Different Light

In some parts of the world, the weather is known to change quickly and people often say: If you don’t like the weather … wait a few minutes.  With regard to outdoor photography, the same thing can often be said about the quality of the light:  if you don’t like the light … wait a few minutes.

 

Case in point, the attached photos of Purple Fringe.  The first shot was captured in open sun near mid day.  Bright light like this causes not just shadows, but hard-edged shadows (transition from light to shadow is crisp rather than soft).  This is sometimes refered to as hard light.

For the second image, I simply waited for clouds to obscure the sun, resulting in soft light.  This eliminates the harsh shadows, but the image looses overal contrast. 

Keep in mind that light can change quickly and can greatly impact the mood of an image.  The second image here was captured 3 minutes after the first image.

Typically, I prefer soft light or side light.  I prefer the second image.  (Many outdoor photographers will tell you that mid-day hard light is “bad light”.)

However, both images suffer from cluttered background of grasses.  Perhaps I was so enamored with this amazing flower that I did not pay attention to the background.  I don’t recall.  A lower camera angle might have helped eliminate the grasses from the photo, but likely not enough. Perhaps the only recourse here is to walk away from this plant and find a different Purble Fringe with less grass nearby.

 

Park Wildflower Project

multiflora rose

Working at an office park, anyone with an inclination towards the outdoors world … simply has to get out of the office and walk.  In this course, I discovered that numerous wildflowers grow around the periphery of the park.  Being both photographer and sometimes amateur naturalist,  I began photographing and cataloging the various flowers. 

That was the humble beginning of what I will refer to as the Park Wildflower Project.  My catalog is more than 60 species …  but I’m not done yet.  I find it necessary to return frequently.  From year to year, the species can vary.  (This year, Common Tansy has invasively taken over the northwest meadow.)  I find flowers that I have not seen before;  and I no longer find some of those that I have seen.

 For identification, I rely primarily upon two books.  For a quick visual reference, I like “Wildflowers in the Field and Forest” by Clemants and Gracie.   But that’s not always enough.   Newcomb’s “Wildflower Guide” is absolutely essential !

 

Water Lilly

Paddling the river this evening, I had planned on a quick trip; however, I stopped a half dozen times to photograph flowers (aquatic or nearly so). The day was waning and yet another stop may mean I would finish my trip in the dark. But each time I stowed the compact camera safely in my dry bag, I soon found another reason to dig it out of the bag yet again. This continued until the battery expired.

Trillium

Here is a very different type of image from Katahdin / Baxter State Park.
 
 
Both painted trillium and purple trillium are common in the northeast forests and both have a very small window of time during which they bloom, maybe three weeks. Purple trillium are more difficult to photograph because the flowers have a nodding presentation (the flowers droop over and face the ground).
 
 
What always catches my eye is groups of these flowers. Typically they are solitary plants, so a cluster of them is a nice find. For this shot, I used a wide-angle zoom lens with an extension tube. Without the extension tube, focusing distance is perhaps 14 inches. With the extension tube, I can get much closer to the flower, reducing the distance about 50%.
Canon 5D mk II, ISO 400, f/14, 1/6 sec (on a tripod of course)
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