Naturey Macro
A gorgeous early winter's day day in Canberra and a trip with friend David to the Australian National Botanic Gardens for some naturey macro pictures. David is interested in purchasing a macro lens so I've lent him my copy of the Tamron 90mm SP to have a play with. The day was cold but beautifully clear but a little on the windy side for nice calm macro shooting ... still, I came away with some nice pictures ... hope you like them too.
In other news ... my preparations for the Zoologica show are progressing and I've completed drafts of the poster, postcard and list of images appearing in the show ... as well as capturing some new images yesterday while out and about. I've also signed up for a joint photos/poetry show which will run in another gallery at the same time as Zoologica ... I'm going to be a busily creative boy ... wish me luck! :-)
All of my heart
"Once upon a time when we were friends
I gave you my heart, the story ends.
No happy ever after ... now we're friends..."
ABC - All Of My Heart
Not that my heart is breaking ... far from it :-)
I always loved this song and was singing it this morning ... I think it works :-)
Cranes Tweaking My Hair
It's been a little while since I put myself in front of the camera ... all this playing with flowers and having all the gear set up ... well the art just kinda got out of hand. I don't recommend sucking on a gerbera ... they really taste quite foul but for the sake of a loony selfie why not!
This last one pretty much sums up where I am right now ... playfully surprised, speaking flowers and with cranes tweaking my hair ... there's gold and lots of fun too :-)
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
So lucky! You get three and not just one ;-)
Playing with flowers
I thought the other day 'it's been a while since I played with flowers' (as you do) and so I bought myself a bunch of my favourites ... gerberas. They're a member of the sunflower family Asteracae ... daisies really. There's something about them that does it for me ... they have myriad facets, they have symmetry and a range of colours ... they're as fun from beneath as they are beautiful on top. Put a water drop on them and there's fun and beauty for all. Here's a selection:
Do you have a favourite flower? Or a favourite thing to take pictures of? Or even just a favourite thing?
Do tell :-)
Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers
I don't recall the very first time I heard the expression 'Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers'. I have always loved flowers and blooms, their myriad colours and forms ... and scents. My love of flowers has stayed constant while the way I look at them changes constantly. When I learned about plants and what flowers are for, the way they entice and mimic ... the way the look different under ultraviolet or infra-red. The way we use flowers to say things ... from red roses for love through a whole spectrum of colours to black roses for death ... 'say it with roses' indeed! Flowers as symbols of the transience of life. Fake flowers ranging from the trashy to the profoundly elegant. I learned about flowers as genetic markers, indicators of weed species, the passing of seasons, their rarity and their basic commonality. The sound of bees in trees in Springtime. The carpets of riotous colour beneath flowering camellia. I learned their smells ... I'd like to retire somewhere where I can smell the scent of frangipani blossoms ... the heady scents of Spring and warm breezes. Native Australian flowers whose scents pass into honey, bulbs, trees, bushes dripped with rain or dew. And then I started to take photographs of them.
And sometimes I don't see them, or smell them, or sense them ... I'm busy doing something else, preoccupied. Sometimes I sit and just watch them and think as I'm doing now about all the different ways I see them. The day I saw my children learning to sniff their first flower nearly made me cry. My advice ... don't forget to stop and smell the flowers :-)