Believe Like the Bees

"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible."  Believe in the Creator and what He says you can be!!!

36 Years and Still Crazy in Love

  Blessed beyond measure, that's what these years have been and I can only hope for at least that many more, married to my best friend.  He brought me flowers and I have been slowly deconstructing the bouquet.  As I have been taking these photos it overwhelms me looking at all the detail, differences and beauty in these few flowers that God has designed and this is such a minuscule sample of  all the millions he has created not including all the other types of foliage.  God is such an amazing Creator!!! 

I have no idea what this flower is but it was all decked out with ruffles!

Maybe I'll Try Again

  I haven't posted on my blog for quite sometime, it was easier on IG, just upload a photo and see if it spoke to any others.  I never post for likes but to share God's beauty.  I struggle with blogging because I'm not much of a writer and felt like I needed to be writing for a Pulitzer award but I feel sometimes I want to say more about what inspired me to take to photo and what it meant to me.

 Photography is the story I fail to put into words. ~ Destin Sparks

Seeing Red

The red ranunculus looked so very pretty in the containers as I rifled through them looking for the perfect bunch to take home.  Finally found the prefect bunch and away we went. They were so lovely with their different stages of opening buds, some tight just daring to start to peak at the world while others had full skirts that were twirling in the slightest breeze.  Little cups to captures droplets of water, beautiful rows of patterns and curly ques.  Just a lovely day of photographing these sweet beauties.  Then I uploaded the images to my computer and the hidden, evil, dark split personality was revealed!  The dreaded editing of RED, they all looked like they were on a trip in the 1960's with their acid pinkish, magenta, red whatever, it was a nightmare to get them looking like the original, thank goodness that once I was able to get one color corrected I was able to copy and paste my settings.  I will stick with my sweet, soft pastel flowers for awhile I do believe! 

Macro and Dew Drops

Love that Trader Joe's has such a variety of beautiful flowers and they are so reasonable.  Played with using water and glycerin, the glycerin works much better for placing the drop exactly where you want it and having it stay in place. Took several images at different apertures, stacked the layers in PS and then brushed in the areas from each layer that I wanted to use to create one image.  Lots of fun, need to fine tune the look I am actually trying to create but am off to a good start.

2LO texture added background

Purple Glow

  I revisited some photos from this summer to work on for a presentation I was doing for photo forum on textures.  So not my comfort level but I survived the presentation and enjoyed working the images.

original

2LO textures

Vanishing Point

  Our photo forum technique was composition and vanishing point was the inspiration but I took a little different approach to it.  I was also inspired by this months devotion and kind of wrapped the three together. Can you tell what this is?  There was a paragraph from the devotion that really spoke to me which I have included below the image.  I used the extension tubes with my macro and was able to get what I envisioned.  In case you weren't able to tell what this is, it is the end of a pen.

 

However, the one with an eye on the sparrow has His heart on you. His care is beyond your comprehension. He is relentless and reassuring in His compassion. Let Him into the details of your life—He already knows and He has your best interest in mind. Your heavenly Father knows what’s best for you. No need to fear—God is near. He is as near as a prayer. His attention to detail invites you to trust and lean into His great love.

Details and Isolation

It's amazing all the details and the isolation I am able to get with the extension tubes and macro.  The first one is with my LR import preset only, the second has my import preset plus a filter, the last has a couple 2LO textures added.

New Accessory

I am trying out extension tubes, I understood the concept but not really what the results would be.  This set of images was using it on my 100 macro and my focusing distance was about 2 inches.  I love the isolation and fall off but need lots more practice.

Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

Some see a weed I see beautifully detailed flowers.  I am sure the people that saw me cutting the thistles down were thinking poor, dumb, city girl.

Poppy & Parts

Kris brought me one of her beautiful red poppies and I had lots of fun taking it's picture.  The petals didn't even look real, more like the tissue flowers we use to make back in the day.  Looks like I might have to plant some of these for next year.  I mainly used my macro lens but then decided to try light painting, it is fun and frustrating all at the same time as you can never duplicate what you have done.  Just as you get one part of it right, you over expose another, but when you do get an image that works you jump for joy!

First Stop at the Sunken Gardens for 2015

I stopped at the gardens the beginning of the week to see what was blooming.  The tulips unfortunately had taken a beating a couple nights before and were just sticks and the few iris's weren't in much better shape. It is always so much fun to see the garden come to life as the summer progresses though and I can't wait to see what they plant this year.  Not sure what these flowers are and I didn't find a marker describing them, I will have to do a little research.

Spring Flowers at Peggy's

Peggy invited Cathy and I to stay after bible study to photograph her flowers.  It was pretty breezy out but I managed to get a few images by shooting in manual with a high shutter speed to stop any movement I was getting.

After the Rain

  I went out after the rain and captured a few macro images.