Last of the Flowers in the Park

I'm not sure what this type of flower is, but there were only a few left when I went to take pictures recently with a friend. There weren't many flowers left in that park.

I believe I was practicing taking photos with my camera set to manual, as I need to take several photos on that setting to submit for the online photography course I'm taking.

One Of My Favourite Types of Flowers

Dahlia

Lamb's Ear

Lamb's Ear

This flower doesn't get many "petals" on it; it's planted pretty much for the leaves which are soft like a lamb's ear - hence the name. I don't have any shots of the leaves, but I might try and get some in the next few days (if I can get a decent picture with them).

Keeping On With The Theme of Flowers

Peony

More Tulips

Purple Tulips

Yellow Tulip in the Sun

Red Tulip

Red Tulip in the Garden

Tulips In The Garden

Tulips in the garden

The red tulips in the garden were almost in bloom when I took this photo yesterday. Today, they are out but I didn't get out to take their photos though - maybe tomorrow.

Bleeding Heart

Bleeding Heart in the garden

The bleeding heart in the garden is beginning to grow and bloom. It's just small right now, but should be bigger and fuller later in the season. Hopefully, I will remember to go out later in the summer and take some photos of it as well.

The End Of A Life Cycle



The end of the tulip

 Remember a few posts ago when I posted pics of the pot of tulips I had bought my mom for her birthday? Well, a week or so ago I noticed they had come to the end of their life cycle, and thought they looked pretty interesting. So, I took some photos of what was left.

They're not as pretty as when they are in bloom, but interesting none the less.

Purple and Yellow Crocuses

A Sign of Spring

Yellow Crocuses

The sun had moved around to the other side of the house, so the crocuses are closed. I'm hoping to get some shots of this cluster of yellow ones opened.

Pretty Petals

Tip Toe Through The Tulips

Tulips

Last Thursday was my mom's birthday. I bought her some flowers, and these potted tulips. They've actually grown and opened a lot since then, so I decided to take a few photos of them using the natural light that came in through the back patio windows.

I'm hoping the bulbs survive and she can plant them in her garden (I think in the fall) and grow next spring. Then I can get some photos of them outside. She has a couple of purple tulips in her garden now (or did last spring), and I'm hoping to get some photos of those again this year as well.

A Taste of Something Other Than Snow

Iris In The Wild

We've had so much snow this winter, particularly since January. And, quite frankly, I'm getting a little sick of it. I decided to post a photo I took last year, early in the summer, to remind me of the beauty that awaits after the snow melts.

Pretty Dahlia

This is from my mom's dahlia garden again. This flower isn't fully out yet, but I thought it looked nice - somewhat like a lotus or water lily in appearance. I really like the colours in this flower - God can do such amazing work in His creations!

This particular photo is from last month, however I do have more photos (not just flowers) since then but Photoshop Elements isn't working properly on the laptop again. Every time I try to click to add the copyright notice and/or my name, the program freezes up. I can (so far) adjust colour, contrast, sharpness, etc. just fine, but I don't know what is causing the program to freeze on me. It was working fine for awhile, and then it started acting up all of a sudden again. Might have too much on the computer...maybe need to transfer my photos to an external hard drive (if I can figure out how to do that correctly, and still be able to access them and download them to post, etc. I am so not a technical person...

Flowery Goodness

Clicking the photo should enlarge it.

One of the dahlias in the garden. I took this a few days ago after there was a light misty rain in the early evening. I was trying to capture some raindrops on the flowers, but they didn't turn out too well. Anyway, I'm not too sure of the name of this dahlia, but I like the colours in it - it's a pretty flower.

Sunny Fields

This is the same field of sunflowers where I took the previous photo. I think I may have figured out why there is so much `graininess` to the photos I took that day. I believe I had the ISO dialed too high; if I had gone lower (never thought of this at the time), it might have looked sharper. I`ll have to remember that next time! Since then, I`ve changed the ISO to a lower one. Sadly the sunflowers in that field are pretty much gone now, ready for harvesting.

Sunflowers

Not long ago, there was an article in our local paper about a farmer who had planted his fields with sunflowers. He has seven acres of them. It went on to say that this was the first year he had planted them, and his plan was to harvest them to make sunflower oil (I think that's what he'd said). It's really more of an experiment for him, but if it works out, he might plant them again next year. I hope so! Sadly, at this point in the summer, many of the sunflowers are starting to dye down. If he does plant them again next year, I'm going earlier in the season.

On the weekend, I went with another photographer friend to take some photos of another friend and her daughter. We decided to go to the sunflower field and take some shots (my photographer friend had asked permission earlier in the day). While there, I took some photos of the sunflowers. The above image is one of them.

I know this isn't a unique photo, but I like it. Unfortunately, for any number of reasons, most of my photos didn't turn out (it could have been the time of day - around 6:30pm, - my ISO setting, aperture, the lens I used...anything). I was quite disappointed; however, it was a learning lesson for me.  Looking at this photo, I wish I had gone in closer so that the flowers were more prominent in the shot. But, I still like the photo.

Not sure what these are, but I think they're some kind of decorative cattails. These are in a little public garden along a river, across from the city.

Daisy

I had no idea that little bug was on the daisy, nor the two water droplets on the petals, until I uploaded the photo to my computer.