Remembering the Summer

You know what it is like when you’re getting towards the end of winter; day after day of gloom with no end in sight. Winter can seem so long. Spring is almost here now and the first flowers are making their tentative appearance. Its almost like they are putting their “toes” into the cold water, testing it before jumping in!

I’m constantly looking for anything that looks vaguely like a flower and so I do find them in the strangest places. That said the best place in the depth of winter is the botanical gardens or anywhere with a decent glasshouse. Failing that I go back over my archives, longingly gazing at flowers I’ve photographed in the past.

Here’s a lovely rose I came across from the end of last simmer. My botanical knowledge is pretty limited I usually refer to flowers by the their colour. In this case I like the yellow looking one!

This photo by the way was captured using the so-called “plastic” 50mm 1.8 lens from Canon. At the price it is a must have if you’re branching away from the kit lens that came with your new camera. Often people think they need a big zoom or longer reach lens but really the standard 50mm is so versatile its hard to beat. I’ve got the Canon 50mm 1.4 semi-permanently attached to my Canon 5D as a great walk-around lens.

Takes pretty good “yellow flower” photos too, it turns-out.

Yellow from the summer

See it full-size here.

These tools helped me work the magic:

Finding Colour In Winter

This time of year in the Southern hemisphere it can be pretty hard to find any flowers in bloom. We do have a few winter flowers here but not enough to satisfy a photographer hungry for nature! So, winter is an ideal time to visit indoor locations such as the Begonia House at the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Usually I take my 100mm macro lens on these trips but this time I stuck with the versatile 24-105mm F4. There was enough light in the glasshouse to capture the shot handheld; the macro lens needs a tripod to get a nice sharp photo. In Photoshop there was really nothing to do – just a slight crop and white balance.

Head inside if you’re having trouble finding any colour in nature!

Peace and Beauty

These tools helped me work the magic:

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