Capture

Although I complain about too much technology to the point of creating an entire collection, called Phantoms, to show how it's the demise of society as I've known it, here's an instance where it definitely came in handy.

When I go to the beach lugging beach chairs, umbrella, towels, books, etc, I leave my camera behind to lighten the load and avoid damaging my equipment. However, now that the i-Phone takes such good pictures, I can whip it out if I see something I can't resist.

Sure, I can't control the f-stop, shutter speed or the focus and the file size is limited, but when there's a choice between capturing the image or not, I  succumb.

In this case, if I would have waited to return the next day with my Canon, this creature would certainly have been washed away.

For a more personal take on the alligator, go to Recovery Thru My Lens.

Bowing Out

Yesterday afternoon while I was raking my yard and clearing all the debris cast upon it since the fall, I kept glancing towards the skeleton of snow-capped hydrangea towering over my front flower bed. The lacy flowers, once Wedgewood blue spotted pink, had faded to a translucent ivory so delicate I yearned to preserve them.
As I raked and raked, I decided to reward myself when the job was done by photographing them. But how could I do them justice? How could I transform the withered specimen before me into the object of beauty I perceived in my mind's eye?
An hour later, at about 4:30 when the sun was sinking behind me, I grabbed my camera and set to work. Choosing the largest cluster, I focused on the bottom pedal and the adjacent buds letting everything else fall into a blur. This time I chose an F8, however, to emphasize the flower yet include enough detail of the green growth coming forth from behind to take its place.
Hydrangea, they're otherworldly, especially when they're bowing out.

Lanterns

As the harbinger of spring, forsythia is one of my favorite plants. Its delicate flowers and wispy branches appear magically like feathers just as the birds start chirping.
Throughout the torrential rain that hammered the East End this past week, however, I feared that spring would never come. Fortunately I had a project on the computer that kept me busy indoors for hours. But one evening I was so stiff I found myself knocking on a friend's door to ask if I could use her yoga studio.
As I waited on the doorstep, I noticed tiny yellow buds hanging from a branch that reminded me of teardrops. Pitted against the gloomy gray dusk, they cheered me somehow, seemed to be planted there to let me know that brighter times were ahead.
Originally I called this post Teardrops, but when a subscriber said they looked more like the little lanterns strung across yards in the summer, I agreed and changed the title.
To achieve this effect I opted for a shallow depth of field by selecting a F5.6 and focused carefully on the pedals, throwing the background into a blur.