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.

Time Flies

After taking a few pictures of this flower in front of the waterfall, I wanted to move the flower much closer to the water. I put my camera on an angle (similar to the picture of the flower on the bridge a few days ago) to capture both the flower and the moving water in the background. Unlike yesterday's picture, for this picture, I used the f2.8 aperture to create a strong focus on the flower and to have the water as an interesting background.

Slow Motion

After taking a few pictures with only the waterfall, I added a flower into the picture. I wanted to give the picture another element and your eye something else to look at. With this picture, the idea was to have the flower be the main focus, but I had to decrease the aperture to f22 to capture the long-exposure aspect. This made most of the image in focus, or just slightly out of focus.

Waterfall

When I first saw this, I was surprised that in urban Dallas, there was a waterfall as interesting as this one. I have seen some that were only a few feet tall, this one was about 5 feet tall, but this waterfall had more structure than many I have seen before. Using the same tactics as the last picture, I was able to capture a long-exposure shot of it.

Urban Nature

Next, I traveled about seven miles south to multiple parks. At this first one, there were three big, circular pipes. Using my new neutral density filter, I set it to 6x (maximum darkness), and a higher aperture of f22, I was able to slow the shutter speed enough to capture a long-exposure during the day. I also wanted to highlight the graffiti inside the pipe. You can barely see it in this picture, but in the coming pictures, you will be able to see it more clearly. It was intriguing to see how these pipes had now turned into graffiti hotspots.

Resting

Following the pictures of the flowers in the tree bark, I moved the flowers to lay on this bridge. Like the bark picture, I kept the aperture at f2.8 to only have the focus on the flowers. I wanted to keep the walls of the bridge recognizable, but clearly out of focus.

Hanging

After seeing the flowers in the water, I wanted to experiment and place some flowers into some bark hanging off a tree. Originally, I tried taking pictures of the flowers standing straight up but found that it was simple and boring.  I then positioned myself underneath the flowers with an aperture of f2.8. This allows me to keep a sharp focus on the flowers and to have the rest of the tree and sky out of focus.

Urban Canal

As I kept biking, I found this canal with a little bit of water in it. Above the water was a bridge that was used as a connector from a house to the alley. Like the flower pictures, I wanted to capture this bridge with a reflection. Originally, I took the pictures with just the bridge and its reflection but soon realized that it looked plain. I then sat on the bridge to add another element but kept my head behind a pole to also make it seem a little mysterious.

Reflection

After taking a few pictures of the dandelion, I continued my bike ride. At the next puddle, I found this white flower. Using the new feature on the lens, specifically the 24-70mm zoom range and the f2.8 aperture, I was able to take this picture closer and in greater focus. I wanted to highlight the flower close, and in the center of the picture, while keeping the background well out of focus.

Floating

While I was biking in an alley, I found this dandelion floating in the water. At first, I was taking pictures from directly above. They weren't very interesting, and you could see me reflecting in the water. I then moved to a much lower vantage point, which is how I shot this picture. I positioned my camera inches above the water, hoping to capture the reflection of both the dandelion and the dirt/grass wall behind it. 

World Chaos

I like this picture mostly because it is a simple representation of our world right now, but also because it gives me a chance to talk about my new equipment! As I said earlier, I purchased a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. This will likely become my main lens as it has a large capacity for taking pictures. It will work well with landscape, long-exposure, and night photography. I also purchased a 1x to 6x neutral density filter. What this filter does is it either keeps the picture as the camera would see it (on 1x) or darkens the image (on 6x). It is a little hard to explain, but it will help me take long-exposure pictures during the day because it will allow me to have the shutter speed lower for longer shots.

Sunset Colors

With the threat of becoming sick to COVID-19, I found myself biking around the neighborhood. I found these flowers on the front lawn of a neighbors house. The flowers had bright colors such as oranges and reds. For most of these pictures, I switched my new wide-angle lens for the micro lens. I wanted to capture the flowers closer up and in sharper focus.