Flower

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The third best thing about summer- sunflower fields!

The first is obviously the beach, the second being fireworks, and then comes sunflowers. LOL.

But if you’re in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, I highly recommend stopping by McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area. There are rows and rows of sunflowers, at times it can feel endless. Plus they have multiple fields, so if one isn’t looking it’s best or too crowded, it’s really simple just to hop to the next field. But there aren’t really any signs for the fields so be sure to check out this map before you go.

On this visit, I decided to try to get a little bit closer to the sunflowers. Not necessarily macro shots like I have done in the past, but using one flower to frame the other. This particular flower caught my attention because I liked how some of the pedals were folded in. I thought I’d use the flower in the foreground to sort of fill in that spot.

But while I was out photographing the sunflowers last week, I was just reflecting on all the times I’ve photographed these summer flowers. It’s crazy to think how many times I’ve been to this sunflower fields. Check out this video from 8 years ago! Talk about a blast from the past:

Yes, I miss my long hair too.

Yes, I still feel like running through the fields every time I go. LOL

I definitely want to go back at least one more time this season to try to capture some more of these yellow beauties.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000th second and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

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It’s what we’ve been waiting for all year! Happy Thanksgiving! This song will be playing on repeat today to celebrate the holiday. And it is also day 4 to of this week long series of gratitude on the blog which is going to be for my family.

I know I don’t talk about them much on my blog. Mostly because they aren’t usually with me while I’m taking pics or something like that but I know in my heart that they are always there for me no matter what. When I initially told my parents that I wanted to quit my job and become a full time artist, there was definietly a lot of concerns and discussions. They were not thrilled at my decision but they also knew that if I put my mind to something, I’m going to do it. No matter what they thought.

Now, my family are some of the most supportive people I have in my corner. Whether it’s my mom forwarding all my newsletters to her friends, my dad always asking me how photo is going and giving me suggestions, or even my cousins liking my pictures every time I post them on social media, I know they are super proud of me and I’m so extremely grateful for them.

This image that I chose to be today’s photo is a little different for a Thanksgiving post, I know. It’s from Artechouse’s newest exhibit called, Kingdom of Colors. If you haven’t already, you gotta check out this space. This part was my favorite out of the whole experience. Watching the smoke or water or whatever it was coming down and falling on to the flowers. It was just so beautiful. And totally reminded me of my mom who was the one who taught me to appreciate flowers in the first place, so I thought this would be perfect for her.

The camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/25th of a second and ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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So do you remember how last week I was saying how I needed to bring my macro lens out when its raining? I did it! It rained again and my very first stop was to go back to the US Botanical Gardens. Even though it was already closed and I wasn’t able to go inside, I was still able to walk around the front entrance. There were a couple of succulent display and they were already beautiful as is. But my favorite part was how the water droplets didn’t go inside the succulents or get soaked up by them, they were just floating on top. It was so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such well formed water droplets as I had on these succulents. This is why I needed my macro lens. There was no way I would have been able to capture all these little details with just my wide angle or even zoom.

But to be honest, I still haven’t fully switched to sony lenses. I was still using my 100mm canon lens with my metabones adaptor. It definietly slowed down the process as I was trying to make sure everything that I wanted to be in focus was sharp but I don’t know if that’s necessary a bad thing. I took my time and was happy with the outcome. I haven’t shot macro in so long and I’m happy to be dusting it off again. Soon enough I’ll get a macro sony lens. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

The settings for this image was F9 at 1/80th of a second and ISO 800 handheld. It was still cloudy from the storm and getting that close up was difficult. I had to bump up my ISO to make sure the exposure was fast enough.

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If you’re in the DC area, its definietly worth checking out Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in the summer time. It’s absolutely beautiful. There has to be hundreds of these pink lotus flowers in the ponds and the whole area is just filled with them. A photographer and nature lover’s dream. Although, I think the flowers may be all done for this year’s season. There’s always next year!

But the gardens are only open during certain hours and those hours are not at sunrise or sunset (the ideal time to shoot). It’s in the middle of the day, which is usually difficult to shoot. Most of the time, I’d try to find flowers that were blooming under some tree shade or something like that. This one was not. So I had to use my photoshop skills to really emphasize the mood I was feeling. I wanted all the concentration to be on the flower, to be in the spotlight. So I purposely made the surrounding areas darker than they are straight out of the camera. I also used luminosity masks to brighten the flower up a little more. Just doing those two alone really made the image pop a lot more and created some great contrast.

If you’re interested in learning more about my photoshop techniques, check out these video tutorials I created. This one is about luminosity masks. This one is about my complete photoshop workflow. Even if I’m not editing this particular image in the video tutorials, the same rules and principles apply. I will have to say that these videos are for those who are already comfortable with photoshop. You already have some basic skills and you just wanted to up your skill set a little more or just watch someone else’s workflow. If you had any questions or video suggestions, don’t be afraid to let me know!

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Now that the spring flowers have basically come and gone. Everything in our area is looking very green. I’m really looking forward to all the summer flowers that bloom like the sunflowers and these lotus flowers. The best ones in the DC area are definietly the ones in Anacostia at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. Its like rows and rows full of them. The only thing that’s not so great about them is that they are only open from 8:30a to 5p. Peak hours for the sun light to be shining down on them so they can be a little difficult to photograph.

My tip to photograph the lotuses during this time would to be find a large tree. Hopefully it’s casting it’s shadow on at least one of these lotuses so it would be very even lighting on the flower. They really can be really difficult to photograph under the extremely harsh light. If you can’t find one that’s in a shadow, then I’d recommend trying to shoot from the bottom looking up. They can look amazingly majestic from this point of view and the light shining down on them can really help. And especially with the pink color, they look great against a blue sky. I remember when I first found about these flowers, Kenilworth didn’t close their gate so I could walk in at sunrise. They must of learned from Great Falls Park to shut it down once it was closing time 🙁

My camera settings for this image was F9 at 1/800th of a second with ISO 250. I used my 100mm macro Canon lens and metabones adaptor to be able to shoot this on my Sony A7ii. My intention was to get the whole flower in focus and make the background blurry. I think the F9 aperture did a great job at doing this.