I visited the Desert Botanical Garden yesterday morning and found most of their Aloe in full bloom. Where you see Aloe blooms, you usually also see Hummingbirds and there were many! Capturing them is tough but I was happy with this shot.
Tech: Canon 24-105mm lens at 105mm. ISO 400, 1/750the sec at f/5.6
A nice surprise at a Luminaria celebration last night. A small skating rink with professionals giving quite a show.
Another surprise was looking at my photos last night and finding a photographer friend of mine in most of them.
I was so entranced by the skaters that I didn’t notice him standing directly opposite me on the other side of the rink 🙂
Shooting handheld at ISO 6400, the images are noisy but Topaz’ noise software did a great job of minimizing it.
Hope they have the rink again next year. I’ll be ready with a faster lens!
Trying to capture Chihuly’s glass creations in the outdoors is really tough
but with a little help from the digital darkroom, I get the shot I want.
The Desert Botanical Garden’s Luminaria is extra special this year with an exhibit of Chihuly glass. I spent two hours shooting mostly abstracts because it was so dark but did manage to get a couple of normal shots such as the one above. Below is an abstract of Scorpion Tails that were throughout the garden.
After my class at the DBG yesterday, I took some time to photograph with HDR in mind.
In the photo above of a Senita cactus, the HDR process intensified the red and orange
coloration which happens when cactus are stressed. We’ve had cold weather and they
don’t like it. (Canon S5)
Below is another HDR image showing vine orbs that were created by a vine sculptor on-sight
at the DBG. He made several out of local material. I’ve photographed it before but have never
been happy with the outcome. With the HDR process, I could stand inside one, photography
out and still have everything show up. As you may have noticed in both images, I like pushing
the process to give more of an artsy look. I’m having lots of fun with HDR at the risk of boring
everyone else 🙂 (Canon S5)
