Lighting is probably the most important element of a good photograph. As photographers, we learn the best time of day for the best lighting and we also learn to manipulate it. Our manipulations can be dramatic or subtle. Today I’ve chosen subtle.
What can be better than a walk through Brookgreen Gardens at the height of Spring? Our grandson was visiting over his spring break from school and a walk through their zoo was a perfect excuse to enjoy the weather.
This week our challenge is a little different than normal. We are to pick a color and then pick photos from our archives containing that color and present them from the photo with largest amount of that color to the smallest amount. I chose the color purple.
My first photo is a beautiful coral display in the aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. My aunt lives there and mom and I spent a couple of weeks with her a couple of years ago. We explored a lot of the sites I remembered from visits there while a child as well as new sites like the aquarium. It is one of the best aquariums I’ve seen and recommend you visit if in Chattanooga.
Nothing makes me happier than a good bee capture. The original photo is full of purple flowers but I cropped it for a closer look at the bee.
This photo was taken at Huntington Beach State Park. Most days are great for bird watching – you’ll find herons, egrets, anhingas and more. This heron was the last to leave for the night and I was getting some last minute shots. The sun was just about to set and the heron seemed as interested in the sunset as I was in getting a picture of him looking at the sunset! I wish I could say that I set this shot up but I can’t. I was dialing all sorts of combinations into my camera and got lucky.
This photo was taken at the end of a long beach day. We’d been there since early morning with our umbrella and cooler. The weather was great – no humidity and a cool breeze – you couldn’t ask for any better.Days like this will cure whatever ails you.
This is one of my favorite beach shots – four friends enjoying the day with their toes in the water. A little Photoshop magic and I have a image for my next project.
For my smallest and last purple picture is one purple jelly bean in a bowl of jelly beans. It was taken for a photography class a couple of years ago.
So this week our challenge is to get outside and take some photos of Spring. Yay! With warm weather now outside and being fully vaccinated, I needed no further encouragement to grab my camera and head out to Brookgreen Gardens.
The colors were absolutely beautiful and although there were some empty beds, the air was filled with the perfume of the flowers.
I stopped at the outside kitchen to take a break and grab some water and a cookie (chocolate chip – delicious!) and watched these little birds stroll back and forth looking for crumbs.
This week, guest host Anne has invited us to take out our macro lens and get busy. I have to admit though that I’ve not taken out my macro in a long time – much too long so I’ve pulled out some photos from my files.
Most of my macro shots are flowers in bloom so it was hard to pick just a few.
Can you smell them? I can.
And here is a begonia closeup edited to be a Valentine Day’s card.
Spring is meant for a walk in the garden. The photo above is one of my favorites. I sat in the middle of the grasses taking photos as the light wind blew the grasses around me.
Yellow flowers always brighten my mood.
The purple and pink flowers were gorgeous also.
Don’t these lilies look like they’re reaching out for a hug?
Pearls Creative Designs is my newest project. I’ve been playing with Photoshop and Illustrator making patterns and graphic art elements and have them put together in collections. I’d love it if you’d take a look!
Cee is guest hosting this week and she has challenged us to show one single flower. So I went looking through my files trying to narrow my choices down.
I decided to share photos with either a bee or butterfly on the flower. I love good flower photos but there is something especially fascinating to me about capturing a bee or butterfly during their “pollen” rounds.
Unfortunately, my winged friends move so quickly so it’s not always easy to get a clear photo. But I persist. Once I followed a bee around and around a camellia shrub 3 or 4 times until I got a photo I was happy with.
Butterflies are harder to track through. Bees are methodical going from one flower to the next one over so you can anticipate their path. Butterflies flit from one flower to the other randomly – it’s more hit and miss.
This week Patti has asked us to post in monochrome.
I don’t understand why some people think that monochrome/black and white is dull and boring. It often picks us nuances that would otherwise be unseen.
As an example, I never saw the clouds in the beach photo above until I converted it to black and white.
It was an overcast day when I took this photo so it was no surprise that it came out of the camera very blah. Converting the photo to black and white brought out the clouds and the birds in the foreground.
Bright, colorful flowers are always beautiful and can cheer anyone up but I get just as many comments on these coneflowers in black and white that I display at art shows.
Sometimes, I convert a photo to black and white just because I can. This is a photo of the Murrells Inlet pier taken on another overcast day. The color photo below is more true to the subject that day but the black and white is much more dramatic.
How to frame the shot is one of the most important decisions a photographer makes in getting a perfect capture. This week Patti has asked us to “fill the frame”. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it means to get in close so that your subject fills the frame. Filling the frame is a very powerful tool in a photographer’s toolbelt.
Sometimes I fill the frame when editing the photo and I’ll crop it to get the shot I want. The balloon above and the three below are examples of cropping to fill the frame.
These next photos are examples of filling the frame when the photo is initially taken. It makes for a more dramatic photo.
Of course, any time I take out my macro, it’s a fill the frame day!
... about nothing in particular, because "Candid photography is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get". Photography by Lignum Draco, "The Wood Dragon" since 2013.
Photography in Pearls 