The heat

This is as hot as Calgary gets. It's about 30 C at the heat of the day. Yes, I know some places that counts as a nice warm day, good for doing something active. But here, it's hot. I'm not doing much, trying to stay cool.

Yes, there's been a photo or two along the way. I got a great compliment from someone I've just sold 4 images to. "Damn you! You've got to stop posting photos I want to buy!"

The night skies are probably pretty good for shooting right now, except for the big nearly full moon in the middle of it, but the rest of the day mostly sucks. There is no golden hour or blue hour. There's twilight, then bang, you need sunglass. Big time. Then the air conditioning goes on.

I had a bit of a rant going about road construction, but it melted in the heat and then drowned in a glass of wine. Maybe it will come back, re-inspired by the ongoing digging.

Yes, I'm glad I didn't have to go into the office this week. Yes, I'm enjoying myself.

The hens and chicks armoured stalk is still developing, so I took a closer look.

Lots of lilies. Even though I know you guys are sick of them.

Yellow

You just know photos of lilies are going to show up here. Plus other flowers as well, plus a surprise.

I just love, Love, LOVE the lily yellow. Such a happy colour.

These aren't from our garden at all, or even from this year. I think it's the community garden in West Hillhurst, that I happened to be wandering through. For whatever reason I hadn't edited them.

The sun in the flowers

You'd think it would be boring to take a look at the garden every day to see what new photos could be made. Every now and then a new flower blossoms, but other than that, ho hum. Not so!

Every day is different. The flowers change every day, bud to blossom to fading to death for that part of the plant. Meanwhile other buds come along. Everybody thinks flower blossoms are beautiful, and so they are, but that doesn't automatically make a photo of them beautiful. The things that make a flower photo beautiful are the same things as other objects, line, shape, form, colour, texture, background. I'm still learning.

I've tried a few times to get the light shining through a flower, and these are the best attempts yet. Avoiding glare to maintain the blossom texture is tricky, especially since I'm on my tummy, looking up, trying not to blind myself in the process. Times like this I love the articulating screen on my camera.

Curtis and the armoured questing head

So far Curtis is not impressed with my retirement to date. I'm working on photos, rather than paying attention to him. When it isn't photos, it's been the laptop chugging away on my books.

And this was in the middle of yet another explanation of just how good he has it here. The fact that it's just after a vet visit (routine, all is well) has nothing whatever to do with it. The vet called him "dashingly handsome!"

It was a good day for flower photos today, but the winner is the hens and chicks. Linda says this is how it blossoms, but this has exploded out almost overnight. I can't help but think this it's almost like a scaled stalk, looking out for something to eat. You might not want to embiggen the second one, it could give you nightmares, if you're susceptible to that sort of thing. There's two of them actually, but the bigger one is almost hidden under some other flowers in the shade, so it's a harder photo. I'll try for some others. Maybe I'll put the extension tubes on and really move in.

A rosy macro Monday

The roses have been blooming like mad lately, and I've been out there taking photos of them like a maniac. Morning. Noon (when the light mostly sucks and I know it, but) Evening. When they're dry. When they are fresh from being watered. Buds, bloom, post bloom, rose hips, it's all good.

In a world full of ugliness, it shouldn't hurt your feelings to see two slightly different views of beauty. These first two are the same bloom, different zoom.

June image of the month

This selection was a struggle. I had a busy month and ended up with lots of photos I liked a lot, but no one that knocked it out of the park with a wow on first viewing.  Some are technically difficult, like catching a bee in flight, or an ant in motion, with a macro lens that has an extension tube between the lens and camera. Some are pretty. Some evoke a mood. Some have selfies in a water drop or an ant's butt. Some are about learning to catch the fine detail in flowers.

I like all of them, of course, and I've spent a good chunk of the day thinking about why I like them, and what criteria I use to pick the image of the month. There I days I regret that 'there can be only one' rule, but I think it makes for a better selection. It would be interesting if I'd make the same selection another time.

So here we go, runner up images first then the winner.

I've caught lots of bees doing their thing, anchored to a flower blossom. There's a few with the wing structure clearly visible, and it's beautiful. I've wanted to catch one in flight, and did it several times. Freezing the wings in flight isn't going to happen with my equipment, so don't look for that.

One very cooperative bee floated over the a white poppy, like a tiny spaceship hovering over a huge planet-scape. Another lined itself up with the radial markings on a poppy seed head like a spaceship coming in for a landing. (You can see that one on Facebook if you know where to look.) But this one I like the balance. The orange band is so cheerful, and it's the first time I've shot the clover in the front yard.

Ants love peonies. They make for a great subject when you're learning macro photography. Set up on a peony bulb, and wait. Sure enough, ants will come along. I hadn't known ants had hairy butts, but they do. The hairs are not as clear in this shot as in others, but this is the closest zoom in on an ant I've done. I spent lots of time looking at the different textures of the ant skin, if that's what it's called. If you notice, the top of the ant is in focus, but the peony bulb is ever so slightly out of focus because the depth of field is so narrow.

I love roses and lilies. As soon as I clicked the shutter I knew this would be good. I've got others with nice water drops, but the folds, the light, the texture, the delicate spiral just do it for me. One thing that editing flower shots in Lightroom does is teach subtlty.  I'm seriously considering getting this one printed.

As you know, Linda retired earlier this month. There's another shot of her coming back from a walk, and spreading her arms like airplane wings. I put that one on Facebook and she got many nice comments. There's some technical photographic reasons it didn't make the cut, mainly the pavement background.

But a few days later we were out for a walk and I wanted to get a shot of her looking at the mountains. There are some technical issues with this one too, mainly tweaking the framing so the power pole isn't in the shot, but that's ok. It was a bit tricky to get her and the mountains in focus, and being at a bit of an angle had one elbow in focus, and the other out. Still, I like the mood of her hair blowing in the wind a bit, looking out over a beautiful landscape as if looking at her retirement, yet with the power poles to remind us there will be obstacles.

The first lilies have opened

I was wondering which would be first, and these guys snuck in on me. I was watching some others, and they could be any day now. Expect lots of lily photos. Just saying.

It turned out to be a quiet day here, with neither of us sleeping well. I'm catching up on photo editing. Here's an assortment of recent flower photos.