I apologize for not posting in the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a busy couple of weeks: working, volunteering, and fostering a dog. I’ll get back on schedule in no time. 
Here are just a few more summer colors from the gardens in New Hampshire. Enjoy!
Shasta Daisies, Lavender, Delphinium, Day Lilies, Astilbi, Bellflower, Yarrow, Pulmonaria… are all on show in my gardens.
As I’ve mentioned earlier in my “Hard Work Pays Off” blog entry I would share more photos of my gardens as the perennials change throughout the seasons. This photo is one of the several perennials I’ve taken pictures of this week. I just didn’t find any of my other photos good enough to make the cut for entry. This one photo deserves to stand alone in this post.
Sempervivum, Hens-and-chicks, Houseleeks
The rosettes transform into thick stems and create clusters of starry flowers at the top. This biennial is a great groundcover and does very well in most conditions (even with little soil).
Gardening time! I love it! Fresh air, sounds of the birds, staying fit, being creative, and getting my hands dirty. Not only do I do gardening for work, but also for enjoyment. My yard has a few established gardens after eight years of maintaining, dividing and transplanting, and plant swapping with other gardeners.
With a request for botanical photos, I decided to use what I’ve work so hard at doing right in my own backyard and use what I have as my subjects. Here are a few for you to view. As the seasons change, so do the flowers. I will post more photos as the perennials change.
I have two varieties of tulips in my garden and have been watching them cycle through another year. After a week of constant rain, this tulip managed to keep together where all others dropped their petals.
With the month of May not even over, the records of precipitation the last several days have pushed the total precipitation accumulation toward all time record levels in the Manchester and Nashua area. It has rained for over a week now and I didn’t think it was possible to capture anything on camera in this weather pattern without ruining the camera body or lens or having to dodge the rain drops. With slight breaks between rain storms and or sheltering my lens with a waterproof jacket, I managed to overcome the rain and get some really good photos this last week.
OK, I’ve finally given HDR (high dynamic range) a try… I like it! This is my first attempt using HDR Pro in Photoshop. It’s fun and easy. You just need several photos of a given subject (different times of day or by bracketing) and merge the photos together.
What I did to create this photo was set my camera on a tripod and photographed the same daffodils within a 90 minute time frame (approximately 7 photos). I started about an hour before sunset. The sun was positioned in back of the Daffodils (sun, subject, then camera). I thought the petals were going to pick up a warm glow coming from the backside, as the sun hit the horizon… I was wrong. The “glow” of light came much earlier than I anticipated-an hour before the sunset. The sunlight emitted a warm/yellow light creating warm colors and deep shadows on the daffodils. As the sun hit the horizon line, the sunlight changed to a soft light which created soft white highlights through the daffodils’ petals (giving the petals the look of white printing paper).
Once I finished taking the series of photos, I imported them into Lightroom and selected 4 out of the 7 photos for HDR.
There are so many options and possibilities with HDR, lighting, timing, and post processing.
My next HDR photo will be more dramatic, I promise! Any themes or ideas? Challenge me.
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