Orange and Yellow

This flower reminded me very much of a sunset. The oranges and yellow colors were bright and reflected the harsh sunlight. I also enjoy the flowers' composure. It has no flowers on top, some non-blossomed in the middle, and bright yellow flowers at the bottom. When I first was taking the picture, I was just standing straight at it. The background was out of focus like this, but it wasn't a nice green background I like. I adjusted my camera position to change the background which allowed me to capture this picture.

Gazebo

Over the past weekend (including Friday), I went to North Carolina. While there, I visited North Carolina and Duke Colleges and Raleigh. This first picture is of a gazebo on the North Carolina campus. It is one of the many structures on the campus but it also caught my eye. I like how it's bright green and white stand out against the dark green leaves. Even though it is an old structure it is clean and still looks new

Face

This picture is the closest I have to a bee. I positioned my camera very close to the bee. I just let the bee do whatever it was doing and I took pictures when I could. I have found bees normally aren't very aggressive when I am taking these up close pictures of them. There are a few times when I bee will circle around me but by then I normally am done taking pictures.

Buzzing Around

My next pictures are from the Dallas Arboretum Botanical Garden. I was taking pictures of flowers when I heard the familiar buzzing sound. I looked around and found some bees hovering over then landing on these blue flowers. I chose to post this picture because I like the reflection from the wings. This is one of the few pictures where you are able to see the wings.

Central Flower

For this picture, I used my macro lens again. The goal of the picture was to capture the central part of the flower. I used a low aperture to have the only focus be on the middle. I also used it to blur out the back of the flower. I like how the pink is blurred but also visible.

Green and Purple

This picture is simple, the colors contrast each other well, and I like the lines in the picture. The picture is just of a plant in front of a house. The green and purple don't overpower each other. I like how the purple is the same color all the way around, but the green has different colors. Towards the top, the green is lighter and on the bottom, the green is slightly darker. Lastly, the lines are very simple. The lines are either straight or curved.

Classic

I reverted back to my classic, original picture style. A macro picture of an object with an interesting yet simple background. If you remember from a few days ago I talked about an increased aperture. I kept that increased aperture for this picture too. I wanted to have the front bluebonnet in focus but also have the other bluebonnets visible.

BEEautiful 

This picture is one of my favorites from this series and also one of my all-time favorites. I spent almost half an hour trying to take pictures of bees on bluebonnets. Sometime during that half hour, I was able to take this picture, a bee collecting nectar from a bluebonnet. Everything is perfect for this picture. There is the yellow bee standing out in the center, dark blue flowers, and green grass background. One could even say it is BEEautiful. :)

Little Butterfly

In addition to finding different types of flowers, I was also able to find different types of animals. There were bees and two types of butterflies. This butterfly was gray which I like. I took other pictures of a white butterfly but the white stood out too much. I like the gray because it blends in with the picture but not enough that it isn't recognized.

Mini Flowers

One of the other flowers in the bluebonnet patch was this tiny white flower. I took pictures of it because I liked the smallness and symmetry. It feels like for every bunch of flowers there was another on the other side. I also tried to not have the focus be so harsh. To change the focus, I increased the aperture to f10. I normally have it at f3.1 for close-up macro photography but at f10 there is a longer depth of field.

Blue

For this picture, I positioned my camera closer to the ground. I used the lower angle to capture more of the sky. I wanted to highlight the bluebonnets and weeds near the bluebonnets but I also wanted to include the bright blue sky. It provides a subtle background that fits with the picture. The sky complements the bluebonnets and acts as a neutral color to the grass.

Bluebonnets and Bees

As we return to Texas and spring, I thought what is unique to Texas and vastly different than the Colorado series. I settled on the Texas state flower, bluebonnets. While I was taking pictures of the bluebonnets, I heard the familiar sound of buzzing bees. Using my macro lens, I was able to take very close-up pictures of the bees. With this picture, I did not have the shutter speed at the highest I can set it (1/4000). This is why the wings are blurry. The bees wings were moving so fast that my camera at that shutter speed was not able to capture them in focus.

White Snow and Blue Skies

The last pictures I am going to upload are panoramic ones from the tops of mountains and a timelapse of a sunrise that I shot. I really enjoy the panoramic pictures. I like to see how all the individual pictures come together to create a big one. I specifically like this picture because it appears that the mountains go on forever.

Rolling Clouds

While the sunset was not as interesting as some of the ones in Texas, these rolling clouds helped to make it interesting. I divided this picture into thirds both from the top to bottom and left to right. Starting from the bottom, it goes snow, the mountain, then the sunset. The snow and sunset are brightly colored then there is the dark but visible mountain. From the left to right, it goes the clouds, sunset, and mountain, then the tree. This is opposite of the top to bottom. From left to right it goes dark, light, dark.

Snowy Sunset

As the Colorado snow series is coming to an end, the pictures will soon return back to Texas. There are many flowers on trees and plants and now that summer is approaching, there is actually leaves on trees. I also have been experimenting with long exposure photography. In addition to the plants and trees, there might a picture or two that is a long exposure.

Sunset Tree

I spent my last day in Colorado outside in the snow then when the sun started to set, I took pictures of it. I wanted to capture the sunset but I also wanted to capture the snow from the mountain. I put the tree into a silhouette but I didn't increase my exposure too much which. If I did, I would have not been able to capture the snow, making it like some of my over sunset pictures.

Base Village 

Similar to the last picture the clouds were on my side. They appear to part and open up the view to Aspen Base Village. Looking back at the picture, I am noticing many lines throughout it. There are lines from the gondola, the poles holding up the gondola, and the lines from the streets.

High Above

I took this picture high above the ski runs and mountain tops. Below me was Aspen Mountain and the race area on the mountain. Looking out and past Aspen Mountain were other mountains I do not know the names of. I was lucky with the clouds for this picture. Clearly, there are many of them in the sky but for this picture, they seemed to part just for me.

Gondola

After the pictures from the top of the mountain, I rode the gondola down. I was able to capture some incredible pictures. Unfortunately, there was water from melted snow on the windows of the gondola. This created some blurry spots, but otherwise, the views were clear. There were also some clouds that blocked me from seeing all the way down to the base but there were a few windows when I was able to see through them.

Snowstorm

This picture is similar to the last one except I zoomed in for this picture. By the time I took this, snow had already begun to fall. You can actually see the snowflakes in the clouds. I also like how the clouds have different densities on different parts of the picture. In the middle, the clouds are almost solid but in the bottom right, the clouds start to thin out.