I thought I would make today’s Friday Feet the most colorful set of flowers shot in this series. I spent most of the day in blasting 100*F heat cutting acres of dry grass so this was a nice break. The flowers are from the Stephens family from after their service yesterday (see previous post). They were nice enough to let everyone take home some flowers from what turned out to be one of the most beautiful displays of flowers I have ever seen at any service, and now they can live on forever on the interwebs. In fact, there were so many flowers that everyone who wanted any got to take some home and the lobby of the church was still filled with flowers when everyone left.
The shots below were macro shots taken at a 1:1 magnification ratio or greater. The orange rose with the water drops was slightly greater than 1:1 by using what is called an extension tube (basically 27mm’s of air between the lens of the camera body). I love macro photography. It has a tendency to show all kinds of details that we just don’t see through casual observation like the oil and water colors from a few weeks ago. The first show below of the two pedals is the big flower on the very top by the basket handle above. No special lighting or anything, the flowers were just that colorful. Have a good weekend everyone.
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We have been in this drought for some time now, it seems like years, because it has been. For about the last 5 years or so we just have not had any steady rain at all. The best evidence of the drought, at least on our property, is our pond. This is basically a 2 acre pond that is rain fed. From the feet shot you can see it is dry as the Arizona desert. From the shot of the pond area, almost the entire view of the photo should be under water, in fact I am basically standing where the water should be. Anyway, I know it’s not the most photographic Friday Feet but it’s what this summer is turning out to be like on our side of the world. We could really use an active hurricane season where we get some nice slow moving weak storms over and over again. I know the fish shot is kind of gross so I left you with my moms yellow flowers blooming like mad in this 100* weather.
Coming up soon, some uber cute shots of my nephews in their Chick-fil-a cow costume for their annual photo contest. It was quite something to shoot people in cow costumes in 100* weather. Have a good weekend.
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I took this set of photos of my Father-in-law’s orchid while I was at his house for the festival and just now got around to posting some pics of them. This Phalaenopsis Orchid apparently comes in a huge variety of colors, this one just happens to be white with a tiny bit of yellow and red. Reminds me of a tiger orchid if one exists by that common name but anyway… you can see the EXIF metadata here and here if you are interested. Both of these shots were taken as shown in the third shot above, on a tripod, and had about an 8-10 second exposure, meaning there was no breeze or air movement whatsoever for the 8-10 seconds, didn’t happen very often in the hour it took to get the shot I wanted.
I have always loved macro photography (see some examples). Somehow you get to see something the human eye can still readily see, just not in such great detail unless you really pay close attention to what you are looking at, and most people don’t. There is a tiny little world that exists between the microscope level and exactly what we see with the naked eye, usually existing from what macro photographers call 1:1 or closer. Both of these shots above were taken just about at a 1:1 ratio or just a few millimeters shy. You can achieve some great macro photography results with very little equipment like the kit lens that came with your camera and an extension tube like the Nikon PK-13 (I picked up on eBay for $20 this week). For the most realistic results a digital SLR will work better than a typical point-and-shoot, even if you just have the kit lens that came with your camera, then just start testing out the minimum focusing distance your lens will achieve and see how close you can get. Try adding an extension tube between your camera and the lens and you might be surprised at some of the results.
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I think I spent an hour or longer last night looking for a single wildflower to shoot and found nothing. We have had so little rain here this summer that nothing wild is blooming, until I woke up this morning and looked right outside my window. I always forget about these tiny little violet wildflowers. They open every single morning and are gone by about 9am. Of course they get more water than the rest of the scorched earth around here since they are close to the house. Ebby unwillingly sat among the flowers for me, so patiently. She can be like stone when you just place her somewhere, poor thing. If you want to see the EXIF metadata for the macro shots above go here or here. They were taken at “life-size” or a 1:1 macro. I love the reflection in the water droplet (and no I didn’t place that there, God provided a nice bit of dew on the flowers just for me this morning). You can actually see the house and my camera if you look close enough. Hope everyone has an enjoyable Saturday, and has someplace to stay cool.
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The Photo of the Day today is a very small red and yellow wildflower found in the southeast, usually in the spring to early summer in the shade, called an Indian Pink or Maryland pinkroot, and woodland pinkroot. Better known by its Latin sir name Spigelia marilandica this little guy was blooming over at Chewacla State Park all over the place once we took a look around. Shot with a D7000 and a Nikkor 35mm 1.8 (EXIF details can be found over here) if you are like me and so inclined to read that sort of stuff. I have some shots of the waterfalls but haven’t gotten around to post-processing on those yet. This has already been a crazy busy week and it’s only going to increase as the week goes on unfortunately. It’s not really unfortunate, it’s just the way the week is this week.
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I love doing the back yard photo walk, mainly because you really don’t have to go anywhere to shoot. Every time you go out in your yard you will be surprised at how many new things there are to shoot each time you try it. It doesn’t seem that way at first, especially since you look at the same setting every day, but if you look hard, everything changes as the seasons move on, and there is always something new to shoot. Yesterday I went to test out this Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX and this is what I came back with. Years ago when I was shooting Nikon’s FX (Full Frame sensor) I loved to shoot specifically at 50mm using a fast 50mm lens. Over the last few years I have been shooting with a crop sensor (or DX), which makes my 35mm lens a 52mm. All that to say this is about the same as something like this but with a different lens.
Have a great rest of the weekend everyone.
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This week was one that won’t be forgotten any time soon in the state of Alabama, especially not in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham or Dadeville, but I think in many ways the storms took so us by surprise. At the moment there are at least 320 people dead from all the related storms and tornadoes and the news just seems to just keep coming even days after the storms have passed. It took about 24-48 hours for people around here to even realize what had happened but the videos from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham are just incredible. The Big Picture has a few images from the storm at Tornadoes kill over 200, and they are bound to have more soon. Some of those photo really are worth at least a thousand words.
I am reminded that even among all the damage, the flowers still blooms, the plants still grown, and God is in charge, even if we like to think we really are. A man at a gas station tonight was showing me photos of his cousins mobile home that took a direct hit from a tornado in Dadeville and there was nothing but an empty spot on the ground with a mailbox. He made the remark to me that “what would have taken months to clear by bulldozer a storm did in 30 seconds”. Yes, the power of man is no match for the power of nature.
I took these shots today on my iPhone as I walked around our property. While we did have a tree or two go down we were basically untouched by any of the storm damage and wild flowers were blooming and corn was growing in the fields. Such an amazing contrast for just 30-40 miles away from here. Our church is taking a collection up on Sunday to deliver to Tuscaloosa, if you are in the Auburn area and would like more information please visit Tornado // Disaster // Relief. All of the photos above were taken with my iPhone today except for the one of the rain, which was taken the day all the storms hit as we were driving back from Columbus, GA. I almost didn’t make it this Friday but with 90 minutes left in the day, this is my Friday Feet post. Have a good weekend everyone.
