Month: March 2015

Thursday afternoon when I decided to use dandelions as my photograph to meet the Flickr challenge “round,” there was not a single dandelion in my yard. I tried to think of another subject to meet the challenge, but, as I walked home from the mailbox, I saw a perfectly round dandelion in the yard of someone I do not know. I didn’t even consider picking it at first. After all, I would never pick a flower in a neighbor’s yard without first asking, and never in the yard of someone I do not know. But my desire to use a dandelion for the challenge and my twisted rationalization that nobody wants dandelions in their yard, prompted me to reach down and pluck that perfect specimen. Crossing the street, I saw another perfect dandelion in the lawn of a neighbor whom I do know. He wasn’t outside so again, my rationalization that no one wants dandelions in their yard overcame any distaste to steal something from someone so I plucked it. I brought my precious and delicate seed pods into the house and carefully set them in a flower frog to hold them upright. I took a couple of shots first of one, then both together, and I decided the shot needed a third dandelion. I first scoured my backyard but its lack of sun meant no dandelions. I checked my front lawn again in case I had overlooked one. Nary a dandelion. Then, as I scrutinized the yard next-door, there in the midst of some flowers was the dandelion I needed. This time, I didn’t even think twice about it. I walked right across their lawn and snatched it from the flower bed. I now had my trio of dandelions and had sunk to a new low in pursuit of a photograph. I am now a dandelion thief. Perhaps it was just deserts, poetic justice, or that the dandelions were tainted by my theft of them…whatever it was, I am not particularly happy with any of the shots I took and the composition lacks something. But any attempts I made to adjust the tableau met with a shower of seeds and a loss of dandelion roundness. By the time I took this shot, one of the dandelions had wilted and was resting on the granite surrounded by discarded seeds. I think this will be my one and only foray into dandelion thievery.

The hummers in my yard love bathing in the fountain and especially in the bubble that gurgles from the center of it. I set the speed light on the arm of one of the adirondack chairs near the fountain and sat down a few feet away with the camera on the tripod. When two birds arrived to bathe, I tried to get them both in the shot and in focus but that proved impossible with the aperture wide open so I cropped the shot. I never tire of watching the hummers bathe.

When I realized I hadn’t taken any new photographs for a couple of days, I decided the blooming freesia, my favorite, and to me the most fragrant, spring flower would be the perfect subject. But, the late afternoon breezes prevented me from getting in focus shots of the blossoms so I clipped a few and brought them inside. I had just given Bobo a spray bath and the spray bottle was setting on the counter so I spritzed the flowers and attached my macro lens for some closeups of water drops. Those shots proved to be rather uninteresting until I decided to use the speed light. Set to remote, I had the freedom to hold the flash wherever I wanted to direct the light. Some of the shots looked very “flashy” and I didn’t like them at all so I decreased the power of the flash to give the shot a dark look and I liked those shots, with the flash held to the left of the flower, best.

For some reason, to me, this white-faced capuchin monkey looks more like an ugly man in a monkey suit than a real monkey…maybe an extra from a Planet of the Apes sequel.

I took this shot of ornamental plum blossoms the other day in a park and the breeze was whipping the branches around as I tried to compose the shot. I managed to freeze one small cluster of flowers for an instant with a 1/1600 shutter speed but the composition is not the best. Still, I kept going back to the photo because something about it intrigued me. Maybe it’s all the bokeh or the primarily two-tone color scheme. Whatever it is, I decided it was blog worthy after I cropped it slightly to enhance the composition and added a vignette.

I had a basket of small red, orange, and yellow peppers that I thought might make an interesting shot. I needed a photograph for my blog and one of the recent Flickr challenges was “yellow.” I dumped the peppers into a yellow bowl; I added a “glow” filter in Perfect Effects that helped the lone yellow pepper stand out from the others.