Supermoon

As I was looking online, I saw something that stated that the last supermoon of 2020 would be on May 7. I then looked at the weather forecast and saw that May 7 would be rainy, but May 6, it would be clear. So on May 6, I went outside to take pictures of the supermoon. This picture was okay, but I had a great idea to take a picture of the moon inside a light bulb.

Stillness

These butterflies constantly move from flower to flower and flower patch to flower patch. For a few seconds, they stay on a flower drinking the nectar and reenergizing themselves. Maybe you can see it, maybe you can't, but I took this picture with my telephoto lens. Can you tell a difference between this picture and the last few? I like the others better because the focus is sharper and due to this sharp focus, I feel the picture looks better.

Flying In

Eventually, I was able to partly achieve this goal of freezing a bee in the air. Unfortunately, I believe my shutter speed wasn't fast enough to completely stop the bee's wings. I took this picture with a shutter speed of 1/2,500, which is the second-fastest shutter speed for my Nikon D5500. And after a quick Google, most cameras stop at a shutter speed of 1/4,000 (my camera does), but some can achieve speeds of 1/8,000 and the fastest is 1/32,000.

Honey

For all of these pictures, there was a lot of hope. Yes, you could set yourself up for success by choosing the correct camera settings and lenses, but you cannot tell the bee what to do and when. Taking pictures of bees is very much a waiting game. I had the camera constantly taking pictures because I didn't know when the perfect shot would line up. That perfect shot would be the wings of a bee frozen in the air as it flew to or from a flower.

Glistening

After the short bluebonnet session, I turned to face the bees again. I took pictures of bees before and wanted to make sure that these pictures were different than the older ones. To achieve this, I used a combination of the telephoto and macro lenses. The telephoto lens is good for taking pictures of bees because of its zoom. But, it struggles in keeping a crisp focus with the lowest aperture of f5.6 at 300mm. The macro lens is good because it allows for a constant f2.8, but it's set 90mm zoom means I have to be closer to the bees.

Tall

As I said in the class post, this flower patch featured some bluebonnets. Between taking pictures of bees, I decided to snag this shot. What I like about this picture is the out of focus bluebonnets you can see in the background. When I take pictures of flowers, most of the time, I keep a sharp focus on one part. For this picture, I also wanted to capture other bluebonnets in the background.

Hanging Around

After leaving the stream, I biked a few miles north to a flower patch. In this flower patch were bluebonnets which bees landed on, and purple flowers where the butterflies landed. It was interesting to see how the bees and butterflies interacted. They didn't bother each other, and they stayed on their specific flowers. I ended up biking past a few weeks later, and the flowers were gone. I am glad I took these pictures when I did!

Floating Away

After the butterfly detour, I went back to the little purple flower. I wanted to capture the flower floating away. I think the picture came out okay. If I were to change anything, it would be to lower the angle of the camera and place it closer to the water. When editing the picture, I made it so that my hand and the flower are in color while the background is in black and white. I think this turned out decently well and adds to the floating away effect.

Hiding

After the butterfly left this first flower, it flew to this other flower. I like this picture better than the last one because the green leaves look better. The actual picture of the butterfly might not be the best, but with the butterfly hidden in the leaves, I think it looks pretty good.

Butterfly


As I was walking from taking pictures of the flower to another spot, I saw this butterfly. I quickly switched my macro lens for my telephoto lens so the picture could be close, but me standing far away. The butterfly was only on the flower for a few seconds. I am not sure if I scared it away, or it drank all of the nectar, because one second it was there, the next it wasn't.

Moss

This is the last picture I have of this purple flower. I placed the flower on a mossy rock to change the background. The reason why I like this flower because the entire face of the flower is in focus. Every single water droplet is in focus. When I edited this, I focused on keeping the flower bright to not lose any detail.

River Flower

I like this picture because of the colors from the flower, water, leaves, and trees. Like the last two flower pictures, I used my macro lens to keep a crisp focus on the flower. Now that I am thinking about it, this picture would look incredible if it was a long-exposure. If you could see the water flowing over the rocks, it would look much better.

Five Leaved

This picture is very similar to the last picture, except for this one, I positioned myself further away from the flower. I kept my macro lens and the water on the flower. Unlike the last picture, I didn't want the background to be mostly black. To achieve this, I moved back, allowing the glistening rocks to shine.

Droplets

Welcome back to Davis Park! I ended up going back to Davis park two weeks later, but the pictures from the first visit lasted until this second visit. Anyways, this picture is a macro picture of that purple flower. To take it, I took the purple flower and dropped it into the water. I then flicked a few water droplets on it to give some texture and shape to the flower. Then using my macro lens, I took this picture. I wanted to be extremely close and have the sharpest focus as possible.

Down Below

I have to take as many pictures as possible of the same object from different angles, so I moved into the middle of the creek. I wanted to highlight the rocks and creek that were underneath the bridge. In a perfect world, there would have been a reflection of the bridge in the creek, but there was no still water to achieve this.

Nature's Bridge

After the pictures at Davis Park, I started biking home but found this bridge hiding in some trees. Then when I started walking down into the stream, I saw this picture. I have seen other people take this type of picture, but I have never had the opportunity too. The older looking bridge, surrounded by trees, and with some water flowing underneath, never the type of picture I would have expected to take in an urban city.

Biking

I applied the same style of filter to this picture as I did the last one. I made the top half look bluer, while the bottom half was redder. The technique of this picture is also the same as the last one. I wanted to use a low vantage point to capture the bikers biking. Thought I wish you could see the bikers a little better, I still think the picture is quite interesting.

Roots

Next, as I was walking around the stream, I found these roots. Originally I didn't think much of them but decided that I should attempt to catch a picture of them. When I took the picture, I took it from a low angle to make the roots appear as steps. When editing, I added an interesting filter. I only had it apply to the top half of the picture but turned down the saturation on the lower half. Overall, I really like the picture and think it came out much better than I was anticipating.

Above

I then found another of the same type of flower resting above some moss. Like the last picture, I added the same warm filter to this picture. With these last two pictures, and many others, pictures you can tell where the focus begins and ends. I feel this is both an advantage and disadvantage to having a lower aperture lens. The lower aperture allows for crisper focus and better night pictures. But, if you keep the focus on f2.8 the entire time, there will only be a small portion of the picture that is in focus.

Yellow Flower

When I found this flower, I was in awe by its size. It was so small! I instantly knew that this picture had to be taken with a macro lens. Then during editing, I applied a filter. The filter is a yellow/orange color, making the picture have an overall warmer tone to it. I wanted to complement the flower while also adding some subtle tones around the picture.

Sun Flower

This was one of the more complicated shots just because of all the moving parts. There was a current, making the flower flow downstream, trees were blocking the sun, and the flower just barely fit inside of the shape of the sun. But, I feel the result is well worth it. I ended up turning the picture black and white, because even in color, you couldn't see much of the purple-ness of the flower.

High Above

I really like this flower! Most of the time, when I am taking pictures of a flower, or any object, I will move it around from one spot to another. I like to try and take a picture from every possible angle. And like the last few pictures, I kept my camera just barely hovering above the water. For this picture, I positioned some rocks between me and the flower. I like having some out of focus rocks and other objects scattered around the picture to make you 'guess' what they are.

Lone Flower

I then took a few steps away from the flower to capture the surroundings of it. For most of these pictures, I kept a very low vantage point. A strategy I use to make sure I don't accidentally place my camera into the water is to hold my camera from the bottom. I will wrap my hand around the camera lens, and when my hand touches the water, I know to not go any lower.

Little Purple

After taking some pictures of the flower in some flowing water, I positioned the flower to rest on a rock in still water. What made the picture for me was the sharp focus. Without the focus being on the flower, I feel the picture wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Instead, now there is a brown blur in the background and the shape of a reflection and a very crisp picture of a flower.

Slow Purple

I then returned to the creek and placed this purple flower on a rock. I kept the macro lens to create a sharp focus on the flower, and have the rest of the rocks and background out of focus. When I placed down the flower, I was specifically was looking for some streaks of water to surround the rock. The exposure was relatively high, which is why the water looks somewhat glassy, but not nearly as much as it does in a long-exposure.

White Dots

Next, I took my macro lens and found the white flower-like objects that sometimes kids blow. This was the first time I had ever seen this flower this close up. I've said before that the macro lens shows a whole new world, and I think this picture is a perfect example. Who knew that this is what that flower looks like?