Trip to Selby Gardens

This weekend has been pretty low key for us. Dawn had a lot of homework, and her renter's moved in this weekend -- so we haven't had much in the way of adventure. However, today we snuck out to Selby Garens.

Last October we bought an annual pass to Sunken Gardens that included free admission to a litney of other gardens as well. And sadly, we haven't been using it. But today we put that to rest and adventured out to a new place.

I have to say it's not as big as I thought it would be. But there were plenty of neat flowers and plants, and of course we brought a camera and some lenses.

I'm coming to the conclusion that natural light photography for plants isn't the way to go if you want commercial quality results. To get a good depth of field, you need a small aperture. But with the small aperture comes a longer shutter speed, and even if you use a tripod, you still content with wind moving the plants. Of course, you could try to clamp them down, but I think that would be a bridge too far for most places -- never mind that you could damage the plants, and I don't think it would be 100% effective.

So, that leaves us with bringing plants into a studio setting, or setting up several strobes outside. And both options are no-go's for touring various gardens, unless you've been hired or purchased a permit.

Still, I think there is value and aesthetic in "natural light" botanical photography. NLB Photography. I totally just made that up.

I've found that I've been desaturating my flower pictures. If you wait for nice light, or have a trusty photo-assistant block out as much ambient light as possible, you really get some crazy highly saturated pictures. I'd leave em as is but people are so keen nowadays on artificially adding saturation that I'm afraid they won't seem real or natural.








This guy was awesome. In the full-size picture, the details and moss are really neat. I wasn't sure I'd like the picture with the blown out background, but I think it works quite well.



I would like to have shot this next plant with some off-camera flash. This is the only one that I used flash on in this post. You can really tell with the hard shadows, but I think it actually gives it a little something too. Regardless, she was hanging out in the bright sunlight and needed the extra light. I took a 2nd shot with the background blown out, but it didn't look good at all.



I'm afraid something was wrong with this poor squirrel. I've never seen one lay down like this. He wasn't on his belly the whole time, in fact had hopped over the bridge and onto this rail, but he seemed to prefer being on his belly and sometimes crawling along. Dawn and I decided to head back the way we came after grabbing a shot.




Also in photography, my 17-55 lens is cracked. That would be the one I dropped on the cement and then briefly into a pool at my last wedding. --Just noticed it today. Admirably, it still takes pictures, and they seem to be fine. (I can't tell if may there is a bit more chromatic aberration than before.) Still, I'll have to send it in for repair this week.

And last but not least, in photos, things that trouble me: The weather.



Though, I do love the smell and feel of hurricane winds -- especially small, relatively harmless storms, class 1 or 2 hurricanes, or ones that just aren't going to hit me. Something about the temperature or humidity that reminds me of growing up, something that makes Florida home. (The big summer clouds and thunderstorms are like that for me too.)

Also troubling, from an article that I found while reading up on Gutav earlier: Blackwater. One part of me thinks this is just economics in action. And maybe my imagination is just running away from me, but the other part of me thinks that having a highly trained, well armed, private army for hire is a really bad idea -- and bad enough that it should be illegal.

I have a wicked bad headache from earlier today. I made the mistake of letting myself get a little dehydrated during the trip to the gardens, so it could be because of that. But man! It's 1am and it still hurts, though less so after some Advil and then aspirin. Hopefully it will be gone in the morning.