Midsummer floral spectaular!

Ok, maybe not spectacular, but colorful nonetheless.

These photos were taken within a block or two of my apartment. I live right on a college campus, and they do plenty of landscape work. It provides a lot of fodder for my camera.

While I was shooting these flowers, I got buzzed by a nice big bee. She (I assume it’s a non-fertile female worker bee) then became my newest model. I didn’t get a signed release, but since this is non-commercial usage, I don’t think a lawsuit would stand up in court.

Anyway, I really like the detail I got from the translucent wings and the great shot of the pollen basket. I wish I had a macro lens… but of course, I wish I had a lot of stuff.

Playing with Soft Focus…

Messing around with some shots I took a while back.

I wanted to try something different. I had some pictures with some softer light in them, and wanted to try to accent the delicacy of the image. I know… that’s a bit artsy fartsy coming from me, but hey… it’s worth a shot.

So. Here’s what a normal image I output looks like.

And here is after I used a “Soft Focus” action in Photoshop.

It’s a subtle difference, but I like it.

Here are the rest of the ones I took. I really like the little magnolia.

Lilium

Ok, so, here are a few shots I took today. These are of true lilies, as opposed to the day lily in the post below. Just FYI, lilies are pretty much my favorite flower. Even these, which are fairly plain jane white (actually, they look a lot like ‘Casa Blanca,’ an oriental hybrid) lilies are beautiful. Something about them always strikes me. Anyway, I took about 30-40 shots and ended up with these three that I liked. One thing I’ve learned about photography… take lots of pictures. You can sort out the bad apples later, but if you don’t shoot enough, you’re almost always disappointed.