Rain Walk

Between the flowers was a path to walk/run/bike on. My goal for this picture was to create a reflection of the walker as they moved on the path. While the reflection was not as great as I would have liked, I feel the way the path looks makes it up. I like how the flowers surround the path, and the gray sky highlights the walker.

Summer Flowers

A few weeks after taking pictures of the moon, I adventured to White Rock Lake. It had rained that morning and afternoon, and I hoped to capture some macro flower/water droplet pictures and reflections from the water. When I first arrived, I was shocked by the number of wildflowers. Not only were the flowers as far as the eye could see, but some flowers were five feet tall.

Moon Light

I think this is my best picture for a long time. I first started taking pictures of the moon, then thought of adding a lightbulb. This final picture is two pictures that I Photoshopped together. The first was a picture of the moon. The second was a picture of the lightbulb with a strong flashlight lighting up the lightbulb from the top. I then merged these two pictures and made blended the moon so that it didn't look too Photoshopped.

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?

Moss Rock

When I first found this park, I was biking around and stumbled on this little creek about 20 feet down a mini hill. I didn't think much of it at first, but ended up spending multiple hours there and continue to go to the park weekly. The park reminds me of some old pictures I took in Raleigh, North Carolina. If you recall, in the woods, with lots of trees. This park is more open then the forest in Raleigh, but still reminds me of those pictures.

Standing Tall

This is my last picture of Ennis, for real this time. It was very dark when I took this picture. I took it after the long exposure and the sunset, which meant there were not lights. I ended up using a flashlight to light this one last bluebonnet before I left to return home.

Backcountry Lights

I then moved the bluebonnet off of the road and waited for a few cars to pass. I had to wait until the sun was setting and had set, to allow for better long exposure. I also ended up combining three different car light trails to give the effect that there were more cars. In the background, there were some slight sunset colors, but the clouds blocked out most of the sunset.

Lone Road

I then moved one of the bluebonnets to the middle of the road. I thought it would be interesting to have the focus be on the bluebonnet, then the open Texas backcountry in the background. I think this could be even better if I was able to apply some filters on it, but my ability to do so is left at school, which has closed until mid-May.

Floating

Next, we moved on from the first park to in the front yard of someone's house. Due to the virus, most of the parks were closed. The spot where I took bluebonnet pictures last year was closed because of this. So we improvised in front of a house. It wasn't as good as being in the park, but it satisfied my bluebonnet desires.

Resting Spot

Next, I moved the flower to a spot in a tree where two branches met. I ended up adding more water to the flower to make the flower look more interesting. I just took some water out of my water bottle and flicked it onto the flower. This picture is a prime example of the different apertures and resulting focus lengths. For this picture, the aperture is f2.8, and you can clearly see the focus on the bark on the tree. Especially on the right side, you can see the bark go from well out of focus to moderately in focus to in crisp focus.

Cobwebs

Next to the bluebonnets was this small yellow flower. I didn't think much of it at first, but after a closer inspection, I found some cobwebs and water on them. I used my macro lens to keep a crisp focus on the cobwebs. One of the great features or problems with the macro lens is its very sharp focus. When taking pictures with this lens, you want to be very cognizant of what you want in focus. If you want only a very tiny section of the picture to be in focus, then you will likely use f2.8. While if you want the more of the picture to be in focus, you should use a higher aperture like f8 or the entire picture to be in focus with f48.

Symmetrical

So I made a little mistake and forgot to post the rest of the Ennis pictures :) So, welcome back to Ennis! For this picture, I wanted to capture the bluebonnet in a very symmetrical way. I tried to position the center of the bluebonnet in the center of the frame and have the rest on the sides of the picture.

Still Water

Welcome back to Dallas! After my trip to Ennis, I spent a few days biking around town. I found a new favorite spot to take pictures, its called Davis Park. My favorite part about it is that it has a small creek running through the middle of it. Over the next week or so you will see some pictures from there.

Blues and Greens

For the majority of these pictures, I was using my microlens. I want to use my new 24-70mm wide-angle lens, but its minimum focus point is too far away to take these types of pictures. The minimum focus point is the closest an object can be for it to be in focus. It varies on the type of lens, but there is a specialized lens for much a much smaller minimum focus distance.

Bluebonnets

Welcome to Ennis, Texas! I drove about 45 minutes south of Dallas to try and take pictures of bluebonnets. Of course, the night before, I told myself to research and find the best bluebonnet viewing spots, but I forgot. So when we drove down there, we were driving around searching for the perfect spot. We ended up settling in front of someone's house. It was positioned on a small, backcountry road, but had tons of bluebonnets, which ended up being very cool!

Small Flower, Big World

Next, I placed the same dandelion on a bridge. I used my macro lens to create a very sharp focus on the flower and to keep everything else well out of focus. I started taking pictures from far away, but I felt the flower wasn't close enough to the camera. While it did sacrifice some of the bridge, the position of the flower was closer, which I like.

Glass

After taking pictures of some flowers, I went down to the creek. In these next two pictures, I want to highlight the dandelion. For this picture, I positioned a dandelion in between some bricks. I then used my neutral density filter and a long-exposure technique to take this picture. I wanted the water to have more movement, unlike some other pictures, when I have wanted to freeze the water in the air.

Micro World

While I do say that most of the time, that grass isn't something special, for this picture, I felt I could make it seem special. In the small stream, I found some grass growing. I positioned my camera very close to the water to maximize the reflection. I like the way the water forms itself around the grass. Because of its surface tension, it sticks to itself, causing it to create 'bends' in the water.

Yellow

As I walked down the stream looking for anything interesting, I found this tube. It is used to separate the stream from a driveway that is above, but I used it as a tunnel to my subject. I took a small, yellow flower and placed it at the end of the tunnel, with the walls of the tunnel leading up to the flower.

Unique

On the day after the last series' bike ride, I went on another one! I started off biking around my neighborhood. I found this flower resting in a stream in front of a house. I liked how the purple color stood out among the green grass. Then, using my f2.8 aperture, I was able to have an extremely crisp focus on the flower.

Mirror

After I took yesterday's picture, I felt I should add something else. I decided that it would look more interesting if I reached down and grabbed the ball. Mostly, I wanted to add something else to look at, and something that would look especially cool as a reflection. Because the puddle was so small, there weren't many ripples. This allowed for a cleaner surface for this reflection picture.

Play Ball

I continued my bike ride, this time heading home. If you recall the graffiti water tubes, this is at the same park. I had been biking by this baseball field for weeks, thinking of a way to take pictures of it. Then, on this ride after some rain, I found a baseball and placed it on home base. The best/worst part about taking this picture was that the dirt around the base had turned into mud. While it wasn't that deep, it still was deep and sticky enough that it stuck to my shoes.

Micro Reflection

Due to the much smaller minimum focus distance, I can take pictures like this. For this image, I wanted to make sure that the focus was perfect. To ensure that I switch from autofocus to manual focus. Most of the time I prefer autofocus because it allows me to take pictures quicker and is one less thing to focus on. But, during dark conditions (night time long-exposures) or when I am trying to focus on an object (such as this picture), I will switch to manual focus.

Mini World


After taking the long-exposure pictures, and pictures of the different parks around Dallas, I traveled even further south to my third and final park of the bike ride. For this park, I focussed more on the smaller detail such as these droplets of water on this flower. For many of these pictures, I used my macro lens. What I like about the macro lens is the minimum focus point (how close can you be to the lens before it is out of the lens focus) is much smaller than my other lens. This allows me to get incredibly close to objects, such as this flower.

Graffiti

As you may recall from a few days ago, I posted a picture of this same pipe with graffiti in it. After taking the pictures of the waterfall, I decided I wanted to mess around with the pipe. I was taking long-exposures, and I walked a few steps into the pipe to give the appearance of a 'ghost' figure (or something like that). Like adding the flower, I wanted to add a random/mysterious element to the picture that you can look at.