Longwood Gardens Again......

Today I met Nadia at Longwood Gardens. We were in search of the Himalayan Blue Poppy. Well, I had to laugh..when we got into the conservatory there were a bunch of photographers around two large planted pots of Blue Poppies...that could only be accessed by one side as the other side of the large pot was facing the pool. I made a few shots and moved on...oh well. I spent the morning using my 200mm macro lens, working close ups. After walking around a bit I changed to the Lensbaby and made some "Garden Shots" to enhance the presentation I will be giving on Garden Photography at Penn Camera tomorrow night. It was tough getting up early with the shift of Daylight savings time. At noon the conservatory became busy and we headed to lunch in the rain. When we left the witch hazel beckoned us to get out our cameras and I made a few shots, then headed home.

Macro Photography Lessons

Today I had the great pleasure of working with Marian and Susan on advancing their macro photography skills. Both Marian and Susan are very talented with their crafts, Marian makes Bobin Lace and Susan beads on fabric. Susan blogs and makes images of her work and tools.
We made some images and really covered a lot of ground....some tips on Macro Photography:
a. Keep the plane of focus parallel to the surface of your subject for maximum depth of field.
b. f8 is not f8 in macro land. To gain great depth of field f16 or greater is required for subjects with relatively shallow textures and shapes.
c. Selective focus, using auto-focus isn't the best way to focus a macro lens, the lens often has a hard time "grabbing" or finding an edge to focus on as we often are not shooting "edgy" subjects...so choose manual focus and use the focusing ring while holding your depth of field button to "see" where the lens is focusing.
d. Get close, fill the frame and watch the edges for intrusions and bright spots.
e. Use a tripod for tack sharp images, and use a remote or cable release. Use mirror lock up if you have it.
f. Reflectors are great to pop light into areas of your subject.
g. For table top photography...Lowel Ego lights are easy to transport and provide a daylight balanced light at 5500k.

The images in this blog are of the handy-work of Susan Elliott. I made these images while demonstrating different lens so they could see what the benefits are of quality and different mm lenses. The largest piece of work pictured is about 5 x 5 inches square.

I used a 105 macro, and a Lensbaby with a 5.6 aperture ring with a +10 dipoter and a +4 Diopter. The lensbaby images are of the bird and the two images show the different magnifications. Working with the Lensbaby macro diopters, you have to get physically very close to the subject.

Longwood Gardens

While waiting for my car to get service, I have been working on images I shot on Monday at Longwood Gardens, for my lecture next Monday, March 15 at Penn Camera on Reisterstown Road, on Improving your Garden Photography. I hope I get a few more participants to register between now and then.

When I first arrived at Longwood I went to the large room with the big garden pool. There were large calla lilies in the beds and the light was fairly harsh on the blooms as the sun was shining through the conservatory ceiling. There were a few blooms in bright light, but not harsh light. I made some exposures there enjoying the beautiful shapes of the trumpets on these lilies. I knew if I exposed for the highlights the background I worked hard to set up with dark vegetation, would go black, which is what I wanted so when I converted these to Black and White the trumpet would be the focal point of the image with no foliage detail. I guess you could create this in a studio with a black velvet background and controlled lights, but I like to shoot in the environment, not a studio.

I'll be working on another collection of images from that day I made outside with the Lensbaby. I will post a few of those later...after I fine tune the presentation I am working on for the Arundel Camera Club on the Governors Cup Race I photographed last year. Lots to do!

Longwood Gardens

Today I made a run to Longwood Gardens. I wanted to see the Orchid display, and see if the Blue Himalayan Poppies were in bloom. I met Jeff Wolk in the parking lot at 9:00 and we headed in. I had not been shooting for two weeks and I was looking forward to making some new images...but really didn't have a mission. It was quite a warm day and carrying my gear through the green house was work. The orchid display is nice but I don't think there are as many as last year. I had to get my photo mojo going again and it took a little visual warming up. I never did make any orchid images, and after three hours I was working on a headache from the heavily perfumed air from the star gazer lilies. So we had some lunch and regrouped. After lunch we dropped our serious gear in the car and enjoyed a stroll outside around the grounds in early spring like weather. It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air..

Just a little update, yes I am still alive....

Yes, I have been away from the Blog, for what seems like many days...
But I have been sick and not out shooting...so here's some updates...I have been coordinating the final details of the Baltimore Camera Club's One Day Seminar with Brenda Tharp...it will be a fun day! Brenda will be in tomorrow afternoon and I look forward to having a nice dinner with her and some friends on Friday night.

Also organized a One Day Flash Lighting Workshop at Horizon Photography Workshops with Steve Gottlieb for BCC members.

I also have agreed to present on April 7th, at the Arundel Camera Club. Given a choice of composition or Governors Cup... the program director decided he liked the idea of a presentation on the Preparation and Actual shooting along with the event details of The Governor's Cup Race, from last summer. Since their club in Severna Park has many members who also enjoy sailing I agreed. So I started working on that presentation. The meeting is open and if you have any interest please attend.

Had a good lesson on Tuesday night with the participants in the Hopkins class...coughing through the evening...but I made it.

I plan on doing some shooting at Longwood on Monday...looking forward to their Orchid display and maybe they have some blue poppies by now.

............and the Beach House opens in 28 days!!!! Counting down for my first trip back to the beach since last November.

The Impossible Project That Kept Polaroid Instant Analog Film Alive - DailyFinance

The Impossible Project That Kept Polaroid Instant Analog Film Alive - DailyFinance

Just wanted to share.....I thought this was interesting.

Howard Rawlings Conservatory

Yesterday, I had a great group of workshop participants at The Howard Rawlings Conservatory, previously The Baltimore Conservatory, named in 2005 after the late Del. Howard P. Rawlings, a State House legend, and the father of the new Mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
We enjoyed working in the Palm house, the orchid room, the desert room, and the Mediterranean room. These are a few shots I made after the group had left for the day. By then it was late afternoon and the sun was streaming through the conservatory windows...so I made some back lit images of a leaf with a slower shutter to blur a little and an abstract of some orchid petals, while shooting with my 200mm macro attached to a 52 mm extension tube. I then wanted to capture some shots of the Mediterranean room pool, where I helped a student see the bubbles in the pool as a possible image. So I switched lens and played there for a while. It was a fun day at the conservatory and it was nice to shoot some images with lots of color...