Late Winter Early Spring
Posted on | April 15, 2010 | No Comments
When the plants are great, the lighting conditions perfect and everything falls in place, all else gets pushed back – including blog posts!
In spite of the recent unpredictible weather changes, I was able to get outside and do some shooting. This is the time of year where there are opportunities for late winter images as well as early spring captures. While you may not find a large number of subjects to shoot, there may be opportunities to concentrate on different views of a single subject.
At the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in NJ the snowdrops, heaths, and winter jasmine were in bloom and offered a great afternoon of early April shooting. On my way back to the car at the end of the day, this witch hazel that looked ordinary when I arrived, now sparkled in the late afternoon sun. Setting my tripod very low, I was able to eliminate the driveway that crossed in back of the tree. The dark background set off the late winter bloom. I moved in a few yards at a time, discovering a new image at each step. As soon as I was in close, I switched from the 70-200mm zoom lens to my 180mm macro lens. My last shot of the day yielded this macro image of a few beautiful blossoms highlighted by the out of focus orange of the other flowers. I shot this witch hazel for about forty minutes and ended up with eight totally different images ranging in style from a realistic representation to a more abstract interpretation.
The opportunity to shoot both late winter and early spring images made this day successful. Hopefully, adding new witch hazel, heath, winter jasmine, and snowdrops to our image library will make it profitable!
NEWS ALERT: The April 30th Macro workshop at The New York Botanical Garden is sold out. Thanks for all the interest! If you are looking for a macro workshop and have a little more free time, you might consider the weeklong workshop I am presenting at Maine Media in Rockport, ME in October. The weather on the coast of Maine at this time of year is special. There is good morning and evening light without the five am wake up call. Six days of macro!!! Details are available at http://www.mainemedia.edu.
April 28, 2010: lecture and multimedia presentation at Backyard Living, Ridgewood, NJ Details: http://www.backyardlivingnj.com
July 10, 2010: lecture and multimedia presentation at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum.
October 1,2,3, 2010: Chanticleer Garden, Wayne PA: master photography weekend with Alan L. Detrick and Roger Foley Details http://www.chanticleergarden.org.
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