Fierce

The competition at the flower show in the photo category was fierce this year. There were some fantastic pictures. I knew when I dropped off my photos that I would not do as well as I have in previous years.

And I was right:

Third Place – Digital Color

Honorable Mention– Digital B&W

Second Place– Computer Enhanced Color

Third Place– Computer Enhanced B&W

Ironically, the photo that did the best almost didn’t get entered. I don’t have a photo printer so I send my pictures to the local CVS to be printed. Their photo processor always prints too dark, so I lighten everything before I send it. No matter how much I lightened the photo of the allée, the colors came out dark and muddy. I didn’t care for them and would have left out the photo except it costs nothing to enter, so what the heck. I had nothing to lose.

Everyone loved that photo. One person has even offered to buy it.

But I still don’t like it.

Christmas Blizzard 2010

It’s amazing how quickly a weather forecast can change. On Christmas Eve, the friendly TV weather person was assuring us that the monster storm that was forming in the south would miss us and head out to sea. Instead of being snowed in, I would be able to get to the gym on Sunday to work off all of those Christmas cookies that I’ve been baking.

When I turned the television on Christmas evening, that same weather person was just as confidently predicting that the monster had changed course. A two day blizzard that would bury us in two to three feet of snow was due in town late morning/early afternoon on Sunday. Guess I should get to the gym early.

It was snowing lightly when I entered the gym. An hour and a half later, I could barely make out the parking lot as I walked out the door. My normal short, leisurely drive home became a white knuckle odyssey in near whiteout conditions.

Blogging about my job results in stern emails from HR so we will skip over the reasons why I spent the night in front of my computer remotely tending to (name redacted) network and listening to the wind howl.

It was the wind blowing the snow into giant drifts that made this storm so bad as you can see below.

I had to use my front door since the kitchen door was impassable. There was the predicted two to three feet of snow in my driveway. Two feet on one side and three feet on the other where it had drifted. Worst of all was my poor car which has been hit twice in one week.

You will have to take my word for it that there is a Camry under all of that snow. I think it’s hiding. With good reason. It was after I dug it out and forced it to travel over treacherous roads to (name redacted) so that I could (reason redacted) that it was hit a second time and now has only three working doors in addition to a bent strut from the first accident.

And now for the garden portion of this entry.

Photo of the Day

Those are the tops of the Grosso and Provence lavenders growing in front of my house. They are about two feet tall when not buried in snow. I like this photo so much that I’m using it as the wallpaper on my PC.

You can see more photos of my yard buried in snow on Flickr

Monet's Passion

Every gardener knows about Monet’s magnificent gardens at Giverny which inspired so many of his paintings, but very few gardeners have the opportunity to visit those gardens and experience them in person. Lucky for us, Elizabeth Murray who is a gardener and photographer, has written a book about Giverny that is lavishly illustrated with her own incomparable photographs.

She spent a year as a gardener at Giverny and then returned, year after year, at different seasons to photograph the splendid landscape. The book is printed on heavy paper like a fine art book, but its text makes is a practical gardening book also.

We are treated to the story of Monet’s acquisition of the property and development of the gardens. Ms. Murray provides the information that is so important to her gardener readers of how the gardens evolved, which plants he used, where he obtained them and why he chose them. The book includes detailed diagrams of the gardens, which with the accompanying photographs, allows us to clearly visualize Monet’s designs.

Just as important, she includes information on how we can incorporate Monet’s designs into our own landscapes. Whether it is a small pond filled with his favorite water plants or “paint box” beds using the same flowers or vegetables used at Giverny, Ms. Murray offers designs and plant lists for each type of garden or container.

I may never make it to France, but thanks to Ms. Murray’s stunning photographs, I will be able to visit Monet’s garden at Giverny every time I open this book. I just have to decide how to shelve it: with my photography books or garden books.

Review copy courtesy of Pomegranate Communications, Inc.

Blowin' in the Wind

Rutgers Gardens is sponsoring a photo contest this fall. It’s limited to amateur photographers. Photos must be taken between January 1 and September 10, 2010. Only one entry can be submitted in each of the three categories: plants, wildlife and people. I don’t do anything with a heartbeat, so I may only be able to enter one photo if I don’t get a good butterfly or bee photo.

I have been so busy in the greenhouse so far this year that I haven’t had time to take any photos at the Gardens. Yesterday, I found myself with some time, so I took a quick walk around. Quick, because the wind was blowing so hard that taking photos was nearly impossible.

I can compensate for a little bit of movement, but when my subjects are being blown completely out of the frame, there’s nothing I can do.

In spite of the dire conditions, I did manage to get two decent photos.

The sky was a gorgeous blue. I took a lot of pictures of plants silhouetted against it. Just for fun, I turned my camera upwards and took a picture of just the sky.

When I downloaded it at home, I burst out laughing. It screams "Windows98", doesn’t it?

This is the first photo that I took yesterday.

I love how it came out. The flower is past its prime but has such an interesting shape.

Next weekend is Rutgers Day . Rutgers Gardens will be selling plants at the event. Look for me between noon and 4 pm. I’ll be the one in the straw hat selling herbs.

See you there!

BTE

I worked in the financial industry for 25 years before switching to IT. Some of the lingo still sticks. For instance, when a company posts exceptionally good earnings or earnings that aren’t as bad as anticipated they are said to be BTE or Better Than Expected. That’s a great description of how my photos did at the flower show this year.

I entered four photos instead of my usual two. The woman who was running the competition urged me to enter to the Computer Enhanced division. After playing around with my antique version of PhotoShop, I registered for both digital and computer enhanced.

I was the last to sign in my photos yesterday so I had a chance to see everyone else’s work. I almost turned around and went home. The competition was just incredible. So professional. In comparison, my photos looked like they were taken by a child. Ditto my computer enhanced entries. They looked primitive compared to the dramatic effects of the other entries.

The woman running the competition and another photographer urged me to enter my photos. Figuring that the worst that could happen was “Honorable Mention”, the equivalent of “thanks for participating, better luck next time”, I signed in my entries and headed home to watch the Olympics.

This afternoon, before heading over to the Rutgers Gardens booth for my afternoon shift, I stopped by the photo exhibit. Here’s what I found:

Honorable Mention - Digital Color

Honorable Mention - Digital B&W

Third Place - Computer Enhanced Color

First Place - Computer Enhanced B&W

BTE. Waaaaay BTE. I did a little happy dance.

All of these photos have been Photo of the Day on this blog. The original of the Third Place winner can be seen here. I liked the original of the First Place winner so much, I almost entered it in the Color Digital category but I wasn’t sure how the judges would react to seeing the same photo twice, so I went with the tithonia photo instead. You can see the original version of the sundial here.

Snowmageddon

After all of the dire warnings, the hysterical mobs in the grocery stores, the mad rush to get home before the storm, "snowmageddon" turned out to be a non-event in my area. Two or three inches that wasn't hardly worth shovelling.

I took a few obligatory pictures and then headed off to do my normal Saturday errands.

Holly

Rutgers Gardens has a large holly collection.

I’ve driven by it many times, but never taken the time to photograph it. The hollies with yellow berries intrigue me.

As you can see, the light was terrible this afternoon. Harsh, washing out all of the colors. I had terrible trouble with shadows.

So no Photo of the Day. I took a few nice ones, but nothing that really stood out.

I thought this was kind of fun:

You can see all of my photos from today on Flickr.

Got Milk?

After purchasing my first digital camera, I became a real shutterbug. I read about photography, took classes, studied other photographers’ work. I even managed to take a few good photos. As long as I stick to gardens, wild places, inanimate objects, insects, and the occasional butterfly, I’m golden.

No people, though. Not only do they not interest me as subjects, when I do try to take pictures of them, the results look like they were taken by a child. I am also incapable of taking pictures of my cats. Again and again, when they do something cute, I run for my camera only to be disappointed with the outcome. Those cute poses don’t look nearly as cute in my photos.

Today I had an opportunity to shoot some cows. Cows are good subjects. They’re cute and they don’t move around much, right? Well, no.

These were the skinniest, boniest cows I’ve ever seen. Probably not surprising since they were dairy cows and valued for their milk production, not their meat production. And they were terribly muddy. Black and white and muddy and covered with flies. Not terribly attractive.

They also moved around a lot. Every time I had a picture framed and focused, something would move. A head. A tail. An entire cow. It was very frustrating. I did manage one nice shot of a cow peacefully grazing against a great background of fence and trees which was totally ruined by another cow’s bony butt in the foreground.


I thought that I had enough of the offending rear end out of the frame that I could crop the rest out afterwards. No such luck.

So let’s sum up, shall we?

Plants yes, people no
Butterflies yes, cats no
Spiders yes, cows no

The take away here is that I should steer clear of anything warm-blooded.

You can see photos of my visit to Hageman Farm as well as more of my pathetic attempts to photograph cows on Flickr

Philadelphia Flower Show

This post is my personal opinion only. It in no way reflects the views of Rutgers Gardens or any of its staff. I am not a spokesperson for Rutgers Gardens.

I was able to attend the Philadelphia Flower Show this year thanks to my fellow Straw Hatter, A. She graciously offered to drive knowing that I get way too nervous driving in cities and just the thought of trying to find a place to park sends me into a full-fledged panic attack. Thanks, A!

I was very apprehensive after the disappointing NJ Flower Show but once we stepped into the hall, all of my fears were banished by the breathtaking displays. I didn’t have just one or two “wow” moments. Almost every garden evoked multiple “wows” from me.

The cavernous darkness was no impediment to my camera but the crowds were. Again, lacking a tripod and this time constantly jostled by the crowds, I wasn’t able to hold the camera still enough for long enough to capture the crisp images that I was seeking. I did play around a little with it and came up with this Photo of the Day:

A fun shot of a lily.

The theme of the show was Bella Italia. The display gardens for the most part stayed on topic.

Some of the designers, though, were a little geographically-challenged. This one went too far north and ended up in Ireland:

And right next door, another one veered south and landed in the Mediterranean:

Wait, don’t tell me. Seahorse, right?

By far the most popular exhibit was a tribute to the Italian fashion industry. It was so crowded, that it was nearly impossible to photograph.

Like last year, my favorite was the topiary Dog Park. This little fella was just begging to have his picture taken:

You can see all of my photos of the Philadelphia Flower Show on Flickr.

NJ Flower & Garden Show

This post is my personal opinion only. It in no way reflects the views of Rutgers Gardens or any of its staff. I am not a spokesperson for Rutgers Gardens.

I love my new camera. I’ve been eagerly anticipating trying it out in a large indoor setting to see how it performs. It didn’t disappoint. Using a slower shutter speed, I was able to capture the flower show in all of its glory. The first few photos came out blurry. Lacking a tripod, I had to make an extra effort at keeping my hands steady.

The deepening recession has hit the landscape industry hard. Not only were there fewer than usual display gardens at the NJ Flower & Garden Show this year, they were significantly smaller than in the past. Buying the materials, trucking them in and assembling and then disassembling the gardens are costs that most of us don’t consider when we attend these shows.

Limiting the size of the gardens also limits creativity in the designs. Usually there is at least one garden that stops me in my tracks and makes me say “WOW!”. Today all I saw were gardens that made me say “Eh!” and keep on walking.

A few individual elements made me pause in admiration. Like this whimsical fountain:

Or this more traditional one:

If it weren’t for the red bamboo, I probably wouldn’t have liked this ornament as much. To give you an idea of the small scale of the displays today, what you see in the photo is the entire garden.

This randomly placed gargoyle temporarily halted me. Is it me or is it horribly out of place?

The highlight of the show for me was this winning entry in the Garden Club of NJ competition:

Winner of a blue ribbon and the coveted Club Competition award, it was designed by five members of the East Brunswick Garden Club, two of whom are Master Gardeners that I have had the pleasure of working with on the Executive Committee of the Middlesex County Master Gardeners.

You can see all of my photos of the NJ Flower & Garden Show on Flickr.

Nikon School

One of the first times that I showed up at an outing with my new digital SLR hanging around my neck, I was asked “Are you one of those f-stop people?” Shamefacedly, I had to reply no. My fancy new camera was set to automatic. I was letting it do all the work, determining how my photos came out. In other words, it was a very expensive point & shoot camera.

The manual was unreadable. It was written with an amount of assumed knowledge that I simply didn’t have. I found a book at my local library that was quite helpful. After I finished reading it, I grasped the concepts of digital SLR photography, like ISO and aperture, but the details eluded me. I purchased my own copy of the book in the hope that closer study would help me overcome my math phobia.

That was the big problem: all those numbers and all those ratios. In my youth, I was in the honors program at school in every course except math. While my peers headed off to the rarified realms of “pre-Calc” and “Calc”, I slunk into the “dummy” math class and desperately tried to make sense of the numbers that the teacher wrote on the blackboard. As much as I enjoyed crafting essays and studying the grand sweep of history, math was a total mystery to me. Word problems were gibberish. Equations baffled me. Tests had the power to induce catatonia. My brain simply shut down at the sight of numbers.

I was determined to learn to actually use my camera so I went to school, Nikon School. And I’m glad I did. The instructors (there were two) were professional photographers who explained arcane concepts in language that even I could understand. Instead of going into detail about the exact lighting and distances of each setting, they said things like “if you want to get this effect, use this setting”. Bingo! Following instructions is one of my strengths. The instructors were so good that I finally understand white balance.

One of my co-workers is an avid photographer and often utters cryptic comments like “the camera has to know what color white is”. Huh? White is white. Except in the paint store. It turns out that what he has been saying is that light has color. What we see as white, is actually slightly different in different lights such as sunlight, fluorescent light, incandescent light, etc. You can adjust for different types of light or not, depending on the effect you are after.

Nikon School is a two day event. The first day is for beginners. The second day is for more advanced photographers. You can attend one or both days. I opted to attend the beginner’s class only. It turns out to have been a good decision. I can’t wait to get out and try all the new things I learned today. Once I have mastered those skills, I will get a lot more out of the advanced class when I go back to Nikon School next year.

More On Light

Yesterday’s post featured a photo that I took at the EARTH Center when I attended the annual Master Gardener picnic. I took a number of photos that day and despite the fact that it was late afternoon, they came out rather well. I don’t normally like afternoon light but I think because it was autumn and the sun was weaker and lower in the sky, the light was less harsh than usual.

A wildflower meadow was planted earlier this year for birds.

Paths were mowed through the meadow to encourage visitors to explore the meadow.


Even this late in the year, when most of the flowers have finished blooming, it was beautiful.


You can see all of the photos that I took at the EARTH Center on Flickr.

Moments

I’ve been working on a Special Edition Master Gardener newsletter. Lots and lots of pictures. All of them submitted by fellow Master Gardeners. And frustratingly, all of them are landscape. I had one tiny space on the front page that was just screaming for a photo using portrait orientation. Perhaps I had some photos that would fill the bill? Alas, no, but while looking, I was reminded of a photo I took in September that just took my breath away.

EARTH Center vegetable gardenSeptember 21, 2008

This is exactly how it came out of my camera. No photoshopping. I just love the deep rich colors and the contrasting shapes.

Sometimes moments just happen.

First Outing

My trusty old digital camera died last May after years of giving me great photos despite the abuse it suffered from me. Of course it chose to do this a week before I was due to visit the New Jersey Botanical Gardens for the first time. I had always planned on replacing it with a digital SLR, but really hadn’t looked into them. In one week’s time, I managed to research brands, features and prices and purchased a Nikon D40.

And then it poured rain. With my old camera, this wouldn’t have been a problem. A little rain had never hurt it (although I’m sure it would have disagreed) and since it was a simple point & shoot, I could operate it with one hand while holding an umbrella. Not so my fancy new SLR. It requires at least two hands and dislikes moisture, heat, cold and dirt. What a prima donna!

The new camera had to wait until June before going on its first outing to NYBG. I put it through its paces. There were a lot of hits and misses, but by the end of the day, I had gotten the hang of this fancy digital SLR stuff.

This was one of those trips that yielded more than one Photo of Day. The first one was taken in the garden at Holly House before we even left.

Acanthus mollisBear's Britches

This is a new flower to me. I want it for my shade garden at home.

The second one isn’t even of the gardens.

Old Mill

This is an amazing shot. I took it out of the window of a tram that was stopped so that passengers could embark and disembark. Somehow I managed to keep the camera still despite the rocking of the tram as people got on and off while keeping all of them out of the photo. I did manage to get a little of the railing of bridge that we were stopped on, but that can be cropped out.

I had fun a lot fun that day. I took some “arty” shots like this:

I have no clue what flower that is, but it looks really cool.

I got some neat close-ups:

And I enjoyed using the lens to bring things closer like this duck:

Here’s another flower that is new to me:

Rudbeckia maximaGiant Coneflower

Walls and fences drew my attention that day. Here are two of my favorite shots:

You can see all of the photos of my trip to NYBG on Flickr.