Les Belles Fleurs L’hiver (beautiful flowers in winter)

Hello great blog readers!
I’m ready for spring!  If we can’t have spring let’s have some nice, deep snow!  I haven’t had a chance to cross-country ski or snowshoe yet.  It has been a different kind of winter for our whole country!  The south is freezing and the northern ski slopes are struggling for lack of snow.

I’m controlling Mother Nature today and I declare it’s SPRING in my house!
I like to buy inexpensive bunches of tulips at the market in the winter.  It brings color into the house and it brightens a dreary day.
Plus….it gives me something else to on which to practice my indoor Macro shots.  I’ve taken photos of all the pens, boxes, plants, lamps, paperweights, coasters, floors, candle holders and plates in the house already, so this gives me some variety! 😉

The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.
–  Gertrude S. Wister

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 ~And just a reminder from Mother Nature that winter isn’t over yet…..we got 2″ of snow overnight. 😉

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Have a colorful, happy day!
Judy

All text and images are copyright © 2002-2012 and are the exclusive property of Judy Johnson (unless otherwise indicated). All Rights Reserved. All Images are protected under United States and International copyright laws. None of the images on this site are in the Public Domain.

 

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The “Blue Hour” Means a Jazzy Sky~

**(Plus I have 2 macro shots from 3 hours of practice today!)**

First, let’s talk about that smooooth,  Bluesy Sky.    The time right after the sun sinks below the horizon, and just before the sun rises is called the “Blue Hour”.   If you have a clear night, you can get some great photos with that wonderful deep blue sky.  Clear nights don’t happen often in winter in my area of the Great Lakes, so I’ve been taking advantage of some recent cloud-free ones!

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Just at the horizon is a line of light from the setting sun.  Here is a link for “Blue Hour” photography.  They have all kinds of information in their tutorial.   They even have a world map that tells exactly when your particular “Blue Hour” times are for your area.  So you don’t have to do any fancy math!
Click here.

Here are two macro shots from today.  Thank you to kerry129 for all your help.  I did try your tips!  And thank you  Jim for giving me the link.  I appreciate your knowledgeable assistance, guys!

window knob

I hope you could open a window with this size knob!!  It looks rather large here! 😉

Eiffel Tower

The difference between this Eiffel Tower and the real one,  is that this one obviously needs to be dusted!  Once again, try macro photography and be surprised by what you see!  I see lots of dust! 😉

Judy

All text and images are copyright © 2002-2012 and are the exclusive property of Judy Johnson (unless otherwise indicated). All Rights Reserved. All Images are protected under United States and International copyright laws. None of the images on this site are in the Public Domain.

Who knew?

Ack.  I’m struggling with macro shots.  I’m trying to learn.   Aperture and f numbers, speed, let in more light/let in less light and focus.  Then there’s the tripod, the lenses (right now I use extension tubes: 30 mm/20mm/12mm until I save for a regular macro lens) and the lens cleaner.  Oh, I forgot about the SUN, overcast, wind….I’m sure I’ve left out a lot more.  To me it’s like trying to get all the components of dinner on the table at the same time!

Practice, practice, practice!  I was out practicing the other day and found some moss* to shoot.  I got all set up, looked through my lenses and WOWZA!  Who knew?   Moss* has the coolest spikey flowers!  I had no idea until I looked through my lenses.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.    ~Henry David Thoreau

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The  “flowers or flower heads” with some frost glinting on the moss in the background.

**Ok…now I’m not sure what this is!  After researching “Moss in Winter”…I couldn’t come up with the version here at all.  It resembles moss, and I read there are 15,000 different varieties of “moss” in the Americas.  I’ll keep looking.  If any of you know what this is, let me know! 

 Peace~

Judy

All text and images are copyright © 2002-2012 and are the exclusive property of Judy Johnson (unless otherwise indicated). All Rights Reserved. All Images are protected under United States and International copyright laws. None of the images on this site are in the Public Domain.

Bringing some sun to a dreary day~

Dear Readers,

Today was a dreary day here.  I decided I needed some sunshine!  I’ve also been working on my macro photography (close up photos).  For these photos I used my Nikon D-80 and 3 PROMASTER 7- Extension Tubes: 36mm, 20mm, and 12mm.  The extension tubes can be used singly or in any combination to get the shot you desire.  They are cheaper than purchasing many macro lenses, and with three of them, gives me several options to play with.

I’m posting a few of my recent macro photos.  I was fortunate to have a few flowers left in the garden beds to practice on!  It’s still a work in progress.  I have to work a lot on technique, and it’s scary for me to put this out on the internet!

Coreopsis above.

 Black-Eyed Susan above.                                          Rose above.

At least the flowers give us a bit of sunshine today!

Have a lovely Thursday evening and thanks for coming to visit~