Blossomville

[Greg Beetham]

I've never seen Apricot blossom before, and it sure was worth the wait, lovely, they look, too my untrained eye, similar-ish in style to some of the cherry blossoms I've seen in this thread, only white not pink.
But it all had a tragic ending...I can understand how you must have lost a bit of heart to post them Doc.
Greg
ps. Conifers are cool, we had a giant Norfolk pine in the front yard and the birds loved it to build their nests in, with all the sharp needles as protection from the nasties, snakes, lizards, cats etc.
But one day it snapped off at ground level and fell...smashed the front fence, accross the footpath, squashed someones car parked outside on the nature strip, and still reached half way accross the road twenty further metres away, the reason? a large kind of termite had hollowed out the base into a big cavity leaving only a thin skin of timber and bark.
The bark carries all the nutriment for the tree and it looked quite normal and healthy, so no one knew, or was any the wiser until a strong gust of wind one day.....
It was like loosing a pet, never did chance growing another one though because of the possibility of an encore...the greebley's that live in the tropics can be a bit of a pest...sometimes.

[Winston]

Click for larger:

Sony DSLR-A700: 1/800s f/16.0 at 12.0mm iso200

[Greg Beetham]

I thought I was struggling too see more of the more distant flowers a bit, thinking I would like just a tad more height, but the large view fixed that just fine, very nice, Winston.
Greg

[aster]

Incredible photo and impressive quality!

It's like looking at the swelling of ocean at a stormy moment but it's an ocean of yellow asters instead. Where is this? Because these yellow buddies are also on the hills far ahead. Interesting...a place where only one type of wild flower grows but I can't figure out the species of course.

Thanks for sharing Winston, the real scene must be even more impressive.
The lens is Sony's 11-18mm wide-angle? And the firmware is V3 for A700 ..nice.

Yildiz

[Birma]

Thanks to the Doc for the shots of the Apricot blossoms, even though it is a sad story this year.

Also, great shot Winston. I love the detail in the foreground, and the flowers then disappearing in to the landscape beyond.

[KevinBarrett]

Wow! Beautiful shot, Winston!

[Dr. Harout]

Excellent shot, Winston of the 3rd Planet

[Ghor]

Great picture Winston! This is very inspiring, next weekend I will try to make the same kind of composition.

Here's a shot I like to share, much more simple but a different style:

[jbtaylor]

Aster,
I took your advice and worked the exposure on these images and got better results. Still remembering the "expose to the right" philosophy, I will continue to do this PP instead of underexposing with the camera.
Before


After

[aster]

Hi Jbtaylor,

Indeed, the 'after' photo exhibits more of the fine details and a more natural look. In addition to exposure and cooling down the temperature for white balance, I also play with the DRO settings provided by the post-production software be it the IDC of Sony or others and more enhancements are applied to the RAW file which in the end makes for a better JPG file. Possibilities become endless without having to touch the basic settings of the camera!

Your other tulips were very nice actually, therefore I don't really understand why you deleted them from the thread but I suppose you had your reasons.

Yildiz

[Winston]

Thanks all for your comments. This is another place I found while prowling the back country with my FWD.
Location: N44.098336, W116.215717

[Dusty]

Planting trees is good thinking and we'd all be in a better place if we all planted nice trees instead of chocking them to death or cutting them down...like some people I've seen do around our vicinity here in Istanbul!
Yildiz

Yildiz, I've seen such stupidity on that front. Here it's common to cut down all trees on a large swath of ground so that they can build a dozen or so houses, then plant weak, worthless, fast-growing trees on the property. Dozens of good Oaks, Maples, Hickories, Apple and Cherry trees bulldozed because no one thought to survey the trees with the land and adjust lots and building sites to take advantage of mature trees.

Dusty

[aster]

Thank you for the map,Winston.

So, we're looking at mountainous places of Idaho when we look at this photo. You definitely are doing some travelling for good causes!


Hi Dusty,

Unfortunately, greed is the hardest disease in human heart to cure. Those trees you mention are very important to keep and nurture. I live in a region which long ago was very rich and full with endemic trees. We still have some of the originals in the garden but since constructors/contractors collaborated with corrrupted officials the remaining trees are in danger of being suffocated because of the excavations executed only millimeters away from them and some trees were ripped off the ground literally. No respect and no planning with the trees while keeping them in their soil as you say.

Contractors 'forgot' long, long ago that living with trees, especially with invaluable endemic trees and plants is cruicial for humane living, both physically and spiritually. They need to be reminded constantly....unfortunately.

Yildiz

[Dusty]

Took my 3 and 4 year olds out to the woods Saturday to collect wildflowers to transplant. These are a couple of Bellflowers that now grace our side yard.

Bellflowers

A350, Sony 18-70 @ 70mm, 1/400s, F8, ISO 200

Dusty

[David Kilpatrick]

Land of the free! Do that in Britain, and you get the conservation police on to you straight away.

Fortunately, there is rarely any need to as bluebells and similar wild flowers invade gardens without being asked - and garden flowers escape into the wild.

David