Hydrangeas

Besides photography I also like to run and I like to run long. I often use my fitness runs to look for and see what flowers are blooming throughout my neighborhood. Last weekend I made it out and encountered a bush of hydrangeas. The beautiful blue hues of the hydrangeas were unfolding and the floral immediately struck me as a wonderful photography opportunity. I hope it was the overcast sky that provided optimal lighting and enhanced the color saturation and not my delirious state of mind from an exhausting long run. Little water droplets were still present from the last wee hour showers. Already only a couple minutes away from home I finished up the run, took a shower and ran out to capture the flower. The diffuse light had passed but the overcast still provided great lighting condition. I set up my tripod, mounted a close up filter on my lens and started composing. I photographed the floral from three or four different perspectives and brought home two attractive compositions … not a bad rate for a quick photo session.

At Fenway Park

At University Place Gallery

"Orchids" was accepted into Northeast Prize Show juried by Cheryl Brutvan, Curator of Contemporary Art, at the Norton Museum of Art. The exhibition features many artists and runs from May 14 - June 23, 2010 and is organized by the Cambridge Art Association and art is on display in the beautiful University Place Gallery and the Kathryn Gallery near Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA.

At Minot Rose Garden

“New Life” was taken last year in the Minot Rose garden in response to a call for artists by the Brookline Arts Center in conjunction with the Friends of the Minot Rose Garden. The Friends of the Minot Rose garden do such fantastic work maintaining the garden; they cannot be thanked enough! I planned this photo shoot because I knew exactly what I was hunting for and what I was going to submit to the jury. I waited for a night of rain before going to the rose garden in the morning. I was very delighted when I arrived because everything had fallen into place for a perfect morning of flower photography. The overcast sky was still present and the roses were still covered in rain drops. Red, yellow, pink, purple, orange; roses of all colors were just waiting to be photographed. I immediately started shooting, moving from one floral motif to the next, and making my way around the garden a few times. During the shoot I noticed the beauty of the rose leaves and started composing around them. “New Life” with its vibrant green color and intense veins represents the beginning of a new life; it conveys energy to make your dreams come true.

In Manchester, UK

Beth Edwards, owner of 1st Angel Arts Magazine has added me and my photography to the artists feed of the 1st Angel Arts Magazine. This means you will have the pleasure of seeing my work fed through 1st Angel Arts Magazine, as it is uploaded, before most people do. I will be joining David Lane, Rona Black and Debi Peralta.

At James P. Kelleher Rose Garden

Yesterday morning I made a short trip to the James P. Kelleher Rose Garden, near Fenway Park in Boston. It's another rose garden only 15 minutes away from my home that provides me with lots of photographic objects in the early summer. I also like that the park's name plates identification for each rose. The rose garden was mostly in full bloom although some had already passed. Lots of people at the time but I blended in perfectly with the photographing crowd that was present. I was looking for a magenta rose to add to my fine art rose collection and succeeded finding an attractive couple that were still in beautiful bloom. I arranged my tripod and first focused on the magenta rose in the foreground. After taking a few shots I zoomed out and re-composed the image to include the second rose in the background. The focus point in Double Take was on the petals where they spiral together. Using the camera self timer I captured a series of three images with different exposures settings. The at 1/3 step underexposed capture worked best. and the aperture was set to f5.6 resulting in a shutter speed of 1/400 second. During the digital post processing steps I applied minor adjustments to contrast, saturation and sharpness.

At Minot Rose Garden

Photo of the Month at 20% Off - June 2010