the last month or so I’ve been watching the blossoms turn brown. I’ve always liked dried flowers- here are a few I photographed today.
Today’s Flickr group topic was VERY BIG. When I volunteered at school today I snapped this very big teaching clock held by a very little student.
I am loving the beautiful weather and am embracing the signs of spring all around us, while trying to ignore the voice in my head that says- We need rain! Here are some of the blossoms from trees in our garden.
The topic today is art. It could be your photo as art, art supplies- anything art related. I am waiting to see if my photo buddy, Carol, posts a photo of her brother, Art.
But, seriously- art?
Although I stated yesterday’s blurry photo was art (in the loosest sense of the word. . .)- deliberately setting out to create a photo that would be considered “ART” was a little daunting to me today.
Then I remembered the advice I read to just look for light- so I did. I took seventeen macro photos outside in about ten minutes, and this one was the first I took. I don’t know if it is particularly arty, but it is almost abstract- and I love the light. FYI, it is the leaves of one of my irises, not yet blooming.
Don’t panic- these photos are supposed to be blurry!
I LOVED today’s assignment- deliberate blur abstract. I’ve played with this a bit before with intentional camera movement, my exploding Christmas tree, and photos where only a small slice of the image is in focus (some of my chrysanthemum shots from a week or so ago). But some of the people in the group are APPALLED! It’s funny! As photographers, much of our focus is on, well. . . FOCUS! Achieving sharp focus isn’t always easy- and to deliberately throw it away- oy vey!
But I like to explore the artistic as well as the technical side of photography- and creating a pleasing image that is out of focus is almost harder than an in focus one. I like the impressionistic feel of many deliberately blurry photos- and there are many beautiful ones out there (with much more creative subjects than my flowers). I want to try this some more when I have more time.
Oh- the top photo is of geraniums and the bottom is my chrysanthemums again.
Bored and uninspired today.
I took the camera with a zoom lens outside and took a few shots. Here’s a closeup of a gerbera daisy gone to seed- with bonus bokeh.
and a plum blossum with some more bokeh. . .
and one of my backyard visitors to the spilled birdseed. He’s checking me out before descending to the deck.
A few days ago, I bought a modest bird feeder. I hung it temporarily on our deck, because I couldn’t reach the tree branch- and wondered to myself if the squirrels might be able to reach it. Yesterday, I noticed there was a LOT of birdseed under the feeder- and a bunch of little birds (sorry, don’t know what kind. . .) and a dove were having a great time pecking around the flower pots getting their fill of birdseed. Today, when I came home, I found an empty feeder and THIS. . .
I took this photo through the glass door. It was hard to get a good shot of him- but look at the “starburst” in his eye. That is not photoshopped in- I guess it’s a reflection of the glass door. It was noon, so the lighting was difficult.
And then, all of a sudden, I noticed THIS (the photo is out of focus, but will give you an idea of what I am dealing with):
Two more squirrels were frolicking on the deck, around and over the plants and railings having a wonderful time. Their tummies were full, and they were feeling oh so frisky.
I took this last shot before I opened the door, scaring them (temporarily) away.
I am NOT refilling the feeder until it is hung in a better spot.
Last year I recorded our plum tree’s first blossoms, which opened on Day 39. This year we missed the first blossoms, which appeared while we were in Kansas. We returned on Day 32, so the first blossoms opened about a week earlier this year than last. Is this a normal variation- or a response to the lack of winter weather we are experiencing?
I am so glad to be back to my beloved macro lens- I just love shooting up close! For my photo of the day, I went with today’s theme, foliage.
I was hoping to find birds on the rooftops in our neighborhood as I went out on a mission to shoot a photo for today’s challenge- rooftops. I ended up liking the views of bare birches against the winter sky. . .
. . . and mossy branches against our neighbors’ garage. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find some interesting rooftop views.
A quick trip to the garden to find FOUR of something to satisfy today’s challenge yielded this sprig of rosemary with four blossoms. I took a few shots outside, but the cold wind (yes, there is a tiny bit of actual weather here this morning!) made it difficult to achieve focus. I broke off a little bit and took a couple photos inside using my tripod.
Look who is visiting the (very narrow) open space behind our house!
f/10, 1/80, ISO 500, 200mm
This is one of those uninspired days. Thank goodness for Texture Tuesday and for Flickr topics- otherwise I would be even blanker than I am right now! One of the ODC topics this week is Going Green, so I took some photos of the green leaves in our yard and textured them with one layer of Kim Klassen’s cool grunge and another layer of peacock.
Yes, I intentionally took this photo OUT OF FOCUS! It’s called Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)- probably invented by someone like me who struggles to get their photos IN focus! There are even Flickr groups devoted to photos taken this way- and some of the images are stunningly beautiful. Anyway, I had so much fun trying it out- and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up liking several and chose this one taken in my back yard (of course).
f/22, 1/6, ISO 160, 35mm
Rain is the topic today in my ODC group, and it isn’t raining. Not feeling too inspired, I turned the hose on some leaves and snapped a quick macro. It’s not cheating really- it’s improvising. . .
The colors in the web are what attracted me to this photo. I was trying to quickly find some colored leaves this morning for a macro shot, but noticed the web. I added a texture because. . .well, the photo needed rescuing! There were blown highlights I couldn’t recover- so I filled them in with texture. I love Photoshop!
melinda anderson photography 