Words4It

I don’t know what this plant is named, but huge balls of small flowers hover overhead on stalks at least seven feet high. It’s a welcome addition to my Nightgardens series. I suppose the color of the blooms would be called “dusty rose.” This plant grows in front of V.I.N.A. Community Dental Center in Brighton that serves limited income residents of Livingston County.

As most of you know by now, much of my time spent photographing is done after dark. Some of the plant images have a certain quality about them that fit within what I’m calling my “Nightgardens” series. This is one of them because of how the soft light helps define the depth of the flower covered branches.

To satisfy my need for color and things that grow during this dormant time of year, here’s a reminder that in a few months we’ll be at summer’s peak again. These daylilies were photographed at the close of the day in Ruth Esper’s garden which has been mentioned before on Words4It.com. The image is part of my Nightgardens series.

I didn’t punch up the colors in Photoshop. This is how my camera recorded them. This 1999 vintage 1-megapixel Nikon always skews to the blue range so I can’t say it’s a realistic representation of the flowers. They’re still beautiful surrounded by the rich greens at the close of twilight.

As winter builds to full strength here, it helps to look at summer flowers. As explained in my earlier post, I’m pursuing a series of images of gardens and foliage photographed after sunset. My camera’s flash does interesting things, good and bad. The camera-mounted flash can cause harsh shadows behind objects. It’s also easy to bleach out colors if I get too close. I’ve found it’s best to stand back ten feet and use my zoom. On the positive side, distracting background objects quickly fade into the unifying darkness. I use available light from street lamps if I can. Images taken at night sometimes surprise me. Colors may become richer or fade toward subtle grays. The wide open aperture often softens the focus very nicely. Stay tuned for more.

These iris are a detail from a larger photo. Click through to see it. They are in the well tended garden at the Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce.

I’m a night owl. I come from a long line of night owls so it’s genetic in some way. Consequently, most of my photographs are taken at night. In July of 2009, I walked to the St. George Lutheran Church in Brighton, MI. They have spotlights mounted in the ground that shine up to their rather clunky steeple that has all of the architectual charm of a pre-fab aluminum-sided garage. Why they want to draw attention to it is beyond me, but I glad they do.

Just to the right of the front stairs is a nicely-tended garden and patio area. Spires more beautiful than the steeple reach toward heaven there. Daylilies and hostas dominate. The nearby spotlight bathes these spires while the foliage is lost in shadows. Lovely. They have the same quality as mountain peaks showing above clouds from the Zhejiang School’s ink paintings from 14th century Asia.

I took two photos that night and they are crappy ones at that, but they inspired an idea I’m pursuing titled “NightGardens” which will evolve over time. Expect to see more from that series here at Words4It.