Lungwort Oysterleaf? You've got to be Kidding

Have you had a chance to take some Spring photos yet this year?

We weren't planning to shoot this morning, but heavy humidity provided gorgeous filtered light... so we headed out to search for Wildflowers. These are Virginia Bluebells (mertensia virginica) - also called Virginia Cowslip, Roanoke Bells, or Lungwort Oysterleaf (I kid you not). They were blooming in abundance near the river at Bedford Reservation in the Cleveland Metroparks.

Jay's shot (below) was taken with a 17-40mm lens. The leaves are back-lit with soft, diffused lighting.

For this next shot, Jay used a wide aperture to produce a shallow depth-of-field. In doing so, he was able to single out the flowers in the foreground. The soft background gives a satisfying sense of place without too much clutter. The out-of-focus area provides very little detail, so the viewer's attention is automatically focused on the clean details that are in focus. You can use this technique to simplify a complicated scene.

I took some wide-angle photos too, but I spent a lot of time shooting with my 180mm macro lens. The tiny details were truly beautiful. This shot provides a bit more detail, so you can see what these pretty little flowers looked like up close. I always love soft colors and simple compositions - and I tend to like brighter images. Jay prefers slightly darker exposures - as you can see from him images above. In this case, I wanted a soft, bright, feel to the shot... but if you like brighter images, be careful to avoid blown highlights!

It rained during the night, and water droplets were still clinging to flowers and foliage. I had to take several shots to get a sharp image since it was a bit breezy out there. It's often difficult to get sharp macro images outdoors, but I think it's worth the effort. ;)

So - what do you think? Did we capture the essence of Spring with our impromptu photo-shoot? We met some other photographers on the trails - I guess we all had the same idea today!

Trillium and a busy week...

Boy, it's been a busy week! I managed to finish a run yesterday - after a few weeks of short runs on a painful knee. Much better at last. It's nice to be able to run outdoors again, too. :) We also did an upper body workout - and we'll be back at the gym tonight... biking and lower body. Boy oh boy! ;)

Last week's presentation at the Akron Camera Club went very well. Thanks very much to those of you who signed up for our seminar afterwards! We're looking forward to seeing you again! We've also been busy preparing for our June seminar in California, and our August seminar in Ohio. We've had many requests for online classes, so we're working on putting that together as well. We expect to be able to offer our first "Webinar" sometime later this year. We'll keep you posted.

I did manage to get my website updated. My latest travel information is now online, along with workshop information, news, and the like.

National Geographic Calendar

Jay and I got word this morning that two of our images (one mine, and one Jay's) will be used in next year's National Geographic Engagement Calendar. We're very pleased to have had our images chosen. We're preparing high-res images to send out this evening.

I've been busy packing up and preparing to leave - a day or two in Southern Ohio, and then on to Kentucky. I'm not sure if we'll get any landscape photographs... not likely... but we'll be taking lots of pics of the kids. ;)

-Varina

Thistle

Here's a shot I took at Infirmary Mound Park in Granville, Ohio. The sun was near the horizon behind me, and the golden light outlined these beautiful seed pods against the shadowed field. The beautiful cloud in the foreground was lit up as well, and I liked the way it balanced the composition - soft lit clouds in the upper left, and spiky thistles on their slender stems in the lower left.

This is an example of contrast of form and texture - rather than color or tone. When you think of contrast, you are often thinking of black vs. white, or bright vs. dark. In this case, I couldn't help but notice the contrast between soft and prickly - which is highlighted by the more ordinary contrast between light and shadow.

We came out of this field covered in poky little burrs, but it was worth it. The park is absolutely beautiful - I look forward to shooting there again sometime.

Back in Ohio

We photographed the grist mill at Babcock State Park in West Virginia this morning. We've been here once before, but we wanted to return when the colors were at their peak. We did get some nice color over the river. It rained all morning, so we took turns holding an umbrella over our cameras so we could both get the shots we wanted. I don't generally shoot buildings, but this one has a bit of character that makes it a bit more interesting to me... you'll find a few lighthouse shots on my website too. :)

The skies cleared very quickly around mid-day, and by sunset they were nearly cloudless. Rather than shooting, we drove to Athens Ohio and checked into our hotel early. We've been working on our websites for the past couple of hours. Tomorrow, we hope to shoot the sunrise before meeting my sister for lunch near Columbus.

Rain

We drove down to Hocking county this afternoon - it's been raining since we left. We didn't expect to catch any good weather today, but we did have a chance to explore some locations we hadn't visited yet. The colors are beautiful in places, and completely gone in others. After spending some time hiking in Ohio, we drove on to West Virginia. We'll be shooting here tomorrow and then heading back to Ohio for a Sunday shoot.

West Virginia and Ohio

With any luck, we'll be shooting more fall color this weekend - in Southern Ohio and West Virginia. We expect to see colors at their peak in some of the most beautiful locations in these states. We've scouted these areas in the past, so we know where we'd like to be - but we'll be watching the skies carefully for clues to the best shooting locations. I'd love to see some color in the sky like our sunrise this morning - it was absolutely spectacular... bright reds fading to pink and taking over the sky as the morning progressed.

We're looking at overcast skies in the region for the next day or two - perfect for shooting waterfalls all day long... and there are so many falls to choose from. We hope to get a nice sunset on Saturday evening as the skies begin to clear up a bit. I'll try to keep you posted from hotel rooms along the way.

Here's a shot from our last trip to West Virginia - Left Fork Holly River - Holly River State Park, WV.
I spent a good part of the week processing, key-wording, uploading, and categorizing stock photos - and working on my website. I am working to create individual web pages for my articles, so that it is no longer necessary to download them to your computer. Jay and I generally work together on our articles, so these pages would be available from both our websites.

Comparison

A few days ago, on October 14th, I posted a shot from Maine that was quite similar to this one. I'm wondering what you which you will all prefer. This photograph was taken just a few seconds before the other - and a few meters away. I kept jumping from one spot to the next in order to try out different angles and compositions. I won't tell you which I prefer for now. :) I'd love to hear some of your opinions.

I love the bright, back-lit leaves in both photographs, but sometimes it's hard to decide which image should make the final cut. In this case, I needed to process both images in order to compare the finished products. I have a few others waiting in the wings as well - but I think the contest will be between these two.

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend! We've had perfect weather here in Ohio.

Details

I have a request for more information on that last shot, so I'll add it for those of you who are interested. The skies were heavily overcast - perfect for a detail shot like this one - however, these flowers stand on tall stalks that sway constantly in the wind. Although the wind was light, the flowers were moving too much to capture a decent image. I took two flowers indoors and used a tripod to make sure everything was steady. In this case, I chose to use natural light from the window, since I wanted that soft, even lighting.

I needed a wide aperture to get as much depth of field as possible, so I shot at f/32. That meant a longer shutter speed as well - 1.3 seconds. Without the wind, that wasn't a problem.

Processing a shot like this one is very easy because the range of light is very small. I'm not dealing with any of the complex lighting situations that landscape photography presents. I kept my contrast relatively low so the flower would remain soft. Also - I usually sharpen an image before printing or posting on the web, but in this case, I chose not to do that.

For the shot you see here, I let the petals of two flowers overlap. After following the same steps as for the last shot, I chose to convert to black and white to accentuate the detail in the contrasting petals.