Spring Happenings

Spring is a great time to be taking pictures. The bright colors of blooming flowers are hard to resist, both for me with my camera, and for bees as well. Bees see color somewhat differently than humans, preferring blues and yellows and not so much reds, as red looks black to bees.

Nature has a way of showing off this time of year. I try to capture that in the images below.

Enjoy!

This is a Lenten rose (a type of hellebore). It is not a rose; it is in the buttercup family.

Green with Envy

A hyacinth:

Purple Wave 1

Purple Wave 2

Here's a daffodil (also called Narcissus, the formal name of the genus). This was taken indoors in low light.

Mood Setter

A backyard azalea, that I find particularly captivating, at least in this pose:

Seeking Truth

This bee likes it too.

Pollen Hunter

Here the bee goes "all in":

Nose First

These next two photos are flowering pear tree blossoms:

Upward Bound

Blue Sky Watchers

This next photo is of our purple leaf sand cherry (also called plum leaf sand cherry). It *is* a member of the rose family. I've been experimenting with photos on my Pixel 4a, a recent cell phone upgrade. Despite its single lens and small size, this cell phone can be encouraged to take remarkably good photos with a bit of care.

This was taken in "Portrait" mode, and enhanced using Remini, which is a cell phone app I recently discovered that makes some pictures sharper (especially out of focus ones) using artificial intelligence. While Remini works particularly well for faces, I find it does a surprisingly nice job with many flower photos as well.

Purple No-Rain

(back to my regular Olympus camera on a different day) Here's the same plant in bright backlit sun:

Setting Sail

Another hyacinth:

Curls Aside

This is a primrose, which is not a rose:

Color Pop

This tulip was one of the earlier spring flowers on display in our garden:

Pink Rules

Pink Petals

This next photo is an indoor Pixel 4a picture of a daffodil in a vase, using natural light.

Splash of Yellow

Here's another Pixel 4a photo of one of our cherry trees, also taken in "Portrait" mode, and enhanced using Remini (and Lightroom).

Blossom Out

 All photos © 2021, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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Cardinals in the Snow

We have a flowering pear tree that produces berries that Northern Cardinals, at least, seem to really like eating.

After a recent snowfall, the Cardinals were quite easy to spot, their bright red color contrasting nicely against the snow.

I decided to try to photograph them through the window, an effort that is not always rewarded with particularly sharp pictures. They were approximately 50 feet away through the glass.

While both a male and a female Cardinal were present, the photos below are only of the male. I like the muted colors of the female as well, but none of those photos were quite blog worthy, perhaps partly because she was hidden behind branches.

These are taken with my 300mm (600mm equivalent) zoom lens at 258, 179, and 240mm respectively. The first two are cropped in post, the last is not.

Snackin' in the Snow

Bird in Winter

Happy in the Trees

All photos © 2019, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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