Flowery Friday 3

Starting June 12, and going to June 17.  Even though most of the perennials have packed it in for the season, there's a couple of rose buds I'm keeping my eye on. But never fear, there's lots of flower photos in the pipeline to cheer you up when winter sets in.

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Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

With a serendipity Celina. She is no doubt reflecting on the rotten humans that don't let her out, even though she contributes to the household economy by catching mice and voles. She is cranky these days because it's getting colder in the mornings.

Driftwood (BC)

Yukon

Plants clinging to the rock wall of Miles Canyon. At least they don't have to worry about being stepped on.

Film (new)

FIlm (old)

Amelia.

A September garden tour

There's lots of flower photos in the folder, but I haven't done many blogs to put them in. I was thinking about that, and also realized I haven't done an around the garden tour for a while. So you get a Sept 5 garden tour, starting in front of the garage and going around the house.

Things are mostly done for the year, and Linda has started to clean up for the fall. However, a couple of the roses are still chugging along, and one of the Lady of Chalottes has put out a couple tiny blooms. We'll have to wait and see if they are going to beat winter. You never know, much of last week was fall, today is summer again. Maybe they'll be another version of the two bud-dies. 

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14. One of the new rose blooms. Grow little one!

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The sad part of this photo is the lack of trees. We started with 3, one in each corner. The closest to the corner of the fence died pretty quickly. The cherry tree off to the left had been dwindling for a bit, then year before last only half the branches had blossoms and only a few cherries, then nothing last year or this. The plum tree closest to me in this photo had done really well for years, being a nice shape and producing pretty blossoms. However, it didn't survive the winter for whatever reason, and Linda has removed it.

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Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower

Yukon

I can't believe it's been a year since I was in Yukon! 

Film (new)

An abstract that isn't likely to appeal to many people, but I saw it and ran for the camera.

Film (old)

The last photo of Nefertitti.

August Image of the Month

Doing things slightly differently this month. It was a slow month in the taking photos department, with most of the image related work going into several photo books. I just had one arrive yesterday, a small test trade book with Alberta landscapes. There's a big lay flat arriving early next week, more details then.

Not all photos I take are up for Image of the Month consideration. Then there were a few portraits at an event, where people loved the portraits, but don't want them made public here. Fully two thirds of the images were on one day, as I covered the recent Wild Rose triathlon. This worked out very well for all involved. Those who want to can see the photos on the Races tab of my photoblog page.

The remaining images are my normal photos. You know, the garden, bees, Fish Creek. Some film, some digital. Nothing that tips over to 4 stars. But there are two really similar images I like, and thought I'd show them both, being about 3.5 stars each. They look like comparison images, but not so. I just was fortunate to be in the same viewpoint on two different days without any wind. I don't think I was standing in exactly the same spot, and there are two different focal lengths to consider. Which do you prefer?

Honourable Mentions

From a walk in Fish Creek on August 2

And this one from August 20. Film is AcrosII on 35mm.

Image of the Month

In one sense the image of the month isn't a technically difficult photo, or particularly artistic, or wow in any sense of the word. It isn't anything else that has been considered in the monthly selection. But it has tremendous meaning for me, in that it's my first public photo book, and I'm enormously proud of the photos and how they turned out in the book. So far nothing but rave reviews from those that have seen it, though only one person has raved enough to buy it. You can preview the first 15 pages here. One person has already asked how I would feel if they bought the book, and cut it apart so they could frame the panorama photos. My thinking is, if you've bought it, the book is yours. Just respect the image and text copyright.

On a book roll

Ok, so there was a deal on. A really good deal. So good I changed plans to take advantage. I couldn't help myself.

Those of you following along know I've done several Blurb books. I'd just finished a test book for a potential private client, and was wondering what to do next. Then I saw the Blurb sale. The words, "go big or go home" immediately came to mind. Suddenly, next up was a photo book for New Zealand. 

The hard part was winnowing down 15,000 photos to something that would go in a book. Even the several hundred rated 4 stars were too many for a book. Once I figured out how many pages I wanted, how many panoramas I wanted to include, and how many photos done bigger than one page but not a full panorama, it was easy to recycle the layouts used for the Dempster book. Then decisions while taking a happy trip down memory lane.

You can preview 15 pages Memories of New Zealand here.

In response to reader request, you can preview 15 pages for Memories of Sundown at the Arctic  Circle here. 

You probably gagged at the prices if you noticed them along the way. That's fine, I'm not doing this to get rich selling the books. Almost all of that is the printing cost. I don't actually expect any sales at all, since most people would think these extremely expensive, even by coffee table book standards. I'm doing this for me, to see my photos on nice paper, in a permanent book. It's much cheaper than taking them to a good printer, and they take up less wall space. Plus they come in a lovely presentation box.

Here's the first image past the preview pages.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower

The rare butterfly poppy.

Yukon

The arurora from just south of Dawson City.

Film (new)

The mountains above a very smokey Moraine Lake.

Film (old)

Linda photo bombing a Waterton Park rock wall during the boat tour.