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Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

I have always been fascinated by the color and texture of the centers of poppies and was delighted to see poppies in several different colors during a recent visit to Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from where I live. The tissue-paper texture of the petals quite unusual, reminding me of my childhood craft projects with tissue paper and crepe paper—we may even have created our own poppies.

Even when their petals have faded and fallen away, poppies continue to fascinate me (and birds love their seeds) and I really like the look of their seed pods, like the one in the final photo.

poppy

poppy

poppy

poppy

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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On Wednesday at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden just a few miles from my home, I got a really good look at this bee’s proboscis, the long, straw-like tongue that it uses to collect nectar. From my angle, it looked more like a deadly weapon. Yikes! As you can probably tell, I have switched to using my macro lens most of the time now that the warmer weather has caused more insects to reappear.

One of my friends on Facebook named this bee the “Gene Simmons” bee, because it reminded him of an iconic pose by the singer from the band KISS in which his extended tongue reached to the tip of his chin. It is hard to know if it is true, but according to urban legend, Simmons had his tongue insured for a million dollars during the 1970’s, when KISS was at its height of popularity. The popular rumor at the time that he had a cow’s tongue grafted onto his own, however, has been disproven.

bee tongue

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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I was happy this past weekend to see that Pink Lady’s Slipper orchids (Cypripedium acaule) were still in bloom in Orkney Springs, Virginia during my recent church retreat at Shrine Mont. Last year at about the same time of the year I spotted a few of them and was successful in finding some when I searched that same general location. The retreat center is located in a mountainous and cooler area of the state, which means that the growing season for flowers is a little behind my area, where the lady’s slippers faded a few weeks ago.

At first I spotted only a few of these fragile little flowers, but eventually I came upon a large patch of almost a dozen of them, as you can see in the final photo. It was a bit of a challenge for me to compose photos of flowers, because I am so used to taking pictures of wildlife. I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed having the luxury of taking my time to compose my shots—with wildlife I often have to react quickly to capture a fleeting moment, so composition is not usually my top priority.

Pink Lady's Slipper

Pink Lady's Slipper

Pink Lady's Slipper

Pink Lady's Slipper

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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The rain has stopped for now, but some raindrops remain, sparkling like tiny jewels this morning on the bearded irises in the garden of my neighbor and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. I tried to get creative with the framing of the first shot, with a blurred iris in the background of an unopened bud.

In the second shot, I was so close to the bearded iris that you almost can’t tell that the primary subject is a flower—I love my macro lenses. There third and fourth shows show a couple more varieties of irises that are currently in bloom in Cindy’s garden, with lots more still to come.

Iris

Iris

Iris

Iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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What is the most unusual-looking flower that you have ever seen? For me, it would probably be the Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema sikokianum). There is something so alien and exotic about this plant that it stopped me in my tracks when I first spotted it last year in early May at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. Check out my posting from last year if you would like more details of my first encounter with this plant species.

On Thursday I made a trip the botanical gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. She was interested in photographing the tulips, peonies, and other flowers, but I made a beeline for the area where I had seen the Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit last year. Initially I could not find any, but I asked several of the folks working in the garden beds and one of the walked me to an area where there were two plants that were well past their prime.

As we were talking, another gardener overheard us and noted that she had spotted one further up the trail earlier in the week. I walked really slowly and looked carefully and eventually found the correct spot—there was one wilted Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit and one in bloom. The two photos below give you a sense of the beauty of this unusual plant. As you can probably tell, I varied the settings on my camera to give a different feel to each of the images. Although the first image provides a clearer view of the entire plant, I really like the moody feel of the second shot.

The Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit is closely related to the Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), which is supposed to be common to the eastern United States, though I have never seen one. The American species looks fairly similar to the Japanese variant, but the spadix, the part that is the “Jack” in the name, is darker in color and the pitcher more closely matches the leaves. If you want to see a beautiful photo of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing wild in New England, check out this blog posting by fellow photographer Steve Gingold.

Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are strange plants. Most of the time they grow in colonies and each plant has a stalk and a single umbrella-shaped leaf. Occasionally, though, the stem will branch off and there will be two leaves. In those cases, a single flower may emerge at the intersection of the two branches of the stem.

According to the Wisconsin Horticulture website, “The nodding, white to rose-colored flowers appear in April or May. Each flower is 2-3 inches wide, with 6 light green sepals, 6 to 9 waxy petals, and twice as many stamens with white filaments and yellow anthers. Although the flowers are quite showy, they are short-lived and usually hidden by the leaves. The flowers are fragrant, variously described as pleasant to putrid and are visited by bumblebees and other long-tongued bees.”

Yesterday I spotted a flowering Mayapple plant as I was exploring the area surrounding a creek in Prince William County, Virginia. I have been seeing Mayapple plants for the last couple of weeks as I have been searching for dragonflies, but this is the first one that I have seen in bloom this spring. You have to get pretty low to the ground to spot the flowers, and it was a bit of a challenge getting this shot.

There is something whimsical about a flower that has its own dual umbrella to provide it with shade—I can’t help but smile whenever I spot a Mayapple in bloom.

Mayapple

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Yesterday I stopped by the garden of my neighbor and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Her early-season tulips were well beyond their prime, but more tulips are getting ready to bloom. I was a little surprised to see that some of her irises are already starting to bloom too. I love to photograph flowers when they are at this stage of growth—they are already beautiful and give hints of the additional beauty that is to come.

Happy Easter to all of you who are celebrating this holy day. Christ is risen!

tulip

tulip

iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Raindrops were glistening in the sunlight after an April shower on Saturday, enhancing the beauty of these red tulips in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer.

One of my favorite movies when I was growing up was “The Sound of Music” and I can still remember the words of many of the songs from the movie. In one delightful scene, Julie Andrews tells the children that when she is unhappy, she tries to think of nice things and begins a song with the words, “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…these are a few of my favorite things.”

Raindrops seem almost magical, whether they are on roses, on tulips, or on any other vegetation. If you are not familiar with the song “My Favorite Things,” here is a link to a YouTube clip of that wonderful scene from “The Sound of Music.”

tulip

tulip

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Flowers are starting to bloom in the garden of my dear friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Yesterday I photographed several varieties of tulips and some cute little grape hyacinths.

As many of you know, I do not have my own garden. However, my photography mentor Cindy Dyer lives nearby and she has amazing gardens in her front, side, and back yards. She generally plants flowers that she knows are photogenic and I know that during the growing season that there will almost always be something to photograph.

Earlier this spring, I was able to photograph a few crocuses and a tiny red tulip, but now a whole lot more flowers are starting to appear. The multi-colored tulip in the first photo, I believe, is a variety known as the Lady Jane tulip (Tulipa clusiana var. ‘Lady Jane’). In the past, this tulip stood much taller—this one was growing close to the ground.

The red tulip in the second photo is a more traditional variety. I deliberately set my camera to have a shallow depth of field to blur out the background that at this time of the year is somewhat patchy and cluttered. As I processed the photos on my computer I noticed that I had inadvertently captured a shot of my first insect of the season, what Cindy likes to call a “bonus bug.” The weather yesterday was cloudy, so I did not have to worry about harsh shadows, which meant that the colors seemed especially vibrant and saturated.

The final photo shows a tiny grape hyacinth (g. Muscari), one of many that have popped up in Cindy’s garden. These colorful little flowers grow really close to the ground, so I was sprawled out a bit to get this low-angle shot that isolated the flower from the background.

 

Lady Jane tulip

tulip

grape hyacinth

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Although the weather the past few days has been cold and windy, it is beginning to look a lot like spring. Some trees have already started to blossom and pops of color are appearing in the front yards of many of my neighbors. In Washington D.C., the cherry blossoms are forecast to reach their peak flowering phase next week.

Yesterday I took my camera with me during a short walk through my neighborhood. Rather than toting the long telephoto zoom lens that I use to photograph birds, I carried the much lighter 60mm macro lens. When I am photographing flowers, I usually try to get up close to them in order to capture the maximum amount of detail.

I spotted some small daffodils adjacent to the steps of my next-door neighbor and stopped to photograph them. Daffodils are probably the most prominent flowers at this moment and I have seen them in multiple sizes and shades of yellow, including some two-toned ones.

I next visited the front garden of fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. I was delighted to spot a few Spring Snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) in bloom. I used to have trouble distinguishing between snowdrop and snowflake flowers, but now I know that the ones with the green spots on each petal are snowflakes.

The last flower that I photographed in Cindy’s garden was a bright red tulip. This tulip was small and was not as showy as some of the other varieties that will appear in the coming weeks, but it seemed especially beautiful. It was the only tulip in bloom and did not have to share the stage with any of its siblings.

Those of you who see my photos regularly will definitely notice that these are not my “normal” shots. It is good, I think, to switch things up periodically and point my camera at some different subjects.

daffodils

snowflake

 

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Spring is almost here. This past weekend I spotted the first spring flowers—blooming in the garden of my friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Longtime readers of this blog are well aware that I am not a gardener, but often visit the Cindy’s garden during the flower season—Cindy deliberately plants flowers that are fun to photograph.

The first crocuses that I spotted were some purplish ones that in Cindy’s front garden. These are the type of crocuses that I encounter most frequently and I associate them with the arrival of spring. When I posted a photo of one on Facebook, Cindy alerted me to the fact that several yellow ones were blooming in her backyard garden.

I don’t recall ever having seem yellow crocuses before, so I was delighted to see them. I was really awkward trying to get a shot of them, so I resorted to getting a relatively close-up shot with my 60mm macro lens.

I have also noticed clusters of cheery yellow daffodils in bloom throughout my neighborhood. Our weather is still variable, but spring is on the way. On a side note, next Sunday we begin Daylight Savings Time, yet another sign of the changing seasons. If I am not mistaken, Europeans do not change their clocks until the last Sunday in March, which is 26 March in 2023.

crocus

crocus

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Although it may seem a little strange to make a trip to a garden to photograph flowers, I set off for Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden last Friday. I suspected that snowdrops (g. Galanthus) would be in bloom and I was not disappointed. I spotted several large clusters of these small white flowers scattered throughout the garden beds.

Some years you can find snowdrops peeking out of a covering of snow, but we have not yet had any snow this winter. Instead I found the snowdrops poking out of the reddish-brown ground cover of fallen leaves and pine needles. I did not have my macro lens with me, but managed to get some decent close-up shots with my Tamron 18-400mm lens as well as an overview of one of the patches of snowdrops that I encountered.

When spring comes, I hope to see the somewhat similar-looking snowflake flower (g. Leucojum). The way that I usually tell them apart is to look at the individual petals. The snowdrop petals are pure white, but the petal of each of the snowflake flowers has a little green dot.

 

snowdrop

snowdrop

snowdrop

snowdrops

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Lilies are now blooming in the garden of my neighbor, Cindy Dyer, who is also my photography mentor and muse. There are all kind of lilies there, including daylilies, Asiatic lilies, and giant white ones. Cindy deliberately likes to plant flowers that she knows will be photogenic.

I always feel overwhelmed when trying to photograph groups of anything, so I naturally gravitate to close-ups of individual flowers, focusing in on details that grab my eyes. Sometimes it is shapes, while at other times it may be colors or textures. Here are a few photos from my visit on Tuesday to Cindy’s garden, my impressions of some of the beautiful lilies that I encountered.

lily

lily

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love the triangular shape of Spiderwort plants (genus Tradescantia). I tend to think of spiderworts as being a bluish-purple in color, but was delighted to discover them blooming in a variety of colors during a recent visit to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historical garden near where I live. I think my favorite color combination may be the one in the middle photo, with the white flowers and the purple “fuzz” in the center.

Spiderwort

Spidewort

spiderwort

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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During a recent trip to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden near where I live, I was delighted to see that Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) was in bloom. Love-in-a-mist  is a flower that looks like it came from outer space, with wild tendrils shooting out of its middle and green spiky vegetation surrounding it. Like many forms of love, the flower simultaneously looks to be both inviting and threatening.

I find this flower to be incredibly beautiful and exotic and it is one of my favorites. Typically Love-in-a-mist is blue, but it also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender. Many flowers lose our interest after they have bloomed, but I find the seedpods of Love-in-a-mist to at least as intriguing as the flower itself, as you can see in the final photo.

When I did a little research I learned that the striped, balloon-shaped object that I call a seedpod, is actually an inflated capsule composed of five fused true seedpods, according to an article by Wisconsin Horticulture. I also discovered that the thorny-looking spikes that make up the “mist,” which are not sharp, despite their appearance, are technically bracts, a specialized kind of leaves.

I smile whenever I use the name of this flower—we can always use more Love, whether it comes in a mist, in the sunshine, or even in a downpour.

 

Love-in-a-mist

Love-in-a-mist

Love-in-a-mist

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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It is prime time for the bearded irises in the garden of my dear friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. There are several dozen irises in bloom now in multiple colors, including these beauties, and it looks like even more flowers will be blooming soon.

Beauty is everywhere.

bearded irises

Bearded Iris

Bearded Iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Some of the coolest looking plants that I saw last Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens were Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit flowers (Arisaema sikokianum). There is something so alien and exotic about this plant that it stopped me in my tracks when I first spotted it.

According to the Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. website, the dark pitcher and two five-lobed leaves of this plant emerge on a 12 inch tall (30 cm) fleshy stalk from an underground tuber in early spring. As the pitcher opens, it reveals a swollen, pure white, protruding spadix that provides a dramatic contrast to the purple of the pitcher.

The Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit is closely related to the Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), which, according to Wikipedia, is common to the eastern United States. I checked the range map and the Jack-in-the-Pulpit can be found in Virginia where I live, though I have not yet spotted one. When I looked at photos of the American species, it looks fairly similar to the Japanese variant, but the spadix, the part that is the “Jack” in the name, is darker in color and the pitcher more closely matches the leaves. Check out this blog posting by Steve Gingold to see a beautiful photo of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing wild in his area of New England.


Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I am a bit of a romantic, so my eyes are immediately drawn to the heart-shaped blooms of Bleeding Heart flowers whenever they are present in a springtime garden. Most of the time they are reddish in color, as their name suggests, but they also come in other colors. I spotted these beautiful White Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra spectabilis alba) last Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.

I was fortunate to be able to get close enough for the first photo to be able to focus on the delicate shape of a single flower. Somehow the little wings on the hearts make me think of angels or maybe the little cherubs that we associate with Valentine’s Day. The second image gives you an idea of the way that these flowers grow in rows, suspended from tiny filaments from a stalk, twisting and turning in the wind.

Bleeding Heart

Bleeding Heart

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love the shape and colors of columbine flowers that appear in many of the gardens that I visit during the spring. According to Wikipedia, the genus name for these flowers Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle (aquila), because of the shape of the flower petals that are said to resemble an eagle’s claw. The common name “columbine” comes from the Latin for “dove”, due to the resemblance of the inverted flower to five doves clustered together.

I spotted several spectacular columbines during a visit to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia last Saturday. The purple columbine was in the middle of a flower bed and I could not get very close to it. I was really happy though that I had to shoot from a longer distance away than normally, because I able to capture some of the shadowy shapes of the ferns in the background.

I did manage to get quite a bit closer to the pretty pink columbine. I smiled when I saw a marker that indicated that this variety is called “Strawberry Ice Cream.” I now have an overwhelming urge to buy some strawberry ice, one of the many ice cream flavors that I love.

columbine

columbine

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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As we were photographing some Spring Snowflake flowers (Leucojum vernum) on Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer noticed what looked like a spider’s leg on the side of one of the flowers and asked me to go around to the other side of the flower to investigate.

Sharp-eyed Cindy was right—I spotted this tiny spider clinging to the side of the snowflake and was delighted that I was able to capture this image of it.

Leucojum vernum

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love the rich color, velvet-like texture, and geometric shape of this beautiful little flower that I spotted yesterday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. I believe that this is a Red Trillium (Trillium erectum). According to Wikipedia, Red Trilliums are also known as wake robin, bethroot, and stinking benjamin.

I was curious about the name “stinking benjamin,” so I searched on-line and learned that Red Trilliums produce fetid or putrid odors purported to attract carrion fly and beetle pollinators. Some describe the odor as similar to that of a wet dog—I did not get close enough to verify personally the accuracy of this assertion.

Red Trillium

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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It is now the season for irises. All kinds of irises are starting to pop open in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. We are neighbors in a townhouse community in Northern Virginia, which means there is relatively little space for gardening, but Cindy manages to pack an amazing amount of flower power into her limited area. Fortunately, she and her husband, who is also a Michael, live in an end-unit, so they have a bit more space than the interior units.

Cindy likes to select flowers to grow that she knows will be photogenic and love to pore over the flower catalogues on line. Our challenge is to figure out how to capture the  beauty of these carefully selected flowers in the crowed garden. One of Cindy’s techniques is to use a small artificial background to help to isolate the flower. Often she uses a white foam core board to which she has attached a piece of black velvet-like material. She can then create studio-like images with a black or white background, depending on the flower.

This technique requires two people, because it is almost impossible to hold the background in place and frame a shot at the same time. I took these iris photos yesterday while Cindy held the background in place for me and then we reversed positions. In some of the images it looks like I was using some kind of studio lighting, but it was all natural night on a somewhat cloudy day that diffused the light nicely.

You don’t really need any special equipment to create this effect—you could use almost anything for a background. The day before, our improvised background was a collapsible black storage cube from IKEA that Cindy had just given me. The final photo, taken by Cindy with her iPhone, shows me holding that black cube and gives you a sense of the garden environment and how the technique is used.

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

iris

background

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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As we move deeper into spring, more and more flowers are popping up in the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. It is a fun adventure to walk over to the garden every few days to see what new bits of beauty have sprung forth out of the earth.

One of my favorites that I look forward to seeing each spring is the Lady Jane tulip (Tulipa clusiana var. ‘Lady Jane’), featured in the first photo below. It is a small tulip with pointed petals and a delicate pink and white coloration.

The red tulips are a bit more traditional in terms of their shape and coloration. I love to explore them from all angles and their bright, cheery color is a joy to behold.

Some more tulip buds are beginning to mature and it looks like there may be yellow tulips next. Spring is such a beautiful season.

Lady Jane tulip

tulip

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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In the springtime we often watch and wait in the garden, anticipating the beauty that is to come. Sometimes, as was the case with these tulip buds, we have a sneak preview of the coming colors, but often the blooms take us by surprise. I love those kinds of surprises.

As many of you know, I do not have my own garden. However, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer is one of my neighbors and she has an amazing garden, full of fun flowers to photograph.

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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One of the early signs of spring is the emergency of the tiny stalks of Grape Hyacinths (g. Muscari). As their name suggest, these spiky little flowers look a bit like bunches of grapes. Most of the time grape hyacinths are bluish in color, but they come in other colors too and sometimes, as you can see in the second photo, there may be multiple colors on the same flower stalk.

I captured these images in the garden of my dear friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. Cindy is used to seeing me skulking about in her garden and I usually am able to keep her informed about what is blooming in her own garden.

Using my short macro lens, I was able to capture some of the interesting patterns of these grape hyacinths. In the first image you can see how the little “grapes” grow in a spiral pattern. The second image shows how the “grapes” open up at their ends as they mature. I really like the way that both images feature the raised three-petalled impression on so many of the grapes—the shape looks almost like it was embossed.

Grape Hyacinth

Grape Hyacinth

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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As I was scanning my neighbor’s garden for new growth yesterday, a small bit of bright orange caught my eye. I moved closer to see what it was and was shocked to find a tiny ladybug crawling around one of the plants.

The ladybug was pretty active, moving up and down the leaf, so it was challenging to get a shot of it. Eventually, though, my patience paid off and I was able to capture this image. Later in the year photos like this will become more commonplace, but during the month of March I am overjoyed whenever I have a chance to photograph an insect.

I did not get a good look at the face of this insect, so I cannot tell if it is an Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) or one of the native ladybugs, which are less common in most areas. Whatever the case, there is something whimsical about ladybugs that makes me smile, so I was happy to spot this one.

ladybug

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I spotted this tiny red tulip yesterday morning in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer, my first tulip sighting of the year. One of Cindy’s passions is gardening and she deliberately plants a lot of flowers that she believes will be photogenic.

Last fall she planted bulbs for some large, frilly, multi-colored tulips that she hopes will bloom later this year. (See my posting from last spring entitled Fire-breathing dragon to see an example of one of those crazy-looking parrot tulips.) I will be looking for those exotic flowers, but I have to say that am often drawn more to the simple, spare elegance of a single bloom, like today’s tulip.

When I first started to get serious about my photography almost ten years ago, I imitated the type of photographs that Cindy was taking, with a lot of emphasis on macro shots of flowers. Cindy taught me a lot about photography during those early days, lessons that have stuck with me as I have ventured into other areas of photography.

One of those lessons was about the value of a well-composed, graphic image, like today’s simple shot. Anyone, in theory, could have taken this shot, but they would have had to be willing to get on their hands and knees in the dirt to do so, another one of Cindy’s lessons. (If you want to see more of Cindy’s tips, check out her article How to Grow Your Garden Photography Skills that was featured several years ago on the NikonUSA.com website.)

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Pushing out of the still dormant winter earth, several crocuses in the garden of my dear friend Cindy Dyer were shining brightly yesterday, a hopeful sign of the spring beauty that is yet to come.

For the first image, I shielded the sun with my body to avoid the harsh highlights that the sunlight was creating. I then changed my shooting position so that the sunlight was streaming from another angle, which caused the yellow parts of the flower to glow.

Please continue to pray for the people of Ukraine and for all those affected by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Crocus

crocus

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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In the deepest darkest days of winter, there is still new growth, like these snowdrop flowers (g. Galanthus) that I spotted yesterday at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden not far from where I live.

I decided to mix things up a bit and put my macro lens on my camera for the first time in months, hoping that I might find flowers in bloom. What can I possibly find that would be flowering in late January? We have had over a foot (30 cm) of snow already this month and some frigid temperatures, a harsher winter than in recent years. I knew from past experience, though, that there was a good chance that some snowdrop flowers would be in bloom—my challenge was to find them.

I searched in vain in flowerbed after flowerbed, until finally I found several small patches of these pretty white flowers. The words to the song Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, one of my favorite musicals, came to mind. Although edelweiss is a completely different flower, the words of the song seemed to fit my snowdrops so well.

“Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever.”

snowdrops

snowdrop

snowdrop

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I have previously featured water lilies and lotuses that I photographed during a trip earlier in July to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. Those flowers were beautiful, of course, but the flower that really grabbed my attention was this alien-looking one that looks like a spider or a Portuguese man o’ war. From what I have been able to find on the internet, I believe that this is a Cahaba lily (Hymenocallis coronaria), an aquatic, perennial flowering plant species that is also known as a shoal lily, or shoals spider-lily.

I was quite a challenge to try to figure out how to photograph this wild-looking flower that spreads out in all directions. I think that this angle gives you a pretty good look at all of the plant parts without being too distracted by the busy background. In many ways the image becomes an almost an abstract one, because the viewer initially takes in the shapes and colors without immediately being able to tell what the main object is.

Cahaba lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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I captured this image last Saturday at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and love the way that it shows lotuses at various stages of development, from budding to flowering to turning into seed pods. I have included a close-up shot of a seed pod, in case you have never looked closely at one. These seed pods always get a mixed reaction from my friends—some find them to be fascinating, while others find them to be creepy.

lotus

Lotus seed pod

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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