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!
Although it’s still spring, the temperature has been in the low 30Cs the last few days. The birds and their offspring are scarce but the wildflowers and insects are everywhere you look at the reserve. My first bee and flower photograph of the season, always a cheerful combination!
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.
Two of my favourite subjects are insects and flowers and getting both in one shot was a bonus. I don’t usually like to take photographs at this angle, I prefer straight on shots. However, given the detail and colour in the fly I found the composition interesting. This was taken with my macro lens and flash, a wonderful combination for this kind of photography.
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.
This little fly made me think of “Droopy”, the classic cartoon character created by Tex Avery. He was an endearing character that the hover fly reminds me of. The insect is tiny and the leaf it’s resting on gives an idea of scale. The photo was taken with my 105mm lens and flash but I should have moved closer to the fly to get even more detail. I liked the composition though and I believe this photo is as much about the flower as the insect. Next year once spring arrives, I am determined to get closer to my winged subjects as often you only get one chance at a shot.
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.
These flowers came into bloom within a day or two of a heavy rainfall. Despite their lovely sounding name I spotted them off a suburban bike path. Both photographs were taken in bright sunlight using a 300mm lens. The second one, taken a day later had the lens fitted with a teleconverter and taken at F-6.3, the background had less bokeh. I had geared up to try my luck with a kingfisher I had seen earlier in the week. It didn’t make an appearance but the flowers were as nice as ever and as the saying goes you “dance with the one that brung ya”.
These photographs were taken on different days, in different locations; the first in a wildlife garden with my macro lens and the second close to the water’s edge with my 70-200mm. The first shot required very little cropping, the second a bit more. Most everyone loves sunflowers, they just feel like summer but I find the macro shot has a slight edge to it, perhaps because of its starkness. Not just another pretty face.
When I started doing nature photography I tended to focus mainly on birds and insects. This summer I decided I wanted to take more wild flower shots and capture their beauty as well. The first two photographs were taken with my 105mm macro lens using a flash and soft box. This lens lets me get nice and close to my subject, the flash helps to freeze motion and provide some light fill and the soft box softens the light. The third photo was taken with my telephoto lens. I began by cropping the photo but decided that the background added interest and depth to the photo and modified my crop considerably. I made a few adjustments to the highlights and exposure to make the central flower more vibrant.
One of the wonderful things about wild flowers is that they will take root wherever there’s a bit of soil. You can spot them growing in laneways, along the sides of highways and country roads, and forests of course. Their colour and scent add beauty to the landscape and their pollen attracts insects, another benefit. The flowers here are quite different. I was struck by their unique shape and colour; the vibrant yellow of the Salsify and the more muted colours of the others.
Another sign of spring is the arrival of the tulips, they appear just after the crocus no matter the temperature. It’s not unusual to see them sprouting up even with snow still on the ground. Happily, these shots were taken on a warm May day. I used my wide angle lens for long shots of the flower beds. However, given all the people out enjoying the tulips (and getting in my frame) I had more success with the shots taken at a closer range and would have preferred my 105mm lens that day.
BELINDA GROVER PHOTOGRAPHY 