Le Sacre du Printemps

Our wildflower bed is doing great so far this year, as in fact, are all of our plants. It has been a fine Spring for the garden and we should have an abundance of blooms to enjoy. Nevertheless, I went ahead and bought two bunches of sunflowers at the store the other day. They looked pretty promising, too promising to pass up. The sunflowers I grew at home last year only reached a height of about 6 inches and were best photographed using a macro lens. I'm going to try my best to resist any thought of crowns when I look at my sunflowers this season. I'm more inclined to view the sepals as dancing.

A blustery day

The published weather forecast this morning was for 'a blustery day' which made me smile a little. The past month has been quite rainy -- to the point of annoyance, really -- but, as a result, the azaleas and dogwoods are currently in full bloom. The dogwoods, in particular, are a good indicator of the amount of rain that has fallen. Luckily, I was able to compose, focus and capture this image during a lull between gusts of wind. Dogwood flowers can be interesting to photograph in color, but the dead-leaf-brown tones in the background of this image did not appeal. Hence, the monochrome treatment. I used the 21mm f/3.2 lens on the Pentax KP. It about as wide a perspective as I feel comfortable with, but it is a very fine little lens indeed.

Ready for Spring (edited)

After writing this post, my wife let me know last night that the original color image (below) was kind of meh, and requested something a little more 'artistic'. So, I've added an image captured on Kodak XX film using the Nikon FM2 and the 105 mm f/2.5 lens. This is a close up of tulip magnolia blooms, so it fits. I dig it and hope you do as well.

The original post follows:

Damn it, why do I bother reading the NYT first thing in the morning? Now I'm feeling angst about being at the very end of the line for a COVID vaccine. It isn't enough to make me want to be over 65, but I am not really looking forward to the chaos when they open things up to all adults. In the meantime, I am doing my best to appreciate the signs of Spring arriving. We went for an early walk this morning and came across a lovely tulip magnolia with a river birch in the background. I shot this image on an old Fujifilm X-E2 with a 35 mm f/2 lens attached. I'm rather fond of a number Fujifilm lenses, starting with the one on the GA645Zi film camera I own. But, I'm not so much in love with using their digital cameras for some reason, even though the images are definitely super sweet. So, the X-E2 is a cheap and cheerful way to be able to use the wonderful 35 mm lens! One other nice feature that can be found on many Fuji cameras (though it wasn't needed today) is an on-camera flash (just like the GA645Zi) that is just spot on. I set the flash compensation to -2/3 stop and am totally covered.