05-17-13 Our Neighbor's Tulips I

My wife has nice flowers but does our neighbor and the other day I couldn't help but be drawn to her collection of yellow tulips, which had just bloomed. The light was poor but I enhanced the scene with on-camera flash. I rarely use flash but I have taught my students that it's ok to use flash as long as it doesn't overpower the scene. In the case of this photo, I think it works.

I call this post "Our Neighbor's Tulips I" because she also has some amazing deep purple tulips and I am waiting patiently for them to bloom. And though I've featured them before, those who follow this blog know that I like 2nd chances on most photos I take.

05-14-13 Finally!

I call this post "Finally!" because after what seems like and endless winter and cold spring, it finally feels like summer. And my wife's daffodils are celebrating the occasion by blooming.

This photo, incidentally, started out as a completely different concept. In the failing light of a beautiful day, I noticed the heads of these daffodils bobbing in the gusty wind. And I thought this would be a perfect time to try dragging the shutter, a process that uses camera flash and a fairly slow shutter speed. I took 5 or six using this technique but didn't really like any of them.

So instead, I put the camera as close to the ground as I could and tried to focus on on a single daffodil. After I took the photo, I noticed the camera was seeing a very interesting deep, blue bokeh in the out-of-focus boughs of the a pine tree behind the garden. And so I ended up with this photo. I will probably try the dragging the flash thing another time.

04-29-13 Rite of Spring

By Scott Shephard

2013 04-29 Rite of Spring by Scott Shephard

I would be the first to say that my crocus photo is nothing to write home to Mom about. But these flowers are significant to me for two reasons: first, they are the first flowers to appear in my wife's garden this spring. And given that we have endured a fairly long winter here in South Dakota, even little yellow flowers are cause for celebration.

The other reason is that this photo is one of about 240 photos of the same subject over a two hour period that I took as part of a time lapse study. This was my first effort at this kind of photography and though I don't know that I have the patience to do it often, I am happy with my first attempt. Here's the exciting YouTube video, soon to go viral, no doubt. Incidentally, the two hours have been compressed into 14 seconds.

This short video is really a composite of over 240 still frames taken over a two hour period. It is my first attempt at a time lapse video.

10-31-12 Mysterious

Canon 5DIII 1/160s f/2.8 ISO320 200mm

10-25-12 Variations On A Theme

It was on this day in 2009 that my mother died. And it was on the same date years before that that her mother and my grandmother died. So these roses are for Bernice and Ida. The "roses" are really the same rose with 4 different HDR treatments.

10-12-12 Explosion

In an attempt to balance the rather dark and mysterious tree photo posted yesterday, I offer this flamboyant flower. If my mission were to photograph "happy," this is what I'd offer.Canon 5DII 1/320s f/7.1 ISO400 105mm

10-01-12 After the Rain

I took 83 photos to get this. The creative process was fairly typical for me. First, the photo wasn't premeditated.I was walking by this table outside our front door with a handful of stuff I was taking into the house when I saw leaves on it. Then I took a photo of a little stone bird my wife had placed on the table. Then I put more leaves on the table and took more bird photos. Then I got the ladder and shot from above. Then I saw the three distinct planes of focus in the aerial shot. Then I set the lens to f1.2. Then I got rid of the bird. Then I got the hose and sprayed everything with water ("Rain"). Then I edited this photo in Aperture and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Then I had my photo.Canon 5DIII 1/400s f/1.2 ISO100 50mm

80-30-12 Variations On A Theme

Yes, another sunflower shot. They are looking east, incidentally, away from the setting sun. And, yes, they look east all day and all night long. When I was a kid someone told me that they actually turned so they always faced the sun. That would be a form of heliotropism, so my high school biology teacher would say.But sunflowers aren't that ambitious.Canon 5DIII 1/80s f/7.1 ISO100 200mm