Classical Photography

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Parade of water lilies and dragonflies

At the Frank Schwartz gardens Saturday, on an outing with the CNPA, I found a good variety of plants and insects to photograph. I'll start this installment with an ultra-wide angle view from just a few inches above a pond.

I was hoping to get some good photo ops with dragonflies, but they didn't become active until later in the morning, so I began by shooting various flowers.

Pac-Man has a lot of freckles.

I did not use a polarizer for this next shot. Rather, at a particular angle the blue sky reflected intensely and other areas of water were clear enough to show the bottom.

Note the effect of the slightly different perspective between the next two images.

Then some bees began to appear. This little one entered a composition I had set up showing two entire flowers, and this is cropped from that shot, so it's not as crisp as I might have liked. I like the colors and the composition though (even if I do say so myself).

At last, a dragonfly actually lit on a colorful flower!

Sometimes two is a crowd. These bees were feeding off the same two flowers, when one bee came in for a landing almost on top of the other.

Coming up are the kinds of twigs and high perches that the dragons seem to favor.

The following image of two flowers in a dark pool of water is my personal favorite of the outing.

Here's another lily in a nice setting.

There was a mass of (frog's?) eggs covering a lily pad and extending into the water. They are held together by a gelatinous matrix that proved to be a dangerous trap for a hapless dragonfly.

A good samaritan tried to rescue the dragonfly, but I fear it was doomed.

To close, a hybrid of two color varieties.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/parade-of-water-lilies-and-dragonflies.html

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Close look at a dragonfly face

Saturday morning at Frank Schwartz Water and Garden Creations, there were so many flowers and insects to photograph that I'm still editing them today. Before I get around to choosing some favorite "artsy" flower shots to display, I'm going to post one dragonfly pic that I liked for two reasons. The first version is a cropped rendition, showing lots of detail in the head and thorax. Look at the fuzzy face and the multi-faceted compound eyes!

Below is the full image, with an interesting mix of shapes of the plants and the dragon. I think they "play well together".

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/close-look-at-dragonfly-face.html

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Sunday, July 13, 2014

Waiting for a fly

Two photos rolled into one animated gif - a frog waiting very patiently for a meal Saturday morning. Note that except for his (her?) throat, he was exceptionally still. The water was gently moving. I did not manage to catch the fully distended throat that went with the occasional call (hmm, I suppose that means this was a male?), but as you see, got it halfway there.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/waiting-for-fly.html

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Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Using twenty two photos to create one flower image

A focus stack of 22 images!

Self-assignment parameters:

1. Photograph Tiger lily, capturing detail in all parts of the flower.
2. Hint at the form of the rest of the plant, but keep all other aspects of the background unobtrusive.
3. Make the perspective and balance of forms pleasing.

Here is how I went about it:

1. I chose a lens that would cover the field that I wanted to include - a mature flower, and an incipient bloom for contrast - from a nice distance, a meter or so. Not where I'd put my nose to sniff the aroma, but where you might stop to admire a fresh flower. My choice was a 135mm f/2.

2. I set the aperture wide open at f/2, to soften the background as much as possible.

3. With the camera on a tripod, I arranged my composition and focused on the part closest to the camera lens. Here is that first shot:

4. After the first exposure, I shifted the focus rearward by a very small amount, and shot another frame.

5. I repeated the process until I had an image with the focus on the most distant part of my primary subject.

6. After making basic adjustments to the first raw file (in Adobe Lightroom), I applied those settings to all 22 image files, then loaded them into Adobe Photoshop as one multi-layered document.

7. Selecting all of the layers, I used Auto-align (in the Edit menu) and then auto-blended the layers to use the sharpest, most detailed renditions of each area.

The result is a nice crisp image of the Tiger lily and its coming cousin, with a soft background that complements them.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/using-twenty-two-photos-to-create-one.html

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Sunday, July 6, 2014

Flower, low water, dragon(fly)

A motley three from wanderings Saturday with only a 70-200 zoom.

Cropped a bit:

Cropped a lot:

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/flower-low-water-dragonfly.html

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Very Muddy Duck

The water level at one of my favorite lakes for photographing birds was unusually low today.

There were some healthy looking wildflowers along the shore.

I watched a duck taking advantage of the reduced distance from log top to lake bottom (in a marshy periphery) and apparently hunting for something like crayfish in the mud. No need to dive!

Whatever food was captured, a bill full of mud accompanied.

Splish splash!

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/very-muddy-duck.html

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Friday, July 4, 2014

Flowers and Leaves

They made a hot summer afternoon feel a bit cooler.

Coneflowers:

Lamb's Ear:

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/flowers-and-leaves.html

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Symphony Lake, Independence Day

A quiet moment at the lake by Koka Booth Amphitheater, before the North Carolina Symphony performance and the fireworks.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/symphony-lake-independence-day.html

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Rosemary

The light on this scene only lasted a few minutes. I jumped out of my car, grabbed a camera and mounted the lens that I thought would do justice to the subject. Got the shot, and then the sun was blocked by trees.