I really wish I was a better naturalist. I try though. My bookshelf is filled with identification guides of all sorts – bugs to birds, lichen to leaves. . But the ol’ hard drive in my head can’t seem to pack in much more information these days. . . So quite often when I am in the field, I shoot by what attracts my eye, not necessarily because I am out to document some biological discovery. . Knowing your subject and its habitat always helps, but I never thought it to be mandatory.
This was the case today with these mushrooms I don’t photograph mushrooms a lot, so my ID knowlege of them really stinks I suppose if I knew more, I would recognize the ‘magic’ kind and it might actually help some of my photographs! 
I looked them up afterward, and they are nothing really special – common Japanese Umbrella mushrooms that are known to grow in the typical suburban lawn Hmm – didn’t know that, might have overlooked them many times until this particular time. And, they are edible!. Didn’t try that.
But now I will know them when I see them again. That is usually how it goes, and it is a very slow process of learning new species. There are only so many birds, birdsongs, wildflowers, trees, plants, bugs, etc that I can keep in my head at any particular moment I really envy those that can!
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Milkweed is quite an interesting plant. From its budding and flowering, to attracting monarch caterpillars, to its eruption of its seedpods in fall – it offers quite a bit to explore. This plant is critical to the life-cycle and defenses of the monarch butterfly. By consuming the toxins in this plant, it makes the caterpillars and ultimately the butterfly distasteful to eat by predators.
Today I did some exploring of its seed pods in a field about 5 minutes drive from my house. It can be challenging to find a pod and seeds that are somewhat in the same plane. Having the elements within the same plane helps you maximize your depth of field available from the lens you are using, especially when doing macro. So it helps to have a field of a lot of them to choose from. Keep a close eye on how parallel your camera back is to your subject. The more parallel it is, the wider open apertures you can use – reducing diffraction effects from your DSLR and distracting background elements.
Not many plants offer nearly year round photographic opportunities. So if you have some patches of milkweed in your area, return to it throughout the year for the changing subject matter it offers. More milkweed photos can be found by using the keyword milkweed on my gallery search page.
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I don’t have a lot to write about this particular shot, just wanted to share it. . I was exploring some different processing in Lightroom and ended up combining a few different presets, with some manual tweaks of my own. Roses are such delicate objects, and I thought this portrayal said ‘delicate’ to me. . . It is interesting in how your final treatment of an image can change its feel and meaning completely Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
I don’t have the opportunity to do silhouettes like this very often. Today I saw some coneflowers that were on the side of a hill where the sun would be rising directly behind them. It is the kind of shot that requires a bit of prevision because once the sun is up, you can’t really compose anything through the viewfinder. Not only is it just too bright, but also very dangerous to your eyes. It is usually safer to do this type of thing with a morning fog, or those mornings where the sun is a bright orange-red ball. But today it was clear skies, typical summer day and the sun was at its full intensity as soon as it came over the horizon.
Once the sun was fully in the frame, all you could do is take a very, very quick glimpse in the viewfinder to try to check composition and sharpness. What I found difficult was anticipating where in the frame the ball of the sun would end up as it rose higher. Since it rises on a slight arc, I was constantly having to adjust my tripod slightly to compensate. (I was working with this group as found in the field) You then lose your original composition, and have to reposition things somewhat blind. Moving your tripod then brings other objects into your background which I didn’t want This is where digital shows a big advantage because I could at least snap a few frames and see the result on the LCD.
You also have some technical issues to contend with here. You have to shoot fairly wide open otherwise the sun will start to take the shape of your aperture blades in your lens. This means your depth of field is going to be limited and your subject selection for the silhouette as well. Fortunately this group of coneflowers were on the same plane enabling me to shoot at f5.6. . It is best to use simple shapes without a lot of mergers. . I have seen these work well with dragonflies and birds. . It is best to plan everything out, compose and focus before the sun gets in the frame and try to anticipate the arc.
These are fun to experiment with, but also require a lot of caution. Who would have thought flower photography could be hazardous to your well being?
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I have been limiting my blogging activities lately due to trying to figure out what is grabbing resources at my web host. I ‘ll post more about it when it is resolved. Until then, I’ll share a new image shot in my backyard recently. I still intend on doing my “Every 10 feet” project, but haven’t been able to dedicate some quality time to it yet. What attracted me this particular set of stamen were their alignment and their ‘standing tall’ presentation. Sunshine was also coming in from the side giving the translucent tubules an incredible glow.
http://t.co/1xjuh7fT - posted on 23 hours ago
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