Portraits in the Garden

My talented friend Amber has conducted several portrait sessions in my garden, and this spring she offered to take a few photos of me.  My husband wandered out to say hello as we got started, so Amber told him he could be in a few shots if he'd put on his suit and trademark bow tie.  A few minutes later he came out in his bow tie . . . and his swimming suit (you can see the mischievous smile on his face above).  After we all had a good laugh he changed into a real suit and posed for some pictures.  He definitely belongs in these photos since he's the one who digs the big holes, helps with garden cleanup in the fall, and hauls countless wheelbarrow loads of compost and bark.

These smiles required seventeen years of marriage to create, but the bouquet was quick and easy.  First I laid a stem of peony foliage on the table, then spread spikes of 'May Night' sage (Salvia), 'Venice Blue' speedwell (Veronica) and 'Walker's Low' catmint (Nepeta) on top.  Next came a few stems of 'Caesar's Brother Siberian iris.  Then I added stems with rounded flowers from 'Totally Tangerine' geum and 'Moulin Rouge' astrantia, plus some fluffy lady's mantle (Alchimella mollis).  Finally I set a couple of 'Morning Lilac' intersectional peony blooms on top and tied the stems with raffia.  It was easy to adjust the flowers as they lay on the table, and the bouquet photographed well because it was flat and one-sided.

Our garden makes me happy!  Thanks Amber for capturing these memories.
Generally I don't mind if you use my photos for wholesome and appropriate purposes, but please do not download or use these photos as they are copyrighted by Amber McArthur.

Top Ten Favorite Photos From 2011

It's hard to pick just ten favorites from the 372 garden photos that I posted last year, but here are a few of the best, anyway. Purple crocus are commonplace, but I love the sunlight and vivid color in the shot above. Both are in short supply right now during winter.



Again, I love the light here with these daffodils growing in my dad's Moses Lake garden.



My new 'Keiko' intersectional peony had lovely blooms.



The West Bed was full of color at times this year, including when this shot was taken in June.



Delphiniums like these 'Pagan Purples' are just gorgeous. Even if I forget to stake them and they fall over in windstorms.



Here's some more good evening light backlighting 'Eglantyne' english roses. I don't get up early enough to catch good morning light in June, when the sun rises at 4 am.



Love these true blue siberian irises. This cultivar is 'June to Remember'.



'Frances Joiner' was new to the garden this year and delighted me with her ruffly, warm apricot blooms.



The 'Cranberry Double Click' cosmos showed great, rich crimson color.



Another shot with crocus and beautiful light - this time in the fall. Would you believe that there are still some scraggly autumn crocus blooming in my yard today (December 29)? I'm not sure if they're just frozen in place or if new flowers keep popping up every time the ground thaws a bit.
And that's it for this last post of the year. With a 4-month old baby, I'm way too in love with sleep to stay up until midnight just to celebrate, so have a good time for me on New Year's Eve!

Wedding Photo Tips Adapted for Garden Photos

This month I bought 'Fine Art Wedding Photography' by top photographer Jose Villa (available from Amazon here) and have enjoyed studying his methods and thinking of ways to apply them to my garden photography. Here are five of his tips that can apply, along with my attempts to illustrate his points with photos of the spring bulbs in my garden. Included are 'Tete-a-Tete' mini daffodils, 'Spring Beauty' scilla and 'Grande Maitre' crocus. Of course my photos are nowhere near as beautiful as his, which you can see on his blog here.



1. Photograph with your aperture wide open (ie with a low f-stop). In layman's terms, this creates a blurry background. It requires leaving full auto mode and going at least to Av mode, if not full manual. Unlike Mr. Villa, I am not quick enough with manual to use it much, so I set my camera to Av mode so I can push the f-stop all the way down to 2.8 or 1.4, depending on which lens I'm using, and let the camera figure out the rest of the settings. A bonus to using a low f-stop is that it reduces the blurriness from camera shake, which is especially helpful in dimmer light. You can see in the photo above that not all of the daffodils are on focus thanks to an f-stop of 2.0.



2. Take advantage of the soft skylight that lasts about 10 minutes after sunset (or before sunrise). Mr. Villa goes so far as to check sunset times on days when he's shooting a wedding so he can make sure to have the newlyweds available for photos during this time. Well, most photographers already know that the best light is right around sunrise or sunset. A cloudy day can produce similar light. The nice thing about this type of light is that there aren't many shadows, so you can shoot in any direction. This light also lets you capture good colors instead of the washed-out hues that can occur in strong sunlight.



3. Backlight your subject when shooting in strong sunlight. When I first started taking pictures for this blog, my instinct was to do exactly the opposite, and shoot with the sun at my back. But backlighting (shooting with the sun behind your subject) creates especially pretty pictures when the light is low just before sunset, with the flowers glowing. The photo above shows the same clump of daffodils and scilla as the photo above it, only one is backlit with the setting sun and the other is lit with soft skylight. The backlit flowers are very striking, though perhaps you can see true colors and detail better with the softer lighting.



4. Expose for the shadows. This applies to backlit subjects. To do this (sorry for the non-technical terms here), make sure that the center red dot on your screen flashes/beeps right on the point (often the center of a flower) where you want the best focus and correct exposure. This will cause you to lose some detail in the 'blown out' highlights of the background (which will be blurry anyway since you're shooting with a low f-stop), but will keep your focal point clear and properly exposed. This makes the overall photo brighter, with soft colors and glowing light. In the photo above, you can see white splotches in the background that have no detail thanks to the low f-stop and overexposure, but they don't detract from the flowers in the focal point, and the whole photo is filled with light.



5. Overexpose for soft colors and glowing light. I have a hard time giving up vivid colors to create this effect, but I tried for this post. You can see that the photo above is slightly brighter and the colors softer than the one below. Mr. Villa overexposes by adjusting his manual ISO setting to one f-stop below the speed of the film (so he sets 3200-speed film at 1600-speed). Since I'm not that proficient in manual and I don't use film, I adjusted the exposure on my computer by using Photoshop Elements' RAW editor.



Of course most of us aren't going to be able to create photographs as beautiful as Jose Villa's, but experimenting with his methods could help us capture some shots that are better than expected. I'm certainly having fun with his tips, and can't wait to try them out while photographing my children, too. If you try any of these tips and have success, be sure to leave a comment and post a link to your photo(s). Best wishes!

GGW's Picture This Contest: Let's Talk About Light

When I read about Gardening Gone Wild's theme for their April photo contest - light - I thought of this picture right away. I took it around New Year's at the Santa Barbara Zoo, and the cheerful backlighting reminds me of everything I miss about California winters - mild temperatures and sun. Ah well, if we can't live in California at least we can visit once in a while. So here's my entry for the April GGW photo contest.

Top Ten Photos from VW Garden 2010

These are some of my favorite photos from my garden this year. I also want to share a few things I've learned from studying photography. Above is a shot of dogwood blooms (Cornis florida) from the spring.



Here are the amazingly true blue flowers of 'June to Remember' siberian iris. Photography has taught me to look for and appreciate the beautiful parts of a scene, even if there are some parts that don't look great. That definitely describes my garden - partly pretty, partly not, depending on the time of year.



People also have their good angles and not so good angles. This applies to photos and personalities. If you look for the negative, you'll always find some, but you can always find some good, too. This photo shows the english rose 'William Shakespeare 2000'.



I knew almost nothing about photography when I started this blog almost three years ago. But it's amazing what you can learn when you put your mind to it! So don't be afraid to learn something new. Above is a 'Stargazer' oriental lily.



Sometimes simple is beautiful. Here are the leaves of 'Blue Angel' hosta. The leaves aren't as showy as a flower, but I love the way their shapes flow and the water droplets sparkle.



Flowers are fleeting, and waiting too long to get out to the garden with the camera means that I'll miss out on some beautiful blooms (or cute bees). Childhood is fleeting, too. I need to remember to pause and appreciate the wonderful things about my children at each age, because soon they'll move on. This flower is a 'Giggles' dahlia.



Here is a 'Blue Mirror' delphinium. I especially appreciate true blue flowers because they're rare in the garden.



Above is a photo of 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers. The flower shape changes as it ages, but each stage is beautiful in its own way. If only us women could believe that about ourselves!



Wacky and unusual plants, like this corkscrew rush (Juncus spiralis), make the garden more fun.



Photography has taught me that good light is magical. The midday sun is harsh and bleaches the color out of flowers. Early morning or sunset light is more gentle and allows the flowers and colors to really shine.



To help them shine, children (and the rest of us) need gentle encouragement and not harsh criticism. So I'm especially thankful for the many kind comments left on this blog. I wish you a wonderful holiday season. I'll start posting again in January.
And here you thought I couldn't count . . . it was really hard to pick just ten, so I cheated and included an extra photo.

Photography Update

My camera setup is a Canon EOS Rebel XS with an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens. I took the advice of the photography books I read and bought a base model camera but splurged on the lens. Above is a picture of a bud on the english rose 'Eglantyne'.



Actually, I got the camera with the 18-55IS kit lens for Christmas 2008. Then I bought the higher quality lens in November 2009 after my photographer friend Randi suggested it. Above is a shot of 'Blue Mirror' delphinium.



The new lens is SO MUCH better than the kit lens! It is sharper and captures colors more vividly. Because it goes down to a low f-stop (2.8 - that makes a narrow field of focus), I can blur the background to make the subject pop. Even wooly time groundcover (above) looks pretty.



I still rely on Photoshop Elements 7 to edit my photos and get them ready for posting. Then I sharpen them in Picasa 3, because that saves them in whatever format Picasa uses and ensures that they don't lose color when they upload onto the net. Above is 'Green Jewel' coneflower with 'Caradonna' salvia in the background.



I know there's still a lot to learn about photography, but it's fun to look back and see how far I've come in the past couple of years. Never mind that it's easy to come a long way when you're starting from zero! Learning this new form of creative expression has helped me avoid the mommy-mush-brain that sometimes creeps in when I do nothing but change diapers and wipe up spilled milk. Above is a shot of luscious 'William Shakespeare 2000' rose blooms.



I don't take nearly as many pictures of my children as I do of my garden. Sorry, kiddos. But I do catch some nice shots here and there. Above is my youngest daughter in the evening light. If you look closely, you can see my arms and camera reflected in each of her eyes. And speaking of my little monkeys, I need to get off the computer now and go buy school supplies.

June 2010 Bloom Day

I always mean to participate in the monthly Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, but it usually doesn't happen because 1) I only have flowers blooming six months out of the year, 2) sometimes I have another post all ready to go that week, and 3) I forget. But this week all I have to post is a bunch of pictures of flowers blooming right now . . . so I'm joining in the fun. Above is a hazy sunset photo of 'Walker's Low' nepeta, which is blooming all over my front yard right now.



Here is the VERY blue 'June to Remember' siberian iris. You know how all those catalogs cheat and make flowers look more blue than they really are? Well this one really is this blue. It's a stunner.



Here are more unnamed asiatic lilies from Lowes. They're rosy-orange. I'm proud of myself for opening up and letting orange into the color scheme.



The baby 'Rozanne' geraniums are starting to put out a few flowers. The flowers are so interesting, with shades and blue and lavender and a magenta cast that you can only see in certain types of light.



I pulled out all my normal shasta daisies because they smell bad, but this spring I planted some 'Esther Reed' double daisies. They're great for cutting - I remember how pretty they were in the giant bouquets I saw last June at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Give me an armful of peonies, delphinium, double shasta daisies, and maybe some sage, and I'll be happy all day.



My 'Clementine Blue' columbine is putting out more blooms. I have seeds to grow more but keep forgetting to plant them. I'll get that done soon, maybe.



The 'June Bride' heucheras are in full bloom. Recently I started new plants for a neighbor by cutting off some woody stems, pulling all the leaves off except a few at the top, and plunking them into potting soil in the shade. They've grown their own roots now and are doing fine. Did you know it was that easy to get new heucheras?



I'll finish with a shot of 'Rolling Cloud' siberian iris with 'Six Hills Giant' catmint in the background. The evening light makes the picture special. I keep meaning to get up and capture some morning light shots, but it gets light around 4 am this time of year, and I'm not that early of a bird. Evening light will have to be good enough for now!

Wedding Flowers and Temple Landscaping

My brother got married last weekend at the LDS temple in Richland, WA, and of course I took some pictures of the flowers and landscaping around the temple. The roses were in full bloom and were breathtaking!



The landscaping made good use of large masses of plants. I'm not sure which rose this is. The flowers look too big to be 'Bonica' and too full to be 'The Fairy'. Maybe they're J&P 'Pink Simplicity' or something.



Isn't this a lovely scene? Especially for us pink lovers! There was a high wind advisory in effect, and several rain storms passed through in the days before and after the wedding. But were lucky to have sunny, calm weather for photos after the wedding.



I was fascinated with the evening light filtering through these hardy geraniums. They looked magical.



Right now this area is mostly green, but the curving swathe of daylilies will erupt into bloom soon.



This rose is my mom's favorite color. My husband gets a kick from pointing that out whenever we come across some especially vivid hot pink.



The temple had plenty of my favorite shrub: 'Otto Luyken' laurels. What good taste the designers had!



We brought a few of our own flowers to the temple, including this giant fake one in my daughter's hair. You can see the deep blue-violet of 'May Night' salvia and vivid hot pink of 'Knockout' roses in the background.



The wedding colors were orange, aqua and white. The deep orange roses and white peonies in the bridal bouquet were lovely.



I think this photo turned out really cool. Look at that gorgeous sky and white clouds behind the steeple. The temple is such a beautiful place.



And here's the happy couple right after the wedding. Congratulations, you two!