Butchart Gardens | Travel Photographer

More travel photography! It's nice to finally have the time to show off the places that I have been this year. This one was possibly the most beautiful of them all...while in Victoria, BC in June I took an afternoon trip out to Butchart Gardens. It's billed as the oldest botanical gardens in Canada, and is definitely one of the most stunning that I have ever seen.

Beautiful wide landscape shots, right? I feel like I'm forgetting something...oh, that's right: flower close ups! I would be remiss if I didn't show you those. There were stunning flowers everywhere, and I had a lot of fun in editing them afterwards.

Cherry Blossoms 2015 Part 2 | Nature Photographer

In my last post, I showed photos I took of the Tidal Basin during peak bloom of the Japanese cherry blossom trees in Washington DC. In addition to those, I took a number of close-up photos of the blossoms themselves, and had some fun with editing them to bring out the beauty in the flowers, and the light around them. I hope you find these as beautiful as I do!

Cherry Blossoms 2015 Part 1| Nature Photographer

I absolutely love photographing the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC. This year, peak dates were delayed due to the cold weather, so I was able to get there during that time (first weekend in April) to take some sunrise photos. I went again with my good friend Kathy; she and I had gone two years ago and photographed the trees at sunset, so we thought we'd mix it up this year and hit sunrise instead. This meant bundling up against the cold, finding a parking spot not too far from the Tidal Basin (which was easier than we thought it would be), and finding just the right spot to get started.

Tulip Macro Shots

Sometimes I like to challenge myself to take a "good" photograph not using my DSLR. Yes, gear and lenses make a big difference, and I can do so much more with them...but it's also more to carry around, more editing to need to do (if I shoot in RAW), and, well, the lens on my iPhone 5S isn't half bad either. With the magnetic lenses that I received as a present a while ago, I can do even more.

For the Weekly Photo Project this week, the theme is "A Bug's Eye View". Today my husband very nicely purchased tulips for my daughter and I, so I thought: where would an insect me attracted to, but the flowers? So I added the macro lens to my iPhone camera, and with a small amount of editing afterwards, this is what I have!

Lilies at Rust Nature Preserve

Last week I went to the Rust Nature Sanctuary with my family. At the end of our excursion, we came across these lovely lilies blooming in a garden. I adore photographing flowers! My new 85mm lens made the process even more fun, as I was able to play with focus and depth of field.

Still life with tulips

For a photo challenge this week I chose as my subject a bouquet of tulips that have been on my kitchen table for a while. I moved them in front of my living room window, with the evening light coming through, and experimented with shallow focus. Since these flowers only lasted another day after this, I'm glad I was able to capture them. And what beautiful colors!

 

Plum and pear blossoms

My street is filled with the loveliest plum trees; almost every single house has one in front. That means for about 10 days in April, the street not only looks beautiful, but it smells amazing as well! Unfortunately, my schedule combined with the elements such that most of the plum blossoms had blown away before I could get out and photograph them. On the plus side, the pear blossoms are now popping out, so just as one fades the other begins. I start here with the plum blossom remainders in my front yard.

Flower farm

Here's Part II of summer photos!
Back in December 2013 I posted photos that I took at Great Falls National Park, as I felt like with the cold weather and snow we could use some summery photos. As we're now even further into the depths of winter, I think these bright, beautiful flowers are just what is needed!

Summer zinnias

This weekend we had a glimpse of the upcoming spring, and then sadly it's being taken from us this week with more cold and possible snow! But maybe these lovely summer flowers will remind us of what's to come... 

These photos were taken in August 2013. My family and I spent the afternoon at a farm in Maryland, where there was a "pick your own zinnia" field. In these long, cold, snowy days of February, it's nice to remember that everything will be sprouting and blooming again soon!

Wedding Part 2: Little Touches

Some of the fun of wedding photography is focusing in on the little touches throughout the day. I started with the wedding bouquets in the room as the bride was getting ready.

Flower macro photography: Roses

I posted a couple of months ago about my first foray into macro photography, using the inverted lens trick I had read about online. I was pretty happy with the photos i took with the hydrangea blossoms, but definitely wanted to practice a bit more. A couple of weeks ago, my husband purchased a dozen of beautiful pink roses for me, so...take two of flower macro photography!

Lavender

A little over 2 weeks ago, I went to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm for a photo shoot with two girls (our babysitters!). I'd purchased a Living Social deal to the farm for 4 people, and thought it would be a beautiful location for a photo shoot. I've got another post coming up with my favorite photos of the girls, but wanted to show the photos of the flora and fauna that I shot as well.

First try at Macro photography

I think macro photography is fascinating - for any who don't know what it is, just do a quick google image search and you'll see some amazing close-up shots, such as this one of a cat's eye. How amazing is that?! To accomplish this type of shot, there are all kinds of specialty lenses you can buy (there's one I have my eye on that's about $400, which I can't quite swing right now, much less the much higher price ones that are out there!), or you can get ring extension kits to add to an existing lens to allow focus that close up. There is a "trick" to macro photography that you can do without any of these and I've been dying to try it; I finally had time this weekend to give it a shot with some hydrangea flowers I recently received.

Lilies

I was playing around in my kitchen to find a photo to submit for last week's topic of "Green", and these were some of the ones I rejected from that submission. However, I did like these (I was playing around with different DOF and lighting, and thought I'd share these here, partially because I'm too tired tonight to write a more detailed post on something else. 

A different view

One of the things I like to do is photograph something from a new perspective. Yesterday afternoon I was looking at a vase of flowers on my table, and the flowers hanging down next to the vase jumped out at me. I thought I'd try this perspective, and I think it works!

Beauty at Monticello

On the last Friday in April I spent the day at Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home) with my family. I posted kid/family photos on my other blog, but wanted to highlight the beautiful springtime shots I got here.

This one is currently my cover photo on my Facebook page, and was also my submission for "Signs of Spring" for the Weekly Photo Project two weeks ago. I absolutely love this photo!

Spring in Charlottesville

 Having grown up in central Virginia, I love the area in the springtime. I was fortunate to be able to spend four days in Charlottesville recently, and have the chance to capture some lovely springtime photos.

Roses

When I returned from a conference in mid-October, I was greeted at the airport by my husband and kiddos, and these beautiful flowers. One afternoon the light was so pretty in our house I had to get some photos of them, and practice on focusing using my 50mm prime lens.

Flowering bushes

My next door neighbor has two beautiful rhododendrons. They purple flowers are lovely, and the bushes themselves are exceptionally tall - we actually had a landscape architect come by last year to talk to us about our front yard, and she said that they were the largest she'd ever seen! They are almost taking over his front yard. But when they make flowers like this, it's hard to want to cut them back!

Pink dogwoods

In my excursion around Leesburg two weeks ago, I stumbled across a recently-blooming pink dogwood tree. I love dogwoods; we had about 5 white dogwoods lining the driveway of the house I grew up in, and I think they're lovely flowers. Add to that the fact that they are the state flower of Virginia...makes them even better in my estimation. And to find these beautiful pink ones!