I'm still alive! The July 2011 edition

Erm yeah. Sorry for going under like that. But photography disappeared from my life for quite a few months. I don't know why. But I wasn't feeling creative or motivated to go out and shoot.

In an effort to change this, I've dusted off the camera and lenses and jumped into the July 2011 edition of the DigitalFix Photo A Day. A bit of photographic companionship and peer pressure will hopefully help me jump back into things.

As a warm up, and making use of my free time at lunch; I took a macro shot entitled... Lunchtime.

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f5.6, 1/640 of a second, ISO400, No flashNo more excuses! More pictures!

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose...

This post is titled after the eponymous poem by 16th century French poet Pierre de Ronsard. It means "My love, let us see if the rose". In it, Ronsard exhorts Cassandra to go see if the rose which was so beautiful that morning still is in the evening. It's a warning to enjoy life and beauty while you can. A French Carpe Diem.

But enough poetry; onto photography. The reason this title came to mind is because I decided to shoot around the garden today. A rose in particular caught my attention and, as you will see below, by the time I took the portrait of a rose late in the day, it had lost some of its sheen. 

First of all, here is a very dreamy flower I shot around lunch time. It came out nearly like that out of the camera, and I simply reduced the contrast and sharpening a bit more to enhance the slightly unreal look.

Perchance to dream

Exif Data: Sigma 70-200mm f2.8, 200mm, aperture of f3.2, 1/1250 of a second, ISO 200. 

And now onto our rose. So beautiful and luminous even on a cloudy day...

Framed rose

Exif Data: Sigma 70-200mm f2.8, 146mm, aperture of f4, 1/640 of a second, ISO 200. 

Portrait of a rose

Exif Data: Sigma 70-200mm f2.8, 175mm, aperture of f4.5, 1/400 of a second, ISO 400. 

Ronsard was right. Carpe Diem. :)

Roseblur

Saturday was a very busy day. I literally had only a few minutes to shoot during the day and my sons wanted a play with the camera. So I took one shot. And it turns out to be my shot of the day.

Again, I have the Lensbaby Composer to thank for this shot. After books and people, I used it on one of my roses. And the Lensbaby delivers again.

Here are the 2 variations of the same shot I developed:

Rose Macabre 

Exif Data: Lensbaby Composer, aperture of f4, 1/125 of a second, ISO 100. 

The rose

Exif Data: Lensbaby Composer, aperture of f4, 1/125 of a second, ISO 100. 

I wanted to try and do more so I attempted a few product shots in the evening. However, without proper lighting, the results were disappointing.

This is the best of a very average lot:

Oban 14

Exif Data: Canon 50mm f1.4, aperture of f9, 13 seconds, ISO 100. 

I'll get back to this idea when I have more time to play with a proper lighting set up.