Mandevilla and liriope in bloom

Soaked by rain, the wild liriope went crazy with purple flowers. Thanks to a post by an anonymous commenter, I now know a bit of the relationship, in Greek mythology, between Liriope and Narcissus. Narkissos was her son, and was transformed into the eponymous flower after his short, self-adoring life.

A neighbor does a beautiful job of cultivating flowers, like this Mandevilla. A nice perk for all who live nearby!

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A look back at spring flowers

I won't fill the page with text and image analysis today. This is just a flower shot that I found in going through some of last year's photos. Feel free to offer your own reactions in the comments section.

Thanks for looking!

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Today the magnolias were ready for their portrait session

Yes, I was able to train my lens (actually, lenses) on some "properly finished" flowers today. This follows the sequence of magnolia shots from one tree yesterday.

Magnolia blossoms can offer their sweet fragrance for a surprisingly extended portion of late spring and early summer, but the peak appearance for any one flower doesn't last very long. Spotting some photogenic examples and having some time, I brought a selection of focal lengths. The long lenses (200 and 300mm) gave me tight framing of subjects I couldn't approach closely, and the macro lens (100mm) let me get very close to the one flower that was literally under my nose.

After photographing the large magnolias, I shot a group of tiny orange flowers. Then I finished with a dead magnolia leaf that made a striking contrast against the ground cover and a pine cone. It's all part of my continuing exploration of the aesthetics of the less-than-ideal landscape.

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Stages of blossoming in a magnolia tree, and flower photography aesthetics

Hoping to find subjects signifying the shift toward summer, I did some flower photos today. I'm saving my favorite shot for last, but first, please indulge me as I describe a fifteen minute project that preceded it. On one very large magnolia tree, I was interested to see about half a dozen distinct stages of blossom development - all at the same time. They are posted in the order that I found them, rather than order of development. In fact, these first five shots probably show the reverse of a normal progression. I hope you'll pardon some fanciful nomenclature.

First, we have the lint brush magnolia:

Next, a magnolia pet fur brush:

Here is a party-ready fake nose magnolia:

A soft-serve ice cream cone magnolia:

A candelabra bulb magnolia:

I had to find a different tree to catch a mature, open flower today, although within a very few days some of the children pictured above should be into this stage. I'm hoping to capture some of them in more pristine condition than this one:

On from the magnolias to day lilies. Photographing flowers and hoping for a little more than a record or identification shot calls for some use of imagination. I like to try to spot inherently beautiful specimens, but more important factors, for me, are finding attractive light, a complementary background, and just the right perspective and framing. Often it is difficult to make all of these things happen within one image. These are just quick attempts, but like most forms of practice, photo sketches can help to sharpen one's skills. Occasionally an image of this sort will even compete with carefully completed photographs, though that should not be an expectation for a typical outcome.

I like the way these different colored hydrangeas are arranged as if they hybridized on the spot.

This last is my favorite composition of the day. Although it's not a new approach by any means (I've played with this type of color contrast and foreground-background separation often enough before), it worked for me in a way that seems effective without being forced. I hope other viewers will have a similar reaction, but of course I want to know what you think.

All of the photos today were shot with a Canon 70-200 mm f/4L IS lens. For nine of the ten I zoomed to 200 mm. The penultimate shot (sharply focused hydrangea flowers and leaves) was done at 85 mm.

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Changing of the guard

As we approach the midpoint of spring, a new crop of flowers, wild and cultivated, is putting in an appearance. Before moving to some of the examples I photographed today, here is a last look at one of the last happy irises, shot twelve days ago, May 14. It was done at 155 mm with a 70-200. Sometimes you can't beat the flexibility of a zoom lens to get just the right combination of perspective and framing of an image.

Today I did some quick work with my 100 L, trying to create some "atmosphere". Here's a hydrangea in the foreground, with some other flowers in the background blurred into a color wash.

This fingertip-sized bud was asking to be featured and compared with the larger mature blossom near it. The image has not been manipulated in Adobe Photoshop®. I adjusted the raw file's "normal" parameters (exposure, highlights, whites, clarity, vibrance) in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® to emphasize the impression made by the existing light.

I wonder if I'm the only user of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom who wishes that they had named the "Vibrance" adjustment "Vibrancy". At any rate, this is an excellent feature that Adobe introduced a few years ago. It permits raising (or lowering) the color saturation, but with protection of skin tones (of obvious importance for portrait photographers like me), and generally affecting blues and greens more than reds. Also, for all hues, the Vibrance slider can increase saturation of pale tones while leaving already heavily saturated colors alone, avoiding clipping. (In this context, clipping would mean that the value of one color channel may already be as high as it can go in certain areas of the image, so increasing the color saturation throughout the image would require pushing the value in those areas out of the possible range, resulting in color shifts and flattening of the luminance curve.)

My next version of this same photo did receive some "massaging" in Photoshop. I selected the background and made a new layer in overlay mode. With no change to the foreground, it adds impact through contrast. It may be too much for this one. In print, I would probably choose a compromise between the two versions.

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Flowers and fungi

Sometimes April showers bring May showers, and mushrooms along with flowers. I found these in a school yard yesterday.

Leader of the pack.

Lopsided beauty.

Fenced in.

Standout.

Contemplation.

Broken Symmetry.

All of the photos were made with a 70-200/2.8 lens. Most were shot wide open at f/2.8, except the mushroom was done at f/8 to extend the gritty detail a little further, and "Broken symmetry" at f/5.6 for full sharpness of the flower on the right.

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Bearded Iris

This large Bearded Iris was far later in blooming than various smaller irises around it, not to mention similar ones I've seen in passing around town. Yesterday, it "suddenly" opened in the late afternoon. I feel very lucky that I had a chance, today, to photograph it while it was still fresh and beguiling, and the light was soft and beautiful. How could I dislike rainy weather when it yields such results? It was also fortunate that the wind didn't reach the point of tearing delicate features.

Composing the picture was a matter of seeking a view that would show a lot of curves, a mix of overlap and edges for dimensionality, balance of weighty shapes and negative space. I don't think about these things while shooting, or rather they mostly flit around in my subconscious. After years of explicitly critiquing my own work in these terms, I'd like to think that some benefit is beginning to show up in my "automatic" choices. At any rate, this is something that I'll always be able to work on, no matter what happens in the realm of camera technology.

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