Philly Arctic

Welcome to the Philadelphia area Arctic zone, where the weather fools all the weathermen, mwahahaha. 

A huge snowstorm hits the zone and you're left stranded in your home. You're sitting at your dining table, staring through the backdoor, wondering, why won't the sun be powerful enough to melt the storm as fast as it does ice cream? 

What a dead rose, but I brought it back to life in this picture by the way the light goes around. The sunlight from the left just illuminates the entire picture and gives a great spotlight on the rose. What a great dead rose, and funny thing is... I kept this as my background pic on my phone for weeks, no idea why. 

I love this picture, so thick with colors and textures. It's got light coming in from everywhere, blurry and clear. This is actually a picture of snow on a car window... those lights at the bottom are the traffic and cars on the road!!

And lastly, a sparkly pic in our backyard. I actually took all these pictures with an iPhone, so I was super surprised with how clear and pristine these pictures came out. I took a really good picture of my sister, in a setting like this, where the snow is the air and the sun shines bright. 

Imperfect Vision

Ring ring ring simultaneously ringing, annoyingly.

Eyelashes opening wide and pupils staring into the shady ceiling.

With thoughts chasing each other, you decide to get your legs on the floor,

but first your arm flexes to the right, fingers searching for some plastic, nothing.

Moments later, head jerks up and you hear the hair unsticking from the pillow,

pupils shift gaze from the ceiling to look at your frantic fingers.

You search with those pupils for frames but you can't see nothing.

Finally your legs hit the floor but conveniently lands with a crack.

Those pupils then squint to the floor and fingers dart to the sound,

and you reach down and sadly pick up broken pieces of that plastic, that frame. 

Your glasses broke. 

Broken glasses, not good. 

The gardens awaits your presence but how,

tape might stick but it'll bother the brow.

Broken in three bits,

 your sight feels abandoned.

Broken glasses, terrible timing.

Bits clasped in fingers, only wondering what you'll see.

Without the plastic on your nose-bridge, you're toast.

No time to get it fixed, no contacts, no extras, you're scrambled.

You're visiting an exclusive garden, and the anxiety creeps in,

vultures settle in after they ate the butterflies in your stomach .

You pay the tickets and enter the unfamiliar gardens.

Nothing is clear.

With zero aid in vision,

Missing opportunities to see,

the marigolds swarming with bees,

 the sunflower gowned in rays of early light,

the breeze of her step subtly rocking the daffodils,

the brave and bold tulips drowning in armies of themselves,

the daisies showing off their photogenic skin for more pictures,

the ladybugs hiding in the spirals and circles of the roses freshly bloomed.

The Flower Power

Over spring break, our family dog-sat our cousin's dog, and the little dog is adorable! So one shiny, sparkly afternoon, I took him out to let him do his business. We walked a little, he did his business, and we started heading back inside. Then, as I put my right foot on the step, I felt something touch the back of my neck, and saw a petal fall down. And then I dramatically turn my head to the left and caught a glimpse at the trees next to the front door. Then this brilliant idea whizzed by... I was going to take pictures of the flowers on the tree. 

The thing was, as I was taking the pictures, I was literally tied down. The dog was my responsibility at that time, but I had to take pictures that afternoon because the weather was toasty and clear. The dog could've remained inside, but why leave him indoors while I'm appreciating the weather outdoors.... What I did was keep his leash tied to my leg, and he's a well behaved chap so I didn't have to worry about him dragging me away. And therefore I was literally tied down. 

So here are the glossy images, and I'm just going to lightly comment on each because the huge pictures can speak for themselves.

An airy, breezy message from this picture. In fact, it was certainly breezy while I took this picture.

I discovered that filters work so well for these flowers. 

Even a black and white filter with high clarity.

Composition is the main idea here, the branch going through the top and the flowers dropping down porportionately.

The flowers are lit! :) The sunlight illuminates both flowers from the back, and it looks great against the contrasted branch behind.

The camera went awry here, it focused on something in the middle. But I'm not blaming it on the camera, I'm going to say that was intentional...!

This is not what it was supposed to look like either. I wanted to get the farthest flower in focus, but it was so windy, the camera had a hard time focusing. But again, not blaming it on the camera, going to say this was intentional...!

This picture gives the impression that the sun just rose and time to get the busy morning started. Backlight is a very powerful lighting technique for any picture.  

Witness the power of the spotlight and the black vinegrette in this picture. 

Conversational Flower Show

I admit, flowers can get boring to look at for tons of people, but hey, you haven't seen them through my lens. My camera lens just spoofs them up, so when I look through the eye-piece, I see everything remarkably. It's as if the camera auto-edits the flower and captures it far more beautifully than the eye can see.

When we took a "vacation" to the Philadelphia Flower Show, which is an event at a huge convention center, I just had to take my camera. Flowers here, flowers there, oh my goodness, my camera worked so hard. The goal for me was to just find a new angle at flowers. A new eye, a fresh look at flowers.

The theme at the Flower Show this year was America's national parks, so there were many flowers and set-ups that resembled national parks. In this picture, there's a crazy looking flower, with a filter I love. The filter just gives me the clean-and-clear vibes. Don't you agree that this picture could be called Ms. Pristine because of how unblemished and glassy it looks? If I didn't know any better, the  lighting makes the flower look like it's manufactured with glass.

In the convention center, there was this fantastic bed of tulips, brimming with soo many colors and variations. Buuut I decided to go the other way and be dull with this picture. Here you have Snow White in the midst of her people. The focus is on the white flower, and I emphasized that by editing the picture to lose some background color.

PTC- Pacific Trail Crest. Information: the PTC is a hiker's trail starting in Mexico and ending in Canada. There are three types of hikers whom hike these trails, the "thru-hikers" (those who hike the whole trail), the "long distance hikers", and the "sectional hikers" (those who hike a section)! In this picture, I decided to go with an eloquent capture of the PTC trail, which is what the exhibit was mimicking. There's good depth of field in the picture, which portrays the flower as the focal point and the sign as part of the background.

 I feel like this flower just grows wildly, it's got that rough and tear feel to it. Which is probably why it's in the flower show, because it fits the national park theme! Here's something easy to point out- the flower fits the two-thirds rule, which makes the picture more appealing.

I'd say the only thing I wish that had gone better was the grain on all of my pictures. There's so much grain, I could've easily avoided it by reducing the ISO, if I had noticed sooner. It's hard to edit out grain because smoothing the picture removes its quality. 

And there you have it, flowers ain't boring. Never give up the chance to go to visit anything nature-based.