Colleen Easley

It was another beautiful day in western Washington with temperatures in the high 50s.  Today I went to Tenino to pick up my grandson Zach and took him for a drive around his area looking for photo ops.  Zach is 14 1/2 and has a great interest in photography.  I’m so glad to be able to take him along on outings and let him shoot our D40.  Who knows, maybe someday he’ll be able to make some money with his hobby.

We started at Millersylvania State Park.  I drove down to the boat launch area of the lake, but we didn’t see anything that caught our interest and the light was still too strong on the water.  But as we got turned around to leave I noticed that the sunlight was falling on some new mushrooms that were pushing up from the forest floor.  We got out and set up the tripod.  My tripod legs can open completely so that it sits flat on the ground and the neck can be set horizontally.  This allowed us to get down to the same level as the mushrooms to get our shots.  I’ve learned that bringing a gardening knee pad is a good accessory to keep in the car for these kind of situations.

When we left the state park I turned off on a driveway that had a for sale sign posted at its end.  I wondered if maybe it was for a log house I had seen advertised on the Internet in that area.  It was that house and the owner came out and showed us around the property and inside the house.  Her father had built the home back in the eighties from logs he harvested from the land.  The property totals 40 acres and has a beautiful creek and pond right in front of the house.  It’s a awesome property, but at $495,000 a little pricey given the small size of the home.  But it was great spending some time with the owner learning about the history of the area.

We didn’t really get a lot of photos due to our extended visit at the log house, so when I got home and looked at what I had, I settled on one of the first photos I had taken of the mushrooms.  My first couple shots were shot on the P setting on the camera and I could see I wasn’t getting enough depth of field, so I switched to Aperture Priority and set it high enough that I could get all four of the mushrooms in sharp focus.

Nikon D90
with Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro Lens
1/200s, f/14, ISO 200

Click to Enlarge

I really didn’t think I’d get an outdoor photo today because it had been raining off and on all day.  Besides I didn’t want to go hunting for a photo today because I had so many other things to do at home.

Yesterday I told Dale I wished I could find some little snowdrop flowers or trilliums to photograph.  He told me we had some snowdrops growing in a raised bed right in our back yard.  I guess these come up every year, but I never knew we had them.  That shows how much time I spend in the garden at this time of year.  I can’t even remember where they came from originally.

So this afternoon, in between rain squalls I headed outside with my camera, tripod and a little stool to sit on.  I spread the tripod legs to lower it down to the level of the flowers and set it as close as as my 90mm macro lens would focus.  I took dozens of shots, but found I was having problems with the very shallow dept of field when I moved in this close.  I moved the aperture up to f/11, but didn’t like the messy details in the background.  A more wide open setting gave me the bokeh I was looking for.

I ended up choosing this image because I liked the dreamy, slightly out of focus look, the water droplets, and the contrast of the background.

Nikon D90
with Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro Lens
1/60s, f/3.8, ISO 250

First Snowdrops

For days I’ve been waiting for the sun to shine so I could get outside for some nature shots.  But day after day we get the traditional northwest rain, fog, mist, and gray skies.  Today was no different.  I had grocery shopping to do and as I walked across the parking lot I pulled my hood up and grumbled to myself about having to walk so far in the rain.   I grabbed a soaking wet cart and headed to the front door determined to get this errand over with as soon as possible.  But as I pushed my hood back I caught sight of a beautiful display of cut flowers just outside the front door.  Oh the glorious color – that’s what I’ve been longing for during this dreary part of winter.  It’s amazing how flowers can cheer us up even on the most dismal of days.

I picked out a colorful bunch and finished up my shopping.  When I finally got home I set the flowers aside and started dinner.  Our neighbor Dan was here to scan some of his slides to digital on our Nikon scanner and I had invited him to stay for dinner so setting up the camera would have to come later.  But all the while I was thinking about how I would photograph those flowers.

When the time came I pulled one single flower out along with some salal greens and put it in front of a piece of black fabric.  I set up my two Speedlights and an Ott lamp and experimented with how to best light my subject.  The final picture was with one Speedlight in a softbox on the right front of the arrangement, and the other, with a defuser pointing right at the flower from the left.  The Ott lamp was shining on the leaves directly from the side.

This is my first attempt at indoor flower photography.  What do you think?  I’m certainly open to suggestions.  Please leave me your comments.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90mm Macro, shutter 1/60, f/7.1, exposure bias -.33, ISO 200, off camera flash