Floating leaves

Yesterday I wrote about the walk at the botanical garden of the university during my lunchbreak and posted some pictures of leaves in the garden and on the sidewalk. Today's pictures of floating leaves are also taken at the botanical garden last Monday. There is a little bridge over troubled water and from it I had a great view on leaves that were floating by. 

I like in all of these pictures how the background has a different colour: that has not only to do with the sky and clouds but also with what is above the water. I find it rather bizarre that the colour of the ferns in the picture above is almost completely black & white. I didn't manipulate the picture at all, this is how it was.

Two years ago I took this picture from exactly the same bridge.

Today I went back to the botanical garden, it was completely different day: it was grey & overcast instead of sunny. As a result there was no colour in the water and the ferns looked even more black & white as they did last Monday.

floating orange leaf

yellow leaf with black & white ferns

Trying out my fixed 100mm lens

One of my goals this staycation is to try out my new 100mm lens. It is a fixed lens so it doesn't zoom in or out, I have to do that myself by coming closer or moving away from an object.  Also, a 100 mm lens has a macro function so I can actually shoot texture from close by and it has little depth of field. That is quite trendy nowadays, but it is totally not Miksang because the human eye sees a surface totally in focus and not partially.

Today it rained dreadfully most of the day, but when it finally stopped I took the opportunity to go out and take my camera to our front garden. Drops were everywhere, it was such a joy to see. Here are some of the first pictures with this fixed lens.

I could get pretty close to the leaf. Because it is a flat surface most of the leaf and drops are in focus.

In this photo the focus is in the middle of the picture, but looking at it now I would have liked the focus to be on one of the wet petals of the flower. So this is something I have to take into consideration: know beforehand where I want the focus to be.

This is also a picture that is not quite successful: the focus seems to be on the green leaf and that is not where I want it to be. Again: think before I shoot.

This picture comes more into the lines of how I want the lens to work for me. The focus is on the two flowers close by and the flowers in the background are really out of focus so the viewer experiences depth.

This picture is ok but not spectacular: the flowers are close to each other and the depth of field is so that all the flowers are pretty much in focus.

I am quite happy with the above picture: the snail and part of the wooden bench are in focus, but the left part of the picture is out of focus, that part is further away from the viewer.
I can safely conclude that I need to practice way more to understand how this lens can work for me at its best.

My parents' garden

Last weekend I helped my sister moving in her new apartment and during the occasion I stayed with my parents who live in the same town as my sister, Zwolle. My parents have a lovely garden and although it is becoming harder for them to maintain it, Mum is turning 70 this year and Dad 74, they still love to spend time with their blooming friends.

yellow zucchini bud

zucchini leaf

apricot coloured zucchini flower

rose petals on the garden path

raindrops on a red rose

red rose petals on gravel

Lunch break

Here are two pictures I took last Monday in the Botanical Garden of the university. It had just rained a little, so there was some water on the leaves and the flowers looked a bit bewildered.

water on green leaves

ruffled looking yellow flowers

Flowers

Yesterday I went for a little walk to the Botanical Gardens of my university. Here are a few images of the flowers in the garden.

flower buds of the marsh-marigold

yellow marsh-marigold

pink hydrangea

pink hibiscus?

papegaaibloem (sorry, couldn't find English translation)

Over the hill blossoms

Last thursday I went to the botanical gardens again, it's always such a joy to be there. To watch how the garden changes all year around is just fascinating to me. In the beginning of the week I saw this tree blooming at its peak, but I didn't have a camera on me (how did that happen?) except my cell phone and that didn't quite capture the tree as I saw it. So when I finally came back later in the week the tree was already a bit 'over the hill', past its peak. It was still beautiful to watch the petals falling down like snow and to smell the faint fragrance from the flowers.

Blossoming tree

Floating petals with reflection of branches

Floating petals

Budding bonsai and a year ago

As I walked through the botanical gardens again last week, I noticed the blooming bonsai again. I had shot one before and that was a little more than a year ago at the same spot (you can see that picture over here), but the feeling was much more different. Last year we had a cold winter and it remained cold for a very long time. When I saw this blooming bonsai in February 2013 I was like: Spring! But then it lasted quite a while before it actually became Spring.

When I saw the image above it was a totally different experience: Spring had already started a few weeks ago and we've had some warm days. This experience was more about the prettiness of the plant and the shape of the branches together with the dark spotted back drop of the grey wall behind it.

A walk around the garden

Sometime last week there was a beautiful day. I was with H. and we walked around in his garden, looking at what needed to be done in Spring.

It had rained a lot the past few days and the ground was muddy. That gave a wonderful reflection.

There was a bleak sun and it felt like Spring. A few birds were singing and for a moment we thought that winter was over, which would not be a good thing, as it is only January.

H. showed me the edge of his garden and the neighboring lot that he could buy. Big question is: what is he going to do with it, as he is no farmer himself.

We noticed that the neighbor on the right had emptied his garden and flattened the ground. With the few large conifers sticking out his hedge, it looked kind of weird.

A short walk to the garden

Yesterday I took a quick walk to the botanical garden of the university in between rain showers. It is becoming a little chilly, I am thankful that temperatures are finally dropping although I am not looking forward to another season of snow and ice. That all looks very pretty, but it such a hassle to get through. Anyways, it is not snowing yet and I keep my fingers crossed that it won't.

I walked around the bare garden, not so much going on there. A leaf on the ground, some cut bamboo and twigs laid out on a table that was still wet from the rain that had just fallen.

I hurried back because I saw this sky. It looked like it could rain any minute.

Examples of June and July 2012

Light and shadow

Shadows on buddha

 Truly, today was a beautiful day! Lots of sunshine, moderate temperatures but outside the shadow I could sunbathe. Not longer for an hour, then I became quite hot and had to move back into the house.

Pattern of shadows

At the brightest time of the day, around two o'clock, I went around my friend's garden and took some pictures. He wanted photos of his house and garden so friends of his in Germany would get an impression.

Apart from those pictures, I took some for my own sake. Impressions of light and shadows. In this harsh light, shadows became strong and clear.

Shadows of plants