Category Archives: Flowers

Flowers

Hashtag Floral!!

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Perfect description for today. Here is a gallery of florals from walking the dogs this morning.

Inspired by Terri of Second Wind Leisure’s Sunday Stills: Fabulous Seasonal #florals. Our rather chilly spring has kept many things blooming that would usually be about done by now, such as the daffodils and tulips. Yet the usual suspects, like the wood hyacinth, crabapple and peony are valiantly going ahead as planned. It seems like everything is blooming right now.

Also for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Flowers

Species Tulips

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My yard is in full bloom right now. Through the years various types of bulbs have naturalized. The pickier, more needy ones have died out. A landscape by Darwin sort of effect. I have two types of tulips that have thrived on my neglect: red Apeldoorn (I had some yellow ones but, for some reason, they all died out), and these species tulips.

This time of year it doesn’t seem fair: the bright, red Apeldoorns grab your attention. Less flamboyant than their more outgoing cousins these species tulips have a delicate beauty that deserves a second glance.

Species tulips in my yard.
Species tulip center.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Flowers, photo processing, photography techniques

Artsy Magnolias

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A powder paint composite of a magnolia. Artistic effect applied using the GIMP.
Magnolia

Inspired by Bren of Brashley Photography in some of her recent posts, I experimented with powder painting using the GIMP instead of Photoshop. While I’ve had some success, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the technique.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day and Brashley Photography’s Floral Friday (yes, I am late. But I had to figure out how to do it!). I made a YouTube video to explain what I did:

Video showing how to do the Powder Paint method in the GIMP.
Black & White, Flowers, photo processing

Seeing black and white

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Amaryllis

I’ve been enjoying my amaryllis this week. It just came into bloom, I have three amaryllises from Christmases through the years that have decided to pop into bloom this month. After mucking about with daffodils in black and white earlier this week I decided to give the amaryllis a try for Brashley Photography’s Mid-week Monochrome. Also for Cee’s Flower of the Day (in color it was my flower for yesterday also).

As often I find, the black and white brings out the textures and the lines in the petals. For these pictures I used the GIMP’s built-in Desaturate tools. If you are interested in trying them out I have this article about the tools on my other website: Black and white digital photo processing using the GIMP.

Flowers

I got sunshine on a cloudy day…

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The daffodils are coming into their own, providing some welcome cheer as we endure yet another “atmospheric river”.

Yet, for some reason, I actually kind of like them in shades of gray.

Daffodil in black and white.

I used the GIMP to convert the image to black and white. I have a post about doing this on my other website: Black and white digital photo processing using the GIMP.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Flowers

Goodbye, February, it’s been real

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Huddling camellia

It really rained yesterday and I noticed this bright, cheerful camellia when out with the dogs. It reminded me of how we sometimes walk when caught out in the rain, facing slightly down, the little petal almost looks like a hand put over to shield the eyes.

For Bushboy’s Last on the card-February 2022. This was my last on card, the header is my next to last on card for the month. Also for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Flowers

A winter rose

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A pink rosebud in the snow. Given a painterly effecut using Topaz Studio 2.
Winter rose

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

We had some snowy days at the end of last year and, for no particular reason, I didn’t really sit down with the pictures I took until recently. Snow is so pretty and it brightens the world up a lot. Around here where the days are short and we don’t generally get snow the winters can seem pretty dim.

I gave this rose a bit of a painterly effect by using the impression filter in Topaz Studio 2.