On this cold grey day, summer seems like it’s been over for weeks not days. In looking through my catalogues I found these two photographs I took earlier in the year, when the whole summer stretched before us. We’ll still get some nice temperatures before the cold really sets in but on a day like today a little summer cheer is welcome.
Early in the summer when everything is in bloom, you tend to admire it all but don’t really focus on any one thing in particular (at least that’s the case for me). However, as summer winds down I look at flowers and grasses more closely enjoying them that much more.
Although many flowers are beginning to fade at this point in the summer, they still hold a lot of appeal. Queen Anne’s Lace reveals an intricate weave. The yellow salsify contrasts with the one beside it that’s gone to seed, Both beautiful in their own way.
Photographs taken at different times during the summer. Of the three kinds of flowers pictured, the peonies are the ones I look forward to the most. Once their buds form in May you know the summer heat is close at hand. Their form, scent and brilliance are much anticipated. The flower in the second image is beginning to fade, I’m not sure when it was in full bloom although the photo is quite recent. I took the morning glory earlier in August, it has a wonderfully long growing season. I liked the play of light on the pink of the flower.
As I mentioned in a previous post there is a feeling of change in the air, as the seasons slowly shift. I feel a pressing need to store up all the remaining sights and sounds of summer. One way of doing this is to linger a little longer in the fields of wildflowers. This touch-me-not and salsify caught my eye.
I noticed the muted background before I really saw the flower rising against it and was struck by the start of the slow change to fall. I walked a little further and saw this Maple, always the first tree at the reserve to change colour every year. We’re still under heat advisories and the days are long but the slow approach of fall has begun.
Continuing with my Thursday blog theme of trying out the Fuji XT-1, I took these flowers with the same lens (23mm). I didn’t really think to use a wide angle lens on flowers but I tried it and was quite pleased with the results. I’ve only ever worked with one camera at a time, a DSLR but with a Fuji in my future that’s going to change!
In the first photo, the play of light and angle of the flower made me take notice. The hedge bindweed, a member of the morning glory family, doesn’t usually catch my eye. The bright yellow salsify is one of my favourites though and I thought the tall reed growing beside it was as perfect a natural arrangement as one could get.
Two more wildflowers that I look forward to seeing each summer. The flower in the first photo gets it’s name from the pistils in the middle of the flower which develop into heads of seeds with long fuzzy hairs. They look like smoke. The vibrant yellow of the sunflower attracts me as it did the bee. Like many other areas this summer, we are experiencing drought-like conditions, you may notice the heat stress on the flower’s leaves.
This photo was taken on a windy day, and gives the impression that there were fields of chives growing and not just the small patch I saw in the garden. This tasty plant produces such an attractive flower.
We’ve been doing more photo walks in the city, as wildlife at the nearby reserve is pretty scarce right now. We’re taking our time in areas we normally tend to rush through and are finding things of interest and beauty. The plants in the first two photos would look at home in the tropics, lush and dense but they are growing in some containers on a patio. The third photo is of a flower that made its way through a hedge and I liked the strong contrast of white and green. When I set out on one of these walks I never know what I might see and my 24-70mm lens gives me some latitude for nature as well as street scenes.
I like unruly gardens, although I appreciate that an untended appearance can be very deceiving. As we walked down our street we approached an old home with weathered brick walls and a small garden out front. I liked the contrast of the green against the red brick. I took the second photo further down the street. The sun illuminating the plant caught my eye and working with exposure compensation I took the result you see here.
All kinds of subjects are vying for my attention this spring. Our senses are inundated by colour, scent, movement and life! New wildflowers seem to appear from one day to the next, the first two shown here just popped up.
These are one of the first forest flowers of Spring. I took this photo in April last year when the weather was warmer. It’s always a pleasure to see these bright bursts of colour welcoming the season along. They usually keep company with snow drops and violets. I’ll check on their progress next time I visit the nature reserve.
Our local florists and grocery stores are stocked with spring bulbs and flowers, By late February most of us are eager for signs of spring. These tulips were taken last May at our annual tulip festival, still several months away but it’s never too early to enjoy their colour and anticipate their return.
There are many varieties of water lilies but I’ve only seen two types in our local waterways: white Fragrant Water Lilies and Yellow Pond lilies. Their large floating leaves make great runways for dragonflies. I tried to expose for the white of the flower when I took these photographs but I still had to make some highlight and shadow adjustments in Lightroom, to get the correct exposure and bring out more definition in the petals. I also removed some of the bugs that were carpeting the petals, they were a bit too “Hitchcock-like” in their natural state.
Time for a little flower power. We’re supposed to see a warming trend at the end of the week and I hope to get out with my camera. The weather has just been too cold for my camera and I can’t take photos wearing heavy mittens😏. Until then…
As the snow keeps falling and entering week two of near arctic temperatures, I thought some spring flowers might be in order. I remember taking these shots back in May, happy to be out with my camera again and enjoying the signs of spring all around.
Wildflowers are fading and no longer quite perfect. I think I might just prefer them now, their colours more muted and their edges not as sharp. The first photo is soft focus and it was the field rather than a particular flower that I chose to capture. The Queen Anne’s Lace has a beautiful woven pattern which is what I focussed on in the second.
In late summer wildflowers begin to show some wear but collectively their colours paint a wonderful palette, they don’t go quietly into fall! These flowers were growing in great bunches along the roadside and we stopped a while to enjoy them.
The birds are keeping themselves scarce right now but there is no shortage of insects or flowers to photograph. I look forward to when the chicory puts in an appearance, almost as much as this hover fly.
This hover fly flew into the frame just as I was composing my photograph, a nice addition to the shot. On these brilliant summer days I enjoy walking along the meadows’ edges with the the riot of colour and buzzing of insects laid out for the taking.
I do like poppies and was happy to see them among the other flowers in the field. They have a colour and delicacy that always attracts the eye. I decided against a tight crop and chose to show them as an element of the whole.
This yellow wildflower in a field of green embodies summer to me. It grew on its own with no competition for my attention. The second flower was in a garden hedge. It had just rained, a constant this summer, and it stood out nicely against the green.
Two different wildflowers that I really like. The first photo is of pink trilliums. They are less common than the white variety but they tend to grow in bunches which more than makes up for their scarcity. The second photograph is of bladder campions, considered a weed in North America but not to this photographer!
I haven’t been out as often as I’d like with my camera but seeing and photographing this beauty, made up for some missed opportunities. Trilliums are the official flower of Ontario yet I never come across them in great numbers. Their growing period is a short one, this trillium looked like it was celebrating the season.
As is often the case, spring arrives slowly to my part of the country, the temperature going from very cool to very warm within days. The woodlands remain quiet, but gradually the birds return and the trees and other vegetation begin to bud and then suddenly burst with colour and sweet smells. These flowers were just budding last week, now there’s so much that catches my eye, it’s hard to chose what to photograph. The perfect dilemma!
We returned to the Tulip Festival for a second time on a hot sunny day this week. Many of the flowers were at their peak although not all as you can see in the first photo. The tulips are selected in such a way that there are continuous blooms throughout the three week span of the festival. I plan to get back once more before it ends, the riot of colour is hard to resist.
Canada’s Tulip Festival is a yearly event in Ottawa that takes place each May. We decided to go before the official opening in order to avoid the crowds. There are many varieties of tulips in bloom with many yet to come over the three weekends of the festival. After a break from photography this past cold winter it was a pleasure to get out again with our cameras, coming home with muddy knees from taking close ups of the flowers.
I took a walk in my neighbourhood and saw more evidence of spring. More birds chirping, crocus wearing their colours, tulips coming up and one brave daffodil in bloom (it’s still in the single digits celsius most mornings). Today’s flowers were taken around this time last year, so they are another nod to the season that’s slowly approaching.
The Anemone in the first photo was taken in its prime. The New England Aster in the second, though still lovely, was beginning to fade. It is a more durable wildflower and was around to enjoy and photograph for weeks longer than the first. I used to prefer photographing colourful flowers over the white varieties. However, lowering the exposure brings out the fine detail in white subjects, as in this example, revealing a subtle beauty that holds its own against its more colourful rivals.
It’s a bit soon for tulips here. I took these photos last May at the annual tulip festival, a very popular event in Ottawa. The colour and variety and sheer number of flowers is extraordinary. It was difficult to move for all the people and I was limited to closeups of the tulips. Not a bad thing but I had also wanted to try some wide angle shots of the flowerbeds that seemed to stretch on forever. Maybe this year if I get up really early before the crowds…
Summer is truly underway when water lilies begin to appear on the lake. These beautiful aquatic plants decorate the surface of slow moving waterways between June and September. Their broad leaves often provide landing pads for dragonflies and weigh stations for frogs but stand out equally on their own. I try to expose for the lily’s white petals so that I retain some of their detail. This can be easier on a cloudy day when the light is more muted.
I find that photographing flowers once they’ve begun to fade often more interesting than taking a flower at it’s peak. These photographs are good examples. In the fall new colours emerge and old ones fade. I worked with the backgrounds to enhance the images. Backgrounds can play a central role and frame the subject, hopefully never distracting the viewer’s eye.
I love coming across these daisy like wildflowers. They aren’t that common and grow individually so having the chance to see and photograph them is always a pleasure. In the first shot I liked the way the salsify formed a natural arrangement with the grasses and plants around it. In the second image, the flower itself is the centre of attraction although the muted background added some interest.
I borrowed the title from the song of the same name by The Foundations, a 60s British soul group (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iol0B-clFFM). Another cold grey day here and a sunny looking flower was just the thing to lift the spirits. Buttercups are common flowering plants and I love to see them carpeting the fields every spring. I applied a radial dial in Lightroom to lower the highlights on the flower caused by the strong sunlight. I thought it would lend itself to a black and white treatment as well.
These are all very different flowers, what makes them similar is that they’re all found in the wild. The poppy was growing in a local wildlife garden, the white trillium (Ontario’s provincial flower) in a wooded area and the lily in a laneway. The trillium is one of our first spring flowers, reaching full bloom in May; the yellow and green contrasting nicely with the white of the petals. The other flowers were taken in July. Once the cold weather gives way to spring, I look forward to watching the cycle of new growth begin again.
I took these photographs of wild flowers in mid-September. Although they were beginning to fade they were still beautiful. The flowers were growing in a garden bed on municipal land in the downtown core. They caught my eye not only for their beauty but because they were the same variety of wild flowers you’d see growing along a country road. Although planted with some thought for colour and form they replicated what you’d see in nature. When I got closer, I was also pleased to see that they attracted bees and other insects just like their country cousins.
Fall begins today but the weather has remained nice and warm and we haven’t seen the last of the flowers. I took these photographs on a particularly sunny day last week when it felt more like July than mid September. I was happy that the metallic bee landed on the flower in the second photograph. A little jewel in a sea of gold.
At this point in the summer, the wildflowers have a more subtle beauty than earlier in the year. Their colours are less exuberant and seem to reflect the change of season. The first photograph made me think of a bouquet, minus the vase 🙂 With the unusually hot weather we’re having I hope the flowers hang on for a while longer.
BELINDA GROVER PHOTOGRAPHY 