Today I have two images to share with you; both taken in my backyard. The top one is a Blue Hibiscus, and the bottom one is a Dahlia. I used the Lensbaby Twist 60 for both with a +4 macro filter on. Enjoy!
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I mentioned yesterday that I have been busy with some kind of a project. Here is the big reveal: my daughter is one of 190 students at her high school who take dance lessons. Once a year, in the spring, their dance teacher directs a dance show which is performed by all the dance students. The show is tonight and tomorrow night. I photographed the dancers during the two dance rehearsals with the purpose of sharing the pictures with the parents. Here is a miniature slideshow out of the thousands of pictures I took (the music is obviously not from the show):
I was supposed to post this yesterday (to keep up with my daily posts), but it was a very busy day for me. I’ll tell you about that in a different post later.
I chose this project for three different reasons. One is that I have been learning a tiny bit about food photography, and I wanted to try out some of what I had learned. Secondly, I haven’t done a comparison between lenses experiment for a while, and I want to find the best lens(es) for what I want to start now – which would be the third reason for the project. But I’d like to share that with you at another time.
This is what I tried yesterday:
I set up a plate of yummy strawberries on my dining room table, since I get the most natural light there. I used two white reflectors to bounce some of the light back on the fruit. I then used the following lenses with or without macro attachments and at various apertures: Nikon 50mm, Lensbaby Velvet 56, Single Glass, Double Glass, Twist 60 and Sol 45. I am going to show you the images that I liked the most – for different reasons. Some, because they somewhat resembled an image I would see in a magazine (with more props or better composition perhaps), others because of their very unusual looks and feelings. I’d be happy to know which images you appreciate the most.
- Nikon 50mm with 12mm macro extension tube
This post is the continuation of yesterday’s post about our Bommer Canyon hike.
The hike we took was about 3-mile long loop on East Fork and Ridge Route paths. The panoramas will give you an idea of what the scenery looked like from different spots of the hike. (Click on images to open them larger in a new window.)
This next image was taken from Ridgeline Trail. In the background it covers (from left to right) West Irvine, Tustin and East Irvine (where we live).
On Saturday my husband and I took part in an event; we hiked in Bommer Canyon (Irvine) during its open access day. Once a month they open the otherwise gated trails for the public, and we can hike in the area without a docent.
We had the most perfect day for a hike; cloudy and not too hot either. We experienced some extraordinary views from different points of our hike. I will post scenery images tomorrow; today I wanted to show you wildflower pictures. We saw many kinds; some I recognized, others I still need to learn about. Here is a selection from the beautiful flowers:
