Last year when this amaryllis bloomed in the flowerbed, I potted it up and brought it inside. After it bloomed I kept it in the pot all year in the lanai. It bloomed again this year! I brought it into the studio and let the sunshine back light the blooms. This consists of two series of nine photos each, stacked and blended together. This allows a greater depth of field for the flowers and keeps the background out of focus. Notice how the hues shift in the light.
Isn’t nature beautiful!
A friend gave me a bromeliad pup a few years ago. It has grown, blossomed and created more pups. I keep them in pots in the garden under trees to give them mid-day shade. One has created an efflorescence, so I brought it into the lanai and posed it for a few photos. I used a technique called focus bracketing. I put the camera on a tripod, waited for the breeze to die down, and took about five shots with each one focusing farther away. I experimented with how much change to make on each shot, to keep the background out of focus. Then I ran them through a Photoshop program to stack and mask them based on what is in focus and make a composite. It increases the depth of field, which is especially helpful on closeups. They remind me of feather dusters and fireworks.
I look out my studio window onto flowers, ponds and nature area. We are keeping watch on a pair of sandhill cranes who are tending eggs on a nest of sticks on the littoral shelf of one of the ponds. Once the rains come the nest area will be flooded. Wild flowers and our tended flowers are blooming in the warming sun.
jasmine blossoms
challa flowers with buds
wildflowers on the bank of the pond
wildflowers on the bank of the pond
Sandhhill cranes minding their nest
Snadhill crane keeping the eggs warm
wildflowers on the bank of the pond
An eagle caught my attention as it flew over the pond behind our house. Soon it dove and disappeared behind the ridge and appeared to be checking for interlopers.
As I moved closer the eagle took off with her half-eaten dinner still in her claws.
this sandhill crane with its partner was outside my window this morning.