Another Dogwood

Dogwood

Here is another shot of the dogwoods. It is a bit more of a traditional viewpoint.

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Spring in Spartanburg

Dogwoods

It has been Spring for a few weeks and I have been remiss in my Spring photography. Truthfully, just as it officially turned to Spring we had a blast of Winter-like weather, i.e. cool, wet and overcast. Anyway, here is a different view of one of the dogwood trees in my yard.

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Retirement Roses

Retirement Roses

My sister-in-law recently retired after 30 years with the Gaston County Library System. For most of that time she worked at one of their branch libraries. This is just a simple photograph of one of the flower arrangements at her retirement party.

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Spring Moon

Spring Moon

Spring is finally here. Dogwoods and other trees are blooming. Remember those blooming trees I photographed from my son's school a couple of weeks ago? There are several of those trees all around the campus. When we went out to the school the other day, I spent some time photographing some that were near the playground. I noticed that the Moon was clearly visible in the afternoon sky. So, I played around with it and the flowering trees. This image is my favorite. If you zoom in on the Moon, you can clearly see the craters and texture of the Lunar surface. I thought that the blurred flowers around it made a nice frame.

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Purple Beauty

Purple Orchid

Here is another orchid from last weekend's trip. Rather than use a macro lens (which I don't have) or my telephoto lens with an extension tube (to fake a macro lens) I used my ultra-wide angle and got as close as I could to the flowers. This is a different way of getting close-ups, but can be effective at times.

Have a good weekend.

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Orchids

Red Orchids

Here are a couple of red orchids I photographed in the Conservatory at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens. I liked this because of the long stamen coming out of the petals as well as the red, waxy petals themselves. Very different from many of the other orchids in the Conservatory.

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Hints of Spring

First Blooms

It has been seasonably cool/cold around here lately. The temperature hasn't been getting above 45 to 50 F since the new year. We will have a day or two of sunny days followed by several days of cooler, wet days. All in all, it has been a typical, if slightly cooler, winter. We did have a bit of sleet / ice that accumulated some a couple of weeks ago, but nothing really notable.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I noticed several of the trees around my son's school were starting to get their spring buds and blossoms. The trees certainly couldn't be confused about the seasons as we have not really had much "Spring" like weather. I guess they are just early bloomers. The first hints of Spring to get us through the rest of winter.


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Fall Flowers

Fall Flowers

We usually think of Autumn as the time of year when leaves are falling off the trees as the trees begin to hibernate for the winter. However, there are some plants that flower during this time of year as well. They can make surprising contrasts of color to the typical seasonal palette. I don't know what this purple flowering plant is, but it's light purple hue was a surprise to me. I tried to accent them against the blurred Autumn colors in the background. Kind of a different take on the season, I suppose.

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Buds

Buds

More flowers from Hatcher Gardens. It really is a nice place to spend an hour or two during the day. I'm glad to have a place like it so close to the house.

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Testing

Daisies

I wanted to test my extension tubes with a couple of my lenses before we go on vacation later this month. So, we headed to Hatcher Gardens again for a few minutes. One of the places we plan on visiting has a butterfly garden. That means that I would need a macro lens of some kind. However, all I have are a set of extension tubes that fit between the lens and camera. I haven't used them in a while, and realized that I needed to use them again to refamiliarize myself with the extension tubes. Hatcher Gardens is a great place for me to try new stuff out and to practice. It is close to the house and always has something to photograph. Due to an approaching thunderstorm, we only had about thirty minutes at the park. It was enough time to test a couple of lenses with the extension tubes though. Now I have a better idea how they will affect the lenses that I will have with me on the trip.

The moral of the story: Never use new equipment for the first time when you are photographing something important. Always try it out first to give yourself some time to understand the equipment.

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Pink in Spring

Pink Blooms

I had to fall back on something from early in the month for today's photograph. So, here are some some pink flowers from Kalmia Gardens. Flowers always say "Spring", don't they?

I have been practicing some portrait lighting with my son modeling for me. However, I'm not happy with the results yet. Practice, practice, practice. I'll get the hang of this people picture-taking thing yet.

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Off the porch

Irises and the Porch.

A shot of a couple of iris blooms near the back porch of Rose Hill Plantation. It seemed as if we were at the plantation between blooms. The roses had not yet come out in full, the dogwoods were loosing their petals, the magnolias either had not yet bloomed or had long lost them. However, there were a few irises along one of the walkways near the back porch. It kind of makes you think back to those days doesn't it?

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Four in a row

Four in a row.

Another image of Spring blooming in Kalmia Gardens. I hope your spring is colorful this year.

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Spring!

Dogwoods in Bloom

We had a rainy weekend, but the sun finally came out on Sunday. I went down to Cleveland Park here in town for a little walk. It was quite windy, but I found a couple of surprises which will get posted later this week.

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On the Edge

On the Edge

Yesterday I spent an hour at a local nature park called Hatcher Gardens. It was a beautiful afternoon: clear, cool, a good breeze. My favorite kind of weather. I ended up playing around with my 50mm lens again and got some interesting shots of the small waterfall in the park as well as some flower images. The waterfall was in a dark, shaded spot and I was using slow shutter speeds to blur the water. They are kind of abstract, but that was the effect I was going for. Sometime I will take a tripod and try to capture them the "correct" way.

He's a photograph of some of the flowers. There was some interesting contrasts between lighted and shadowed areas. Notice how the flower in the foreground is nicely backlit.

Pink Glow

That's it for today. There is a Revolutionary War re-enactment tomorrow that I hope to go to. I hope the weather is as nice tomorrow as it has been the past couple of days.

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A Farewell to Spring

Cherry Blossoms in Cleveland Park; Spartanburg, SC; Spring 2008

I had planned to post about some of my favorite photography books today. However, I'm feeling a bit under the weather and don't think I could manage it today. So, I'll work on it over the weekend for early next week.

In the meantime, the weather here seems to have changed with the recent solstice. It has been cool and we are getting the Autumn rains which we so desperately need. This time of year has it's own beauty with the changing colors, but it is hard not to look back toward spring. Today's photograph was taken this past spring at a local park. It was the first time I'd been to that park and was quite thrilled that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. The bees certainly seemed to enjoy the blossoms too as they never even seemed to notice me.

Have a good weekend and Keep Shooting.

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A Dash of Yellow

A Dash of Yellow

Flowers are always a popular photographic subject. For this shot, instead of wanting one flower in sharp focus, I wanted a field of purple with a couple of points of yellow. So, I used a shallow depth of field and zoomed all the way out with my lens. I also had to get down low and close the flowers to further exagerate the depth of field.

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Some Birds and Flowers

I dropped my son off at my parents this weekend for a week long visit. I spent the night there as it is a long drive and I didn't feel like driving it twice in one day. While I was there I helped get their wireless network working with my father's new laptop. I also spent some time out on the patio trying to photograph the birds that were visiting their bird feeder.

A couple more after the jump.




Most of the shots turned out blurry. I guess a combination of the low, evening light, full zoom and a maximum aperture of f/5.6 where to blame for it. I probably should have used a tripod which I will do next time. I also tried to get some photographs of hummingbirds at my parent's feeder, but those were even worse. I had to shoot the hummingbirds through two panes of window glass and I think the camera focused on the glass instead of the birds. It was still neat to see the little birds. My mom said they were juveniles just starting to get their wings as it were.





They also have a couple of hydrenia bushes that are nearly as old as I am that were in full bloom. Quite a nice color of light blue on them right now.





That's it for now. The full gallery is here, but it isn't very large and is variations of the above shots.

Have fun and keep shooting.
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