• insects,  Metro Parks,  Plants

    Pay Attention to the Urge

    Green Leaves and Rain
    Green Leaves and Rain

    I’m not sure how it happened. I was working through some images from 2009 taken at Inniswood Gardens when I discovered these two images. It seems I did very little with them at the time and most likely because I had shot a lot of images that day. It was a cloudy, overcast day with light rain and I’m in this beautiful garden, why not. For some reason I found the only keyword I had entered for either of these images was Inniswood Gardens. There was no keyword for dragonfly or plants or leaves or rain. Nothing. How the heck am I suppose to find them without keywords, unless I’m just browsing? I suspect slothfulness or skipped them because other images were more appealing to me. I could have skipped the dragonfly because it is a bit out of focus.

    A Dragonfly
    I think this a Clubtail Dragonfly. Forgot to ask when I took the photo.

    However, this time around they caught my eye. They also reminded me of those rainy, overcast days that provided such wonderfully diffused light while I lived in Ohio. It also reminded me of how often I came home with wet pants (from the knee down) when it was raining or just rained. I played with them a little, and for my taste, I like the way these two images turned out. My post processing included exposure, tone and contrast. Pretty simple actually. Why I did not play with these five years ago, I don’t know. But, five years ago something within urged me to press that shutter button. I must pay more attention to the urge.

    Delicate Flowers
    Delicate Flowers

    Oh, and these flowers? Well, I’m going to throw them in because I have the urge too. 🙂

  • landscape

    Can you see me?

    Can you see me?

    After loading this image into Lightroom I noticed a spot in the sky on the right hand side. The sensor on my D300 is pretty good about staying clean, but I must admit to slacking about cleaning my lens. So, I was not too surprised when I saw a large spot on this image. However, it was not on the rest of the images in the series. Upon a closer look I discovered it was a dragon fly caught in flight. This brings up something I’ve been noticing about this summer, there seems to be a lot of dragonflies this year. They are abundant around our lake and when I’m out in the fields. The other afternoon I was outside having an iced tea at a local coffee house when one decided to pay me a visit. It circled around me then landed on the tip of my straw. I started talking to it but it only seemed like a one way conversation. Can you see it? You can click on the image to enlarge it. Anyone else notice an increase in dragon flies this summer?