05-30-13 Both Sides Now

So have you ever pondered the backside of a pink tulip? You have now. The title, as my friends from the '70s may recognize, is borrowed from Joni Mitchell's song by the same title, though in her case, she's talking about clouds.

And, yes, those are real rain drops on the tulips, which are bent over both by the wind and by age.

05-20-13 Bird's Eye View

I am hung up on flowers, obviously. And I am also once again compelled to comment on the power of the photographer's point of view. The conventional view of flower is from the side and from a short distance. The tulip becomes something quite different when you view it from the top at close range.

This is one of my wife's beautiful flowers, incidentally. I'll admit that I did wander into the neighbor's yard again today. But the pink tulips called me back home. . . .

09-05-12 Full Bloom

As the flowers fade, the days get shorter and the nights get cooler, mundane shots of a simple flower in summer bloom start to look better and better. I took this photo in late June and the image file was gathering dust amongst the 12,000 photos in my 2012 Aperture library.Canon 5DIII 1/400s f/2.8 ISO400 100mm

05-16-12 Standing Out

Yes, another pink tulip, misted by God with morning dew.Or did the photographer use a spray bottle?

05-01-12 May Flowers

To set the record straight, calla lilies are not normal "May flowers" in South Dakota. These flowers were growing in the planter outside my aunt Betty's California home. They were planted by a neighbor as a gift to and remembrance of the memory of Betty. They are as nice a tribute as any, if you ask me.

Pink

As fall turns to winter, I start thinking about the transience of seasons. Where did summer go?

Another View

I think this is the third year I have photographed this lilly and this morning when I took my tripod and camera out to the garden, my goal was to try to see this beautiful plant in a way I hadn't seen it before.I have said before that photographers have the power to define reality by framing the field of view in ways that the human eye and brain don't. Thus, we can show the "big picture" in a way that makes it interesting and we can move in close to show things that people wouldn't normally look at. This photo is an example of this, I think.When I took this photo, I stopped looking at the whole flower and instead looked at its parts, its lines and it colors. I also looked at how these parts related to the background. To me an important compositional element is the way the edges of the leaves define the green space in the middle.Is it a good photo? I'm not sure that I could ever answer that question about one of my pictures. All I know is that I feel I met my goal of giving people a new way to look at the stargazer lilly.