Tag Archives: flowers

19 Facts About Tulips

21 Apr

I love spring, and I love flowers, good thing the two go hand in hand. The tulips haven’t bloomed yet, just the daffodils, but I’m anxiously awaiting the season of tulips and while I wait I thought I would add some interesting facts about tulips. My 19 Facts About Daffodils is my highest viewed post on my blog and it stuns me every day to see how many people come to learn about daffodils.

I have photographed all of these tulips you see here. I love all colors and I’m trying to see how many different varieties of tulips I can photograph.

19 Facts About Tulips

1. Tulips are the 3rd most popular flower (roses are the most popular)
2. Originally from Turkey, tulips were brought to Europe during the 16th century and introduced into Holland.  Facts About Tulips
3. Over 100 species and 4000 varieties of cultivated tulips. Majority of tulips are grown and exported from Holland. Tulip Facts
4. Average height of a tulips is 10-70 centimeters, each flower has 6 petals,  and the flower life span is 3-7 days.

Yellow Tulips in spring

5. National flower of Turkey and Iran is the tulip. (History of the Tulip)
6. Tulip flowers are supposed to be a token of passion, love, romance, and a perfect lover. (So why is the rose given at Valentines day?)
7. Tulips are classified into 15 different classes based on floral charateristics, time of blooming and other traits.
8. Tulips belong to the same botanical family as onions and lilies  (20 Facts About Tulips)The most popular color of tulips is red, Red tulips mean “Declaration of Love”  (20 Facts About Tulips)

DSCF0429_sm

9. Tulips Should be planted in the fall
10. Although tulip flowers  are edible, and eaten during WWII, tulip bread is “…not very good…” according to a survivor of the war in the Netherlands (20 Facts About Tulips)
11. Tulip wine, however is supposed to be very good and makes a lovely white wine Making Tulip Wine
12. Albany New York has one of the largest Tulip festivals with over 100,000 tulips in bloom

19 Facts about Tulips

13. The largest Tulip grower in the United States is RoozenGaarde in Mount Vernon Washington. Owned by the Roozen family who has been growing tulips in Holland and the 14. United States since the early 1700′s
15. Tulips will bend and twist towards the light, even when placed in a vase (Interesting facts About Tulips)
16. When buying Tulips for planting the bigger the bulb the bigger the bloom. (The Flower Expert)
17. The origin of the word Tulip might be from the Turkish word “tulbend” for turban (The Flower Expert)
18. Tulip Mania occurred in the 1600′s and people have been known to trade livestock for tulips (History of the Tulip) Inflated prices caused the Tulip bubble to burst and left many Dutch bankrupt.
19. The tulip is the official symbol or the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. (Tun Facts About Tulips)

I’m sure there are many other facts. Add your tulip fact below in the comment and please feel free to share this post or images on Pinterest. I LOVE Pinterest and find my biggest photography inspiration there. So stay tuned for some macro flower images once they start blooming here.

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Making Tulips “Pop”

6 Apr

Let’s render an image  of a tulip into something that pops just a little, but doesn’t take it over the edge.

Tulips after Photoshop Editing

This week I’m just showing how subtle editing can improve a photograph without going over the top, as I have a tendency to do sometimes, according to my daughter.

Tulip SOOC (straight out of the camera)

Tulip SOOC (straight out of the camera)

This edit first involved adding a levels adjustment layer and darkening the whole image.  I selected the pink color in Image/Adjustment/Selective Color and added more magenta, which brightened the color in the petals.

The white portion of the petals seemed washed out so I then used the Burn tool and stroked over the creases in the bottom of the petal, which brought out the fine streaks.  I then used the sponge tool and desaturated the background.

I tried some special effects with this image, but I was never quite happy with them, so I settled on realism.

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Butterflies and Lilacs: Signs of Summer Already

5 Apr

image

Taken and posted to WordPress on my Android phone. Was curious on how it would look on the computer compared to my phone. Of course I want to work it up in Photoshop, but I’ll think I’ll leave that for another day.

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Still Evaluating Shooting RAW vs. JPG

30 Mar

Spring has arrived a little early to Nebraska and my eye and my Canon Rebel just hasn’t gotten adjusted to the new settings caused by the bright sun. I’m either over exposing or under exposing.

So  how do we fix what could be a wonderful picture.  If you have a RAW option in your camera you can easily adjust the exposure without causing image degradation or artifacts. If not using Photoshop and adjusting the levels might be your only option. But be warned it doesn’t work on all photos as you can see below.

Did you know that every time you open a jpg file you lose a little bit of digital information in the image? After a few times you don’t notice a difference, but work and rework that file and pixel by pixel it loses detail. (I’m learning just a little bit more and more)

Think of a RAW file as an undeveloped photo, much like film. In a RAW processor program you can adjust the exposure, without destroying pixels or the detail.

How to Fix an Underexposed Photo

Below is an example of how messy adjusting jpg files can become. In most pictures there is enough texture to “hide” the destruction, but in this night sky the gradient colors quickly become degraded.

Over processing destroys jpg images, shoot in RAW when you can

Ideally I would get the right exposure the first time and not have to adjust, but I’m not quite there yet. Many will argue that every digital image needs some post production to perfect it. What do you think? Do you shoot RAW?

Thread on shoot RAW and why others http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=684360

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Post Production, Wedding Photography (Days 251-253)

28 Oct

One of the wonderful things about digital photography is the endless creative projects that can be created with wedding photography. While working at Hamilton Color Lab I have had the privilege of viewing some amazing photography and learning various styles of post production techniques.

These following photos were taken by Andy McDonald of Mirror Images Photography, but I’m including them in my 365 project because I did the post production. These were printed at the lab on Fuji Crystal Lustre Professional+ paper and mounted to paramount for open house/reception that took place three weeks after we moved. More on that later.

Wedding cake composite, used a color overlay, sepia at 30% to warm the images

Wedding cake composite, used a color overlay, sepia at 30% to warm the images. This is my favorite series of images form the wedding.

Family Wedding Picture, Black and White

Andy did the initial "chocolate" black and white to this image, I just created the faded background border.

Photoshop, post production Andy McDonald, Mirror Images Photography

Photoshop, post production Andy McDonald, Mirror Images Photography

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Day 245/365: Planning a Wedding in Less Than 30 Days

24 Aug

Wedding Bouqet

Wedding Bouquet

I’m planning a wedding! Mine! I’m getting married this Saturday, yes in just a few days. Many of you may of wondered why my 365 Project posts have been sporadic when I’ve normally been consistent. This is the reason. Just before I left for my Connecticut trip Randy and I  signed papers on a new house and said, “Now we can get married!” When the banker said we could close in 60 days that bumped up the schedule.

Throw in an intense trip to Connecticut, cleaning my Mom’s house, Block Island and I couldn’t even start planning until I got back August 1st. That gave me twenty seven days to plan a wedding. Like all weddings a small simple wedding changes definition as the days and weeks progress.

This one was no exception. This is a second wedding for both of us, so simple and small was in order. We planned that a “real” reception would be in our new house with all our friends a month later. Soon immediate family gave way to a few close friends, attendants, flowers, cake, photographer, real invitations, matching ties, and soon little stress vein started popping out of my head. Still small, around twenty people.

It’s ok, the lady at Nobbies (craft store) was a tremendous help and another lady at Michaels (another craft store) really didn’t have to give me a Valium.

My friend Beth is my one attendant, above is her bouquet.  Nice and bright, did you expect anything less? Why the term attendant? There is something about “matron” of honor that just makes us feel old, and the term “maid” of honor doesn’t sound much better.  You will learn later about my dress, of course there will be pictures of the ceremony, the cake, you know the whole nine yards later. Just thought I would give you a teaser now.

Caution: For the next few weeks my 365 Project is going going to be WAY out of order. I’m still taking a photo-a-day, just not able to post every day. I’ll figure out the order sometime in the next month or so. Did I tell you my youngest son is also graduating from Marine boot camp the first part of October? Yeah that to plan too…I need an assistant.

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Day 203/365: Blue Summer Flower

28 Jun

Blue Flower

Blue Flower

Don’t know the name of this flower, but my friend Beth and I were testing out various macro’s on our cameras and this came out pretty decent. I liked the blue contrast against the green and it’s just so unusual. Anyone know it’s name?

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Day 197/365: Day Lily in All It’s Orange Glory

22 Jun

Day Lily

Day Lily

Lilies were my Grandmothers flowers. She lived in Oklahoma and they loved the heat. Seemed that’s the only thing that would bloom in 100F weather.

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Day 194/365: Summer Lily, start of Summer Flowers

19 Jun

Summer Lily's

Summer Lily's

I’m not too much of a lily person, but they are in bloom now, so I gotta take what God gives, and right now it’s lilies. Need to appreciate all flowers, even those that grow like weeds and crowd out all the other flowers.

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Day 185/365: Peony Garden

9 Jun

Peony Garden

Peony Garden

Another garden in Elmwood, Nebraska. It was a very windy day, so no flower porn macros.

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