3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

Spring

Day 148/365: Red Tulips Look Like a Monet Painting

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Ok, maybe not the famous Monet red poppies, but it’s what I thought of as I crouched down in a neighbors yard to take these red tulips in a neighbors yard. I learned he planted this tulip bed over forty years ago. Daffodils are the first flowers of spring to bloom in my yard, now it’s time for the tulips to shine.In my small town in rural Nebraska people are used to seeing me crouched on the ground with my camera.

This photograph was taken with my old Olympus E-10 camera. It’s only a 4.4 megapixel, but the sensor is better than my Canon Rebel camera and the quality is so much better. I just have to be happy with smaller images.

Red tulips in the garden
These red tulips remind me of Monets Red Poppies (Olympus E-10)

I do love tulips, they are one of my favorite flowers and they are such a welcome sight in the spring after a long winter. Red tulips should be the tradition on Valentines Day instead of roses. I don’t like red roses, so over done. Do a search at the top of the page for more tulip photography. There will be more to come in all colors from red tulips to pink, yellow and the rare variegated tulip hybrids.

Photography Notes: Again, image was originally overexposed, so I played around a bit with the curves layer, added a threshold layer with a low opacity and fill for some dimension to the petals.

More Fun with Tulips

Express your love with red tulips

Hopefully, you followed this ageless custom and expressed your love by giving flowers. This year, rather than giving Rita a bouquet of red roses as I’ve done in the past, on November 3, 2013, I began Plan A — preparing a gift of red tulips. Perhaps …
5000 tulips main attraction at Mughal Gardens this year

President Pranab Mukherjee will declare open the annual ‘Udyanotsav’ at the world-famous Mughal Gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 15. The Mughal Gardens will remain open to the public from February 16 to March 16. However, it will be closed …
Tiptoe Through the Tulips in Ottawa

Feedback. <. > Bright red tulips in bloom. (Don MacKinnon/Getty Images). As a token of appreciation for the protection of Queen Juliana and her young family, as well as the liberation of Holland, the Dutch sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Canada.
 

Day 147/365: Dogwood Trees

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Dogwood Blossoms (Olympus E-10)

Once again my Olympus E-10 comes out with me as I searched for more spring blossoms. I believe this is a dogwood tree, but I could be wrong, I’m not very good with flowering trees, so correct me if  I’m wrong.

What I like about my Fuji S1500 is I can carry it in my purse. Although I like the weight and feel of the Olympus, heavy, like a “real” camera.

Photography notes: This image was severely over exposed, something I can’t see in the view finder as I’m adjusting the settings (or maybe I’m doing something wrong) maybe I should look up an owners manual.  I have started to use the curves layer in Photoshop and bumped up the histogram to darken the image and I spot sharpened the foreground slightly.

Day 143/365: Shimmering Tulips

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Shimmering Tulips
Shimmering Tulips (SOOC)

For this I broke out an old camera, an Olympus E-10, to see if I could get more clarity and crispness to my photographs.  I bought the camera on Ebay several years ago used and it’s sheer size was a hindrance to taking it everywhere.

I will compare my two cameras later, when I’ve had a chance to take some additional pictures with it, but here is the first. I really like how it captured the reflection on the tulip petals, something I don’t think my Fuji S1500 could handle.

So what do you think, should I stick with the camera I’ve been using, or use a higher quality lens and forsake megapixel size?

BTW, this is straight out of the camera, even better.

Day 142/365: Flowering Trees

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Don’t know what kind of flowering tree this is, crab apple, dogwood, or a flowering cherry, but they were pretty blooming all over town. I was tempted to post a wide angle shot,  but I really like close ups and macros. I’m trying to get better at selecting the best picture of the day. I can hem and haw forever in trying to decide what to post.

Flowering Tree
Flowering Tree

 

More About Flowering Trees

Some day I’ll have some flowering trees in my yard, but I’m a little ADD and don’t like to wait a whole year, or years before seeing results. So in the mean time I’ll drive around town, go to the parks and enjoy the flowering plum trees on the walking trails. They smell the best by the way.

Top 6 flowering trees to plant in the spring

Smaller properties call for trees of modest size and many spring-flowering species fit the bill. The favorites mentioned here rarely grow larger than 25 to 30 feet and some remain half that size, making them ideal for planting near patios, as specimen …
 
Flowering trees add color and beauty to February, March landscapes

The Oriental magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana) is one of the most spectacular of the spring-flowering trees because its flowers are so large. Unlike the evergreen Southern magnolia, the Oriental magnolia is deciduous and loses its leaves in winter.
 
Flowering trees add to February, March landscapes – LSU AgCenter

(Distributed 02/21/14) HAMMOND, La. – Flowering trees add considerable color and beauty to our landscapes during late winter and early spring. Many of the trees that flower at this time of year can be considered …