Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘gardening’

Unusual pattern inside a flower

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2012| 9 Comments »

I have to admit that I am really challenged when it comes to identifying flowers. I just don’t know where to start in researching them. So I apologize in advance for not knowing the name of this flower.

I spotted this distinctive small flower when I was shooting with some friends at a local botanical garden. The outside of the flower was not really that unusual, but I was immediately attracted to the inside of the flower. The shape and unusual pattern on the inside reminded me of a pleated curtain installed by a designer who was color-challenged. The color and pattern of the inside did not seem to  go well with the outside (or maybe I just watch too much Home and Garden TV).

I like that I was able to isolate and photograph this unusual flower which for now remains nameless for me.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Destructive beauty

Posted in Bugs, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2012| 3 Comments »

What do you want to emphasize in a photograph that you display to others? It is a creative choice that each of us faces every time we take a photo or manipulate an image.

I enjoy shooting subjects with friends and comparing our results. Earlier in the week I was with Cindy Dyer, my photography mentor, and spotted an interesting looking little beetle on a plant in her garden. I did not have my macro lens on my camera and suggested that she photograph the little striped beetle, a type she had never previously encountered. She later identified the beetle as a Striped Cucumber beetle (Acalymma vittata).

Cindy took a wonderful photo of the beetle staring over the edge of a leaf and entitled her posting “The Abyss.” Her photo is graphic and colorful and full of a sense of mystery and contemplation. I took some photos this evening of what is possibly the same beetle. I tried to convey the same impression that Cindy did in my second photo below, but that was not really what I wanted to stress. This first photo shows my “take” on the subject.

I decided that I wanted to contrast the beauty of the beetle with its destructiveness and chose to include the damaged leaf in the initial photo that is most prominently featured on the blog. The rest of the photos are variations of the themes of beauty and destruction, sometimes depicting only one of the two themes or juxtaposing them both in a single frame.

Our choices influence how our viewers are likely to react to our photos.  It is liberating to have that kind of creative freedom. It is who we are and what we do.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Bee-bee you’re the one

Posted in Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Bees were the very first insects that I tried to photograph close up when I got interested in macro photography a few month ago. (You might say I followed the advice of Julie Andrews as Maria in The Sound of Music when she said, “Let’s start at the very bee-ginning, it’s a very good place to start.”) It was a challenge without a macro lens but I managed to get some pretty good results by shooting at the extreme end of the focusing capability of my digital SLR.

Since that time I have “graduated” to a macro lens and to more exotic insects, but from time to time I am drawn back to the bees. Today, for example, as I was reviewing  images from a session that included colorful butterflies and dragonflies, I realized there were also a few images of bees that I wanted to share.

Most of the time I try to feature a single photo in my postings, but tonight I couldn’t make up my mind. Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet I was caught up in an internal struggle, “Two bees or not two bees, that is the question.”  I’m including them both—I don’t want to decide which is better.

As I end this post, the words of an old Carly Simon song come to mind, “Nobody does it better…bee-bee you’re the best.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Missing the big picture

Posted in Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 12, 2012| 4 Comments »

“You’re not seeing the big picture.”

Has anyone ever spoken those words to you? They are often used as a tacit (or explicit) criticism of your supposed lack of perspective. The person speaking those words usually has an air of superiority, asserting that they have a better view of some figurative “big picture.”

You literally are not seeing the big picture when it comes to the banner of this blog. I was forced into a box of a specified size by the requirements of the theme I chose. It’s time now to think (and to see) outside of the box.

So, I am posting the “big picture” that you see partially in my banner. Why? One of my friends told me it is her favorite image out of the dozens I have shown her the past few months (and it is one of my favorites). You might like it too!

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Obsessed with red milkweed beetles

Posted in Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2012| 9 Comments »

Do you find yourself being drawn back inexorably to photographing the same subjects over and over again?

Last month my friend and mentor Cindy D. “outed” me in a wonderful posting on her blog. She confessed that “we’ve become a little obsessed with photographing Red milkweed beetles (Tetraopes tetraophthalmus).” (She also published some interesting facts about the beetles in another blog posting.) She’s right, of course, in her assessment of me, but I might quibble with her on one point. Is it possible to be only a “little” obsessed?

What are the symptoms of my obsession? After work today, in between thunder and rain storms, I rushed to Green Spring Gardens to take some photos. I shot a few flowers but I couldn’t resist the pull of the milkweed plants. I know exactly  where they are located in the gardens and I know if I look hard enough on the milkweed plants I will find the cute little beetles.

By the time I found my beloved beetles the light was starting to fade. How bad was the light? Despite shooting at ISO 800, I needed exposures around 1/5 of a second at F11. Fortunately the beetles were willing to pose and I had my tripod with me. I managed to get a few nice shots with beautiful color saturation in the late day, overcast light. Here is one photo (out of many) of the object of my obsession—a red milkweed beetle.

Is there a twelve-step program for people with this problem?

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Beauty after the storm

Posted in Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

The heat wave in the Washington DC area has finally broken. Many of us last night were awakened by the loud, cannon-like sound of thunder and the softer, more gentle sound of falling rain. This morning the skies were overcast and the ground was still wet, a likely source of frustration for commuters but a blessing for photographers.

I set off in the morning with a couple of friends for Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic park in Alexandria, Virginia. The colors of the flowers today seemed to be extraordinarily vivid and saturated. There also were beads of water on many of the plants and flowers, creating wonderful reflections and adding additional interest.

I do not know for sure what kind of flower I captured in this photo, perhaps a hibiscus. Its color and texture caught my eye today. I probably would have passed by it yesterday without stopping. Today, however, its beauty was enhanced, enhanced by the effects of the storm.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Pretty in pink

Posted in Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

For much of my life I have loved impressionist paintings and especially those of Monet. Monet painted a series of approximately 250 paintings of Water Lilies (or Nymphéas) and they were the main focus of his artistic work for the last thirty years of his life, according to Wikipedia .

Last November I spent countless hours at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris visually exploring eight massive paintings of water lilies by Monet that covered the walls of two large oval rooms. The painting were all different and covered the themes of morning, clouds, green reflections, sunset, reflections of trees, clear morning in the willows, morning in the willows, and two willows.

The Musée de l’Orangerie allows you to see each of the paintings in high definition on the internet but navigation is not exactly direct. Click first in the left column of the main page on “Les Nymphéas” and then on “L’ensemble de l’Orangerie”  which brings you to a page with all of the paintings. You click on the painting you want to examine and click again on the box that says “explorez le tableau” (“explore the painting”). You then can drag your mouse to see each part of the painting or zoom in at 2x or 4x. There also are detailed explanations of the paintings in French that are fascinating, as is a history of Monet and these paintings. You get to that part of the website by following the previous directions and selecting “De Giverny à l’Orangerie” instead of “L’ensemble de l’Orangerie.” I should warn you that it is very easy to lose track of time as you take in the beauty of these paintings.

I love photographing water lilies surrounded by green lily pads, with reflections of their beauty in the dark water, the same flowers featured in Monet’s paintings. Until this past weekend, however, all the water lilies that I had seen had been pure white in color. At Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens I encountered and managed to photograph some water lilies that were a beautiful pink in color.  They made quite an impression on me.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Soft morning light

Posted in Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 7, 2012| 12 Comments »

Indian lotus (also known as Sacred lotus, Nelumbo nucifera), photographed at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Blue Dasher dragonfly

Posted in Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 7, 2012| 17 Comments »

I photographed this Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens this morning.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Blue Dasher

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: