The Pink Rose

 

I took this photograph at Larry and Shelley’s house. Actually, I took it with my cellphone . I believe this is the first image I have used from my phone. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the resolution. I am not real happy with the way this looks so I may work on it later. (Update: I did change it and it looks a lot better, it is just rather small compared to my other photos). It has been several months since I posted and now that the weather is warm, I will work on doing more.  I downloaded the image using Adobe Bridge into camera raw where I increased the vibrance and lowered the exposure a little. Then took it into Photoshop and cropped it. Usually I show my metadata in the caption under the photo, but I really don’t have any to share today. I will give this a tag of Blackberry 9530, but that is all I have to report!

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In My Front Yard

Canon 7D, Raw, EF-S18-55mm, 28mm, f/4.0, 1/125, ISO 100

When I stepped out my front door this morning to get the newspaper, I saw this beautiful bloom. My house faces North so there is not much sun. My bougainvillea rarely gets any flowers. I thought I better take a photo. I like it because it shows the pinks and the oranges. I basically just did levels and contrast adjustments. I like being able to see the texture on the petals and the stamens. In general, I am very happy with this photo. Let me know what you think!

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White Orchids on My Patio

Canon 7D, Canon EF-S18-55mm, Raw, 34mm, f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 800

I finally got that photograph of my orchid. I took this on my patio in natural light. I guess I was “feeling it” today!  As usual, I did a levels adjustment in Photoshop plus a vibrance increase.  I put everything on a new layer and changed the blend mode to multiply. It highlights the details on the flowers. I decided to include more lens info in my caption. Specifically, the manufacturer and size of the lens. The lenses I use are all Canon except my Lensbaby. That reminds me, I haven’t used that lens in a while. Maybe tomorrow or sometime this week-end. I am trying to give you as much info as possible about what I do and how I do it. I hope you find some of it helpful.

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Pink Calla Lily

Canon 7D, Raw, 59mm, f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 100

I was at Larry and Shelley’s yesterday to take some photos of Lily for her two month birthday. Shelley and I were in the backyard and she was very proud of this pink calla lily. The photo came out very nice and I really like the shadows falling across the lily. Since it is a raw image, I opened it up in camera raw and made a white balance adjustment. Then in Photoshop, all I did was a levels adjustment. Maybe I need to do something more exciting and artsy with my photos so I will have more to share with you.

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Geranium Leaves

Canon 7D, Raw, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/6400, ISO 200

It is such a beautiful day today! I went outside to take a photo of the first blooming orchid of the year. Well, as you can tell, I did not have much luck with it. I will try again later. I told Willie I wasn’t “feeling” it. However, these very colorful geranium leaves came out great. Aren’t the variety of colors beautiful? Willie has a good green thumb. I did a little cropping in camera raw then took it into Photoshop. There I did a levels adjustment to make it pop then I opened up the lens correction filter and added a slight vignette. That is an easy way to do it. It’s a little windy outside now so I guess I will try the orchid again tomorrow.

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A Beautiful Geranium

Canon 7D, Raw, 55mm, f/2.8, ISO 100

I have never done a black and white geranium photograph. This was a beautiful pink with many colors going through the leaves. I opened up my Nik filters and decided to go black and white. This has a blue filter which really made the flowers pop. I made a slight contrast adjustment (lowering it) along with a levels adjustment and here is the result. I hope you like it. I like the way it has a circular feel from the leaves in front and the leaves and stems in the back. It makes your eyes stay on the photo and not go off. Do you agree?

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Geraniums Blooming in My Backyard

Canon 7D, Raw, 55mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 100

I do all of my shooting (well, maybe 98%) in manual mode on my camera. The meta data on this image seems to be pretty common for me. I really liked this photo because of the sharpness of the buds – you can even see little fuzzies (a technical term) on them if you look close. I did a slight levels adjustment in Photoshop, then I added a little of a vignette so the buds would stand out  more. We have many geraniums in our backyard, and this was my favorite photo from this day.

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Purple Petunias

Canon 7D, Raw, 48mm, f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 100

I took this yesterday at Larry and Shelley’s when I was over there to take Lily’s one month photo. She is so cute! Anyway, they have some very nice flowers in their backyard and I went back to take some different photos. These were so pretty but I forgot to ask Shelley what they are called. Could it be a petunia? My Canon 7D takes such great photos I really don’t have to do much in Photoshop. The main thing I did was a levels adjustment which helps the white balance and then I did some noise reduction. I am a little unclear as to why it needed this since I shot it at a low ISO.

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A Sign of Spring?

Canon 7D, Raw, 50mm, f/7.1, 1/250, ISO 100, Nik Film Effects Software

Do you think this is a sign that Spring will be coming soon? We have had a lot of cold weather and rain here in Southern CA and we are having more starting tonight.  I heard on the news yesterday that we will be having rain storms here until the beginning of April.  There was some sun and a new daffodil  blossoming in my back yard though.I am very happy that this pretty daffodil decided to take it upon itself to bloom towards the end of February. I took some photos earlier in the day that were completely in the shade. I liked this one I took a little later in the day. With the Nik Film Effects filter, I was able to get the look I wanted.

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Using My +2 Macro Filter

Canon 20D, Raw, f/5.0, 1/1000, 58mm, ISO 200, +2 Macro Filter

I was looking for something to photograph today. I wanted some inspiration. I got it looking in my backyard at the Christmas Cactus. What changes it made in 2 days! I wanted to use the +2 macro filter with a very shallow depth of field. I am happy with the results.  I upped the green saturation a little and the contrast. I like what that did. I also like the angle of the sun lighting the leaves.

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An Antique Image of a Rose

Canon 20D, f5.6, 1/160, Nik Silver Efex Antique Plate II Filter with Curves and Levels adjustments

 This is an image of a rose I took that is blooming in my front yard. I love the effect the filter I used gave it. As I said the other day, I love these filters and the black and white effects they produce. I will be doing much more of it and sharing the images with you here.

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A Friendly Pink Rose

 I especially liked this rose because of the gradient pink and rose colors and the yellow towards the center. I have done a lot of flower photos this month. I will try to do more variety from now on. Look at how much darker the older rose got in the left of this photo. The life of a rose! I just wish it was a little sharper!

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Bachelor Buttons

These are Bachelor Buttons growing in Larry and Shelley’s back yard. I think Shelley started them from seeds. She has quite a green thumb! Isn’t the color pretty? We were over there for a little while this afternoon after having a birthday lunch for Willie’s dad. It looks like their sunflowers are going to seed – I guess they are done for the summer. I love the color of these flowers and they look so delicate! My mother used to grow flowers like these.

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A Still Life Photograph

As I was loading my dishwasher earlier today, this vase with sitting on the counter with the beautiful rose buds I cut yesterday for my photograph. I love the vase they are in. It was given to me by a very dear friend many, many years ago. I thought the roses looked so I pretty, how could I not photograph them!? I took the vase outside on the patio, changed my lens and took a few photos. I wanted to make sure I got the flowers and the vase, but nothing too distracting in the background.  I didn’t do any retouching on the roses – just a little vignetting. Do you like it?

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Back With My Lensbaby

I walked outside this afternoon and looked over at my rose bushes. I did a post a while ago where I stated that my neighbors have all the pretty roses. Well, I guess I was  wrong!  Isn’t this a beautiful rose? I used my Lensbaby +10 macro filter. It is so much fun to use. I think I finally got my diopter at the right setting. My focal point is closer to where I want it to be. I guess it will never be perfect as long as I have to wear glasses! I first wore glasses in the 3rd grade so I guess I am stuck with them!

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My HDR Orchid

 Not that long ago we thought the orchid was dying. I asked Willie to cut it down because it was getting so tall. He put off doing it and then, surprise, surprise, a bud appeared on the top! I thought it might be fun to try another HDR image. I got the tripod out and put a white board behind it. Willie held a piece of cardboard to try to block the breeze. It worked at the top but there is some movement at the bottom. I used five images in this process. That gives me more info to work with than just using three images.

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