Tag Archives: colors

Fall is Fire on the Mountain with Yellow Aspen Leaves

7 Sep

Ok, well maybe not here in Auburn, but right now, the Aspen groves of the Rockies are ablaze with color. After flipping back over some fall photos of the last few years I came across this one, taken at this exact time of year, but at the 11,000 foot range in the Rockies. You can’t see the glorious fall colors that surround these tall pines from the photo, but at the time, it was about 40*F outside and the entire surrounding area was full of yellow aspen trees, like the one shown below. Fall has to be one of my favorite times of year, almost as much color in the fall (if you look closely) as there is in Spring.

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Monday Morning Photos of a Sunrise Surprise

30 Aug

This morning just when I opened my eyes this is what I saw above. My face just happens to face east right out a window, and this morning these low clouds turned into a beautiful sunrise. The colors fade so quickly but the brilliance produced in a matter of five minutes is just amazing. As I write this there are virtually no colors in the sky and the sun has retreated behind the thick clouds but what a great surprise to wake up and see the colors of a sunrise.

I was only able to take a few shots and by the time I got over to the pond (last photo) the colors were already just about gone, (time sequence of the shots was about 2-3 minutes). You can click on each photo to see a larger image, hope you enjoy them as much as I did when I ran out in the grass in my bare feet.

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Photography of Wisteria Flowers in Bloom

24 Mar

Wisteria in Bloom

The backyard is a great place to take some photos of Spring in action.  I took these photos last night after I got home from work and it shows the color of Spring can be found just about everywhere right now.  The fist shot is the bud stem of the Wisteria plant which is almost as prevalent around here as Kudzu.  You can click on the larger size of the Wisteria and see it is covered in yellow pollen from the pine trees which is covering just about everything right now.

The next is a bloom from a Magnolia tree (a southern Magnolia I believe, not the traditional large thick green leaved trees), and the last is a violet (weed).  The violets are everywhere this year but they are so small if you don’t look closely you might miss them altogether.  They are about the size of a pencil eraser at most, and are usually considered to be weeds.

The Magnolia tree is interesting… one of the early bloomers of Spring, it produces these large white flowers before it grows any leaves at all and doesn’t bloom again until next February.  Right now it has exploded in bloom and the very center of the flower has a beautiful yellow and red center (shown below) which is also smaller than the size of a pencil eraser (very small).

Magnolia in Bloom

Violet in Bloom

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The Simplicity of Two Red Chairs in the Grass

28 Nov

This was taken out by our pond with the photo shoot from Thanksgiving.  I love the simplicity of two or three colors in photography. Such a simple picture yet so much can be seen or written about the simplicity seen here.

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Another Beautiful and Colorful Fall Day in Alabama

9 Nov

Another Beautiful and Colorful Fall Day in Alabama

Fall Tree Swing in Alabama

What a difference just a few days makes in the fall. This is what our tree (and swing) looked like this afternoon.  Compare that to this Fall Has Finally Arrived in Alabama, and My Swing Loves It, taken just a few days ago.

It was a totally different time of day of course, but the colors have changed dramatically, and many of the leaves have started to fall off the trees.  I don’t remember this tree turning colors like this last year but as the years click off each fall probably looks more colorful to me.  How were your fall colors this year?

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Fall Colors Arrive on My Tree Swing in Alabama

5 Nov

Sweetgum Tree in the Alabama Fall

The temperature yesterday did get close to the forcasted 78*F but the leaves on the trees are starting to turn colors.  Our place is covered in a small forest of pine trees and just a few hard wood trees which are mostely these Sweetgum Tree which most people around this part of the country consider to be a weed-like nuscence.  Mine however holds our tree swing which provides a great place to relax and sit in the peacefulness of the day.

Sweetgum Tree in the Alabama Fall

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Some Mornings the Sunrise is Like Fire in the Sky

3 Sep

House in morning sunrise over the farm

This photo is pretty much the view from my bedroom window. Most mornings I wake up and see the sunrise with very little color, some days though, there are unbelievable colors in the sky, and this is what I saw this morning.  Color like this doesn’t happen very often, and most times it is gone before I can run up and grab my camera.  Today, it was so beautiful, I had to run outside with my camera to capture the sunrise, and I am glad I did.  (I try to remind myself, rarely if ever do I make the effort to get out my camera, and later am sorry I did.)

The last few days we have had a nice cover of clouds from all the different topical storm systems in the southeast, and it made for a beautiful sunrise this morning.  This sunrise photo was taken about 60 minutes ago of my parents house (about a quarter of a mile away), about 50 feet from my back door.  The morning colors change very very fast.  Today, one minute it was a deep dark red color and just 30-90 seconds later, it turned into an orange fire and I managed to take what is shown below.

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Lake City Colorado Wide-Angle Water Landscape

1 Sep

Lake City Overlook

One of the things I probably dis-like the most about blogs is having to clean house, but, this weekend I went through the tedious process of implementing a new design, updating all the categories for each post, and changing some previous posts to display the full size images this design will accommodate.  I really think that much of the details in photography is lost in viewing small images, so, for those still on dial-up, I apologize now.  From this point forward I will be displaying my images on up to 900px wide in some cases, like the image below of Lake City lake in Colorado (although I will try to keep the file size as small as possible).

The image above was taken in August of 2005 in Lake City Colorado.  There is an overlook on the forest road where you can stop and hike up the side of the mountain. Image data: Camera, Nikon D2X, ISO-100, Focal length 35mm @ f/16

This is one of those scenes that has probably been photographed a million times but is still so beautiful that you just have to stop and take a shot.  This particular shot I did do a bit of hiking off the main road.  I climbed up to the top of the ridge overlooking the lake and the most gorgeous colors appeared.

I rarely think the best shot is in the foot pegs of the tripod that just left (or where everyone else tends to take the same shot), and in this case I was greatly rewarded.  The drive from Creede to Lake City is one of the most wonderful drives found in the country, so if you ever have a chance, take the road right out of Creede and take a slow drive over several passes until you drop down into Lake City.

Happy Labor Day to everyone.

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Great Photos Use Contrasting Colors with Flowers and Spiders

29 Apr

Red Flower and Green Spider

In nature photography, one of the best things to find is some subject with contrasting colors. Of course, you are taking about nature, so it isn’t really up to you, but if you can find a contrasting color (that would be red/green, or yellow/black, or blue/green etc), it will make the image pop out.

Sometimes you have to look REALLY hard to find a contracting color. Red and green are two of my favorite contrasting colors, they just go so well together and each color stands out. In this image, I remember looking around forever for the red/green match and finally found this tiny little spider. Not the largest subject I would have liked, but, a green spider, sitting on a red flower, go figure. Without the green background, the flower itself would not jump out of the image quite as well as it does with the contrasting color in the background.

The spider is about the size of my finger nail at most, so getting in really close was pretty important. Framing the background to have some shade of green was just a matter of framing, and trying to get a somewhat diagonal going from the center of the flower up to the spider is an element of photography I like as well.

Some reviews have not cared for the spider there at all (I do have both shots, but like this one better), and the flower itself could have been a sharper with the focus on the center of the flower (if that was the subject). Since the subject is the spider, he is what is in sharp focus (you may have to click on the larger version to see the detail of the spider better). What do you think? Do you like the spider there or not?  He is obviously the subject of the photo, not the flower.  The flower is far to soft, but they do tend to compete with each other.

Image Specifics

  • Body – Nikon n90s
  • Lens – Nikon 105mm Macro with 6T closeup filter
  • Film – Fuji Velvia 50

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The Reddest Red Found in a Flower Bloom

28 Mar

Red Flower with Spider

Some images just jump out at me when I see them in nature, this one I loved because of its deep color. This will be posted as my first image of the day on this blog.  I love contrasting colors in nature and two of the best (in my opinion) is when you can find red and green together.  Luckily in nature, you can usually find green, so if you do find red, green is not far behind.  This flower was taken at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Birmingham Alabama.

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