The dread Alberta rose is first!

This rose makes an old boot look like a weenie. We didn't plant it. One day it showed up, and started taking over. We know it is working hard to fulfill it's plans of lawn domination because I'm always pulling out shoots when I mow the lawn. None the less, it does have a soft side, in that it produces blooms of a lovely pastel light pink.

 Here is a another look at it, with the blossom showing up in the top part of it. If you embiggen the photo I'm sure you can see the thorns.

The next rose coming along is in the front bed where it gets lots of sunlight, but lives under the disadvantage of having everything that was on the driveway, in terms of road guck, getting shovelled onto it during the winter.

Linda says this is a carnation.

Don't ask

This one is from tonight, with a bee and an ant working hard on an allium. I didn't see the ant and was trying to capture the bee as it buzzed around doing it's bee business. The mint is almost blooming and the bees are checking it out already. I'll try for more shots of them, and then I'll be as ready as I'll ever be to capture dragonflies.

In upcoming news, I'll be doing a shoot for the community association family fun day, and the Wild Rose Triathlon. I've some buddies in that so I was going anyway, I'll just take more photos.

Here's a different ant species for you. Lots of photos to capture this one. I think it was tussling with the ant that is out of focus underneath the leaf.

The peony state

We have several peonies. Two of them, the red and white ones at the side of the house have been there for many years and are doing very well for themselves. They are about to bloom. A fern leaf peony in the back is also doing well, with it's blooms almost fading now. There was a couple new ones, still in the pot and blooming. A couple new ones were planted on the side of the house last year or the year before. They are just getting over their planting sulk and beginning to grow.

I can't wait for the blooms to come out! I just hope to be around when the light is nice for another contender for image of the year.

Here, in blogger order are some of the photos of them. Actually this turns out to be date order as well, earliest to most recent.

Of course with peonies you get ants as well, lending interest.

Iris extravaganza

In blogger order, some purple and yellow iris. Irises? Irisi? Whatever. There's lots and they're all beautiful.

So far behind!

I'm taking photos faster than I can put them on the blog. I'm not even sure how many I'm behind. Turns out to be 52 not blogged from the beginning of May. Don't ask how I know that. Apple made it much more difficult than it needed to be.

So from tonight, the roses are about to bloom!

As is the mint. I'm sure the bees can't wait!

A pair of tulips from earlier in the month.

You might recognize this as one of the finalists for May Image of the Month.

May Image of the Month

Oh my goodness! May was such a treat for me, colour starved after the never ending winter. The tulips exploded out of the ground and started showing off. I'd been curious about the difference between my new full frame camera and the first APSC camera when it came to flowers. I certainly believe that the colours are richer, and a bit more of the delicate texture is being captured.

One of my thoughts was to use the same lens (100 mm) swapped between both cameras, and take as nearly as possible the same shot of the same flower. You can't just mount the cameras on a tripod because of complicated camera stuff I won't get into, mainly fallout from the one camera having to be 1.6 times further away, but I'm curious to see the image quality differences. This working full time has put a bit of a cramp on some of my photo projects.

In any case, you may have seen this screen shot of my initial choices. Most of those star ratings were done along the way, on a limited data set, in variable frames of mind. Several people commented, thank you very much! Photos 4, 5, 11 twice, 12, 17 twice, 20 twice, 22 twice, were mentioned.

I've gone through the 145 edited photos (out of 1678 photos taken) and eliminated the ones taken for the community association. Here is the revised list of 4 and 5 star shots for me to choose from for IOTM. Just to save you flipping back and forth, the 4 and 5 mentioned above are the same below, the 11 above is now 13, 12 is 14, 17 is now 19, 20 is 22, and 22 is 25.

First of all, honourable mention to what is perhaps the bleakest of the bunch. Dead plants left over from last year. What gives? The full story is here. The summary is this is the first time I'd 'seen' the photo I wanted before I ever clicked the shutter, and had the camera capture it. Normally chromatic aberration is something photographers remove, but in this case, the slight tinge of it in places adds to the image.

Another honourable mention to the first time I've really been happy with a red and the texture at the same time.

Here we go into full scale dither. I love all the photos. I think most of them would look great printed out large. After the success of last year's white peony that was first runner up for image of the year, I've been working on shooting flowers backlit by the sun. This is a bit tricky, finding a compelling narrative of lines and shapes, colours and textures lit up but not blown out, and most importantly, not blinding myself or the camera by looking directly at the sun.

There have been several times I've been gobsmacked by the purity and quality of the colour. 19 (see first runner up below) was amazing for this, and I ran out of light before I finished trying different settings, I'd have loved to get both the texture of the petal, and that ring of yellow into perfect focus. And 27! I nearly burned the BBQ trying to capture that yellow in the evening sun. The photo shows a tinge of orange that I don't remember being there.

Here's the second  runner up. The first backlit photo of the month that I was really happy with.

First runner up. I've already talked about the colour for this one. I can just see some person who suffers from SAD wanting to get this printed big to help get them through the winter.

And the winner! It isn't quite as spectacular as some of the others, but I keep coming back to it. If you missed it the first time around, this shot has zero editing in Lightroom. Zero.

The first bee photos of 2018, flying even!

Bees are a challenge. They're always moving, and their weight moves the flowers. Plus the wind. Plus trying to get the focus and everything else right. I was out to capture the yellow Iris, and while I was practicing on the big clematis blossom, a bee flew in. I chased him for a bit, and got these. Not perfect yet, but I'm out of practice.

I have begun to dither happily over image of the month. My plan is to sleep in Saturday, and then over coffee in a leisurely way, consider my choices. A few people have let me know the one(s) they liked, thank you very much! It's not too late, feel free to check them out and tell me which you'd like to buy in a huge print. I mean, which appeals to you most.