Pastel wildflowers

She’s alive! Just barely so, but she’s alive.

It has been a long, gloomy semester. I’ve had no time to rest and no space in my head for creativity, and for all this, I’m immensely glad it’s almost over. I feel like dancing, singing and lying on the beach on a warm summer day, but most of all, I want to take a week off just to go shooting, to watch the sun rise and set by the sea, to dream of beautiful things and smile until my face hurts. I’m tired of worrying and rushing to meat deadlines and being a full time student.

I’m ready to put the last four months behind me, and start looking forward to the spring. And on that theme, I bring you some pretty wildflowers. I shot these who knows how many weeks ago, and never had the energy to edit them. There’s no sunlight in this part of the backyard except when the sun is high in the sky, so the photos were bright and boring, and I felt like doing some creative editing. I love how these turned out, and I hope you like them, too :).

Purple flowers in the morning light

Summer meets fall. Is there a name for that time in between seasons? Whatever it’s called, it’s here, and it’s time to get the warmer clothes out and see what chances for photography this time of the year offers.

Going back in time a little… I took these photos almost two months ago (seriously? where did the summer go?), and I didn’t have the time to edit them until now. I guess it’s flower photography season for me :). Enjoy!

Flower explosion

I can’t believe it’s been a week since my last post! Where are the days going? I’ve been working on so many projects that time is flying by and 24 hours a day aren’t enough (it doesn’t help that my computer is working at slow snail-speed, either). But it’s a good busy, so I don’t mind. Of course, the amount of photos I have to edit has reached an alarming size by now, so I guess I’ll be able to indulge and stay indoors on those frosty winter days when I’m too lazy to brave the cold and go shooting.

Last week the theme on my Flickr group was “In the morning”, so I grabbed Freedom and went exploring around the garden in the early hours. If my neighbors had the suspicion that I was a little touched in the head, they’re fully convinced by now and whispering about the young woman that was climbing a garden chair in her front yard and twisting in weird positions over a bush of white flowers. It’s better than being known as the crazy cat lady, though – at least it’s original!

I edited these in Color Efex Pro 3, and I must say I’m in love. I gave Lightroom a chance, but I’m a Photoshop girl, especially with these filters. I was playing around, so some of these aren’t exactly realistic colorwise, but I love the results. Hope you like them!

Pretty water drops

It’s almost dawn as I’m writing this, and until a few minutes ago it was raining softly. It was a very welcome rain after three days of scorching heat, during which I gave up shooting around the garden and moved my suffocating self to the beach, where life is good and the sun is welcome. I could live at the beach for a whole month and I wouldn’t get tired of it.
So, at last, I got to shoot a few sunsets with the new camera. I got Lightroom, too, and I love it already, but I’m editing at the pace of a snail, so bear with me. I’ve also been reading and watching lots of online tutorials and making a list of everything I want to try. It might be a few decades before I’m done, LOL.
These photos are from the backyard, taken before the heat wave. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I ever have to move to a house without a yard. Having the chance to go out every day and see what new beauty I can capture so close to home is one my favorite things in the world. But then again, the world always provides.

Shutter speed 1/100 f5.6 ISO 320 Edited in Lightroom

Lantana flowers and bokeh

I hope you all had a great start to your year! Mine is peachy. I’m spending lots of time with my new camera, taking lots of shots that vary between awful, tolerable and the few nice ones. The rest of my time I spend reading either The Lord of the Rings (again), my camera manual, or some online tutorial. Life is good in this corner of the world :).

I’m enjoying Freedom as much as I thought I would – it’s like discovering a new world hidden within the one I thought I’d already discovered. These are some of the “nice” shots I’ve taken in the past couple of days, learning my way around through a mixture of practice and theory. I’m having trouble getting warm colors, even though I’ve figured out how to adjust my WB settings, so if anyone has any tips, they’ll be more than welcome. Enjoy!