Flowers

Had someone on Google+ suggest that I add more contrast to my photos to help them pop a little bit more. So, I started doing that. Here are two early samples.

Dahlias

One of my co-workers brought in some beautiful dahlias for us to plant for the kids.  I got them planted this week and then had to take a few photos.  They are such beautiful flowers.

Some more flowers

My grandma has some very beautiful flowers in her garden.  The dahlia's are so stunning (the first one).  They make for such a good picture.

Beautiful Flowers

Deb and I walked down through the Edmonds waterfront and marina area, lots of pretty flowers to take pictures of.

Flowers with Bokah

Bokah is one of my favorite photo terms and I love to see it in pictures, it is the blurry background that is all (hopefully) nice and smooth and helps the main element pop out of the picture.  We were able to get some pretty cool flower pictures with lots of Bokah (I heard it pronounced bouquet the other day, I think that must be it). Deb took all of these photos.

Macro Photography

A good friend of mine let me barrow his reverse mount lens.  So on my camera I have the kit lens with the 50mm on backwards at the end of it.  It looks really funny, but it takes some pretty awesome photos.  Here is a quick sample, I will post more later this week.  Doing macro this way, leaves a black circle around the actually photo, but it is still amazing the quality of the in focus part.

Some beautiful spring flowers

Spring has been slow to show up around here, but it has finally started showing up.  We have had some warmer weather the past few weeks and the flowers are starting to come out.  I will post more in the coming days as I continue to take them.  I believe Deb took these ones.

Spring Flowers

Iris' are so beautiful

Not sure what this one is, anyone???

Beautiful rose from my grandma's garden

Flowers

On our walk last night to watch the sunset Deb got some great shots of different flowers around here.  I love how parts of the flower are in focus and the rest falls out of focus so nicely (shallow depth of field).

Run and photos

Deb and I are participating in a 5k run on Saturday.  We would love it if you joined us or donated to help end slavery. You can do either by following this link.  
And now back to what this site is all about. Deb and I went for a beautiful spring walk last Saturday and Deb got some wonderful pictures (I'm convinced that she is the better artist with the camera and gets lots more 'wall worthy' pictures than I).

I love the perspective

This would have been great if some bonehead hadn't walked into the background

A few more flowers

The tulips and other flowers are finally starting to come out around here. The weather has warmed up a little bit, and we've had a little bit of sun (although we have set the modern record for coldest April in Washington).

Red Flowers

I have had a hard time getting good photos of Red flowers. The color just doesn't seem to photograph well.  I came upon this link and I think that it has really helped.
Basically I need to under expose the photos (because when red is over exposed even a touch it gets blown out and looks bad).  Then in photoshop I lighten the photo and am able to do that without over exposing the red.
The first tulip here is overexposed just a touch, then the second is under exposed, than the last one is exposed properly (after some re-touching).

The red here is still a little over exposed and looses some detail toward the bottom of the flowers.

Deb's Spring Flower Pictures

The weather finally seems to be turning nice, Deb went out the other day and took some pictures of the flowers around. I think they turned out pretty well.