Trendy Photography: I'm Apparently Doing It Right

So a few photography blogs I've been reading have been talking about bokeh.

Bokeh is defined by Wikipedia as: In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."  Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting— "good" or "bad" bokeh, respectively.

Basically, it's the idea that you use the blur to bring out the focal point of your pictures (with greater or lesser amounts of success).  Here are a few of my better bokeh pictures...

Floating Sunspot

What I absolutely love about this one is that the bokeh creates the effect that the flower is just floating in space.  There is a stem... but you can't see it! 

Turaco, Busy Building

 This is a White Crested Turaco from the free-flight section of Brookfield Zoo.

Little Bug Makes an Exit

In this one, not only is the background blurred, the edges of the petals on the left are too, drawing your eye to the center of the flower and the bug crawling out of it.

Grasshopper, Stick-Clinger

 This little grasshopper was ridiculously easy to lose in the grass, so without the background being obscured, it would be hard to see what I was trying to capture.  This is from a photography trip I took last fall with a friend.  We were heading back to the car from one of our stops when I saw this guy bounding around the grassy area between where we'd parked and the highway.  I made her wait fifteen minutes while I chased him around until he was still enough for me to get a good shot!

Mr. Fokker Poppy Faces the Sun

 This one is interesting because it's the blurry flowers in the background that give this photo some needed color to keep it from being too monochromatic.

12-Spotted Rester

 This one is more typical of what you see in the 'text-book' examples of bokeh, where the background bits become little circles of light.  Personally I wish I could get more of my shots to do this.  I often get just really harsh glare off the water.

Itty-Bitty Flower Committee

 This is a little curl of flowers that took me forever to capture properly.  Believe it or not, the whole cluster is about the size of a nickel.  When you're shooting with a macro lens, you can be pretty sure your background will be quite blurred.  This can be good when you're trying to isolate something like this, but less helpful in settings where you want to capture everything.

Shiny Red Wings

 This guy is from one of my recent Midewin posts.  The beetle is in sharp focus, as is the leaf he's on, but the rest of the plant, and the plants behind him are almost nonexistent.  Because of all the soft greens, his red shell really pops.

Halloween Pennant in August

Dragonflies like this are pretty well camouflaged, so if the background were to stay as busy as it really was, the dragonfly wouldn't be nearly as visible or clear.

Chicago Botanic Garden - 7.25.10 (2/2)

Okay, I thought it was odd that I'd only found ten shots from my last CBG trip that were good enough to post. So I went through the folder again. I had *edited* ten, but there were more. So here they are. :)

What made me think of it was these two shots. I knew I had some good rainbow shots and yet, I didn't have a 'rainbow' tag in my 'labels'. So I knew I'd forgotten to post something.

The color saturation here isn't so great, but I've never seen an almost perfectly horizontal rainbow before.

[Horizontal Rainbow]

This one was taken with a *just* slightly faster shutter (1/1000 here, 1/800 above), and a bit longer of a focal length and the color saturation was much better. Obviously I also changed position (the fountain was in the middle of a pond I was walking around), and the different angle helped as well.
[Fountain Rainbow]

So after about two months of searching the internet, I've discovered that this is a female red-winged blackbird. She was being highly cooperative from her perch on a purple coneflower.

[Not So Black Blackbird]

She even shifted to give me a very nice profile.

But there is some seriously weird stuff going on on that Y chromosome to make this bird (female)...
[Female Red Winged Blackbird on Coneflower]

... look like this bird (male of the same species.) (This shot from the North Pond)

I so adore this shot of a GIGANTIC green dragonfly. Not because he's so huge or so still, but because if you look at it closely, the light is coming in just right that you can see the *shadows* of his wing veins on the lilypad.

[Veins in Shadow]

Business end of a yellow-jacket. I spent about forty minutes chasing yellow-jackets around a pond trying to get just the right shot for the book I was working on for my nephew. (More on this later, in its own post, but the short version is, I made my nephew an alphabet animal book using only pictures I took myself. And I needed a good shot for Y. :) [Business end of a Yellow-Jacket]

This ended up being the shot I used. Clear shot of his wings, you can see how his thorax and abdomen are a.) not fuzzy and b.) very disjointed - which is how you know he's a wasp, not a bee. And check out those huge eyes.

[Yellow-Jacket Species Model]

I love these, but I somehow managed to forget to shoot the sign. I think they're a form of violet. Anyone have a clue?

[Perky Purples]

Another one I forgot to get the sign for. Looks like a pink fried egg. :)

[Pink Fried Egg Flower]








Okay, NOW I think that trip is done. :) What do you think?

Chicago Botanic Garden - 7.25.10

So one of the great things about the Chicago Botanic Garden is that it changes monthly (or so) as new flowers go in and others go out of season.  When I went in the spring it was all about the bulb flowers - daffodils, tulip and the like.  Last month there were a lot more perennials like roses.

I fell in love with the water lilies, also known as lotus flowers.

Here's one with a bee on it. Nope... wait... Google tells me that's a yellow jacket.  A wasp, not a bee at all. [Yellow Jacket on a Lily in the Evening]

Same flower, different lighting.  I took this trip with a friend and we started near the lilies and ended there too.  Over the course of about six hours the lighting changed from full daylight around noon to evening light.  What a difference! And still attracting the yellow jackets.  This one makes me think of a watercolor.   [Water Lily at Midday]

An eastern pondhawk dragonfly on an opening lily. [Dragonfly on Lotus]

 I love the abstract made from isolating a small part of the lotus flower.  The white/pink tips, the shadows...

[Inner Lotus]

 Here's one in context.

[Lotus Unfolds]

I love this one not only because it's purple, but because you can see the yellow through the purple petals at the bottom.

[Purple and Yellow Lotus]

  Check out this bee!  None of my resources seem to be able to tell me what kind he is.  In other shots I got of him I was able to see that he has one yellow band behind his head and two on his lower abdomen.  He's fuzzy from shoulder to stinger.  That tan patch that looks like it's on his back is actually on the top joint of his leg.  Anyone have a clue? [Big Bee in Midflight]

These lilies are about the size of a small dinner plate.  Huge!  They're called Magic Lilies.
[Magic Lilies]

Here's one in isolation.  I love how the pistol and stamen are so prominent in this flower.

[Magic Lily Stretches for the Sky]

The roses were out and gorgeous, but the sun was so intense that day and at that time, that they were really tough to shoot.

[Peach Rosebud Unfolds]






Alright, ten pictures make a post.  Just a quick note to let you all know that my photography is for sale at my etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop/WizardAtWork).  If there's a shot you see here on the blog that you'd like a copy of, please let me know and we'll set that up. :)

Chicago Done Naturally (Post 5 of 10) - Green City and Other Farmers' Markets

Green City Market 

(and other Chicago Farmers’ Markets) 

Chicago has literally dozens of neighborhood farmers' markets.  Check the link above if you want to see if there's one near you.  I want to check out the downtown ones more thoroughly this summer, but in my experience, the neighborhood ones can be very, very small - like a dozen stalls, and only half of those actually having fruits and vegetables.  So I'm concentrating on the Mother of All Chicago's Farmers' Markets - the Green City Market.

The GCM is across the street from the “Farm in the Zoo” exhibit at Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s outside from May through October (there’s an inside market in the winter, but it’s not quite as good shooting) on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The GCM and LPZ can make for a really long, but really great day of shooting. Bring a fully-charged battery and lots of memory.  Throw in the Lincoln Park Conservatory and you'll have more pictures than you'll possibly know what to do with in one day.

This is Chicago’s biggest and most well-known Farmers’ Market. Did you watch the Chicago season of Top Chef? Remember the one where the chefs had to make their quick-fire only from things found at the Farmers’ Market? That was this market. There’s a wide variety of foods – fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses and breads – as well as flowers, that change throughout the season. I always ask the stand-operators if I can shoot their stuff, and they’ve always enthusiastically approved, often staging things for me (and showing me things like their Eggplant version of Mr. Potato Head).

 Keep an eye out for the quirky. Last year I got this really fun shot of a crate of green beans with a little chalkboard sign that said “Magic Beans - $1.00 a handful”.

I seem to have lost my shot of Mrs. Eggplant Head.  I'll have to see if they make a new one for this year.

To hit:
Okay, this has nothing to do with photography, but the crepe stand is awesome. The fillings change with the season and everything I’ve tried has been amazing. Also, there’s a stand making hot donut holes on the south edge of the market – to die for. (At least they were on the south edge in 2009. I’m not sure if they’ll be in the same spot this year.) [ETA: They are. ;)]

To miss:
The flowers can make for great shooting, but they do attract Very Large bees. Which can also make for great shooting, but I know a kid who got a bad sting, so watch out. Also, if it’s been raining, wear rainboots or other shoes that handle mud well. They throw down hay after a rain, but the grounds stay pretty soggy.

Chicago Done Naturally (Post 3 of 10) - Chicago Botanic Garden

Chicago Botanic Garden

Screwiest admissions system ever. Going to the garden is free. Good deal, right? It’ll cost you $20 to park your car there. Not so bad if you bring three or four others with you, but if you go on your own (and personally, if I’m going to shoot, I prefer not to be worried about if someone else is bored while I shoot the same poppy for half an hour or whatever), it’s a $20 ticket. The website does give public transportation directions, but I’m a veteran of Chicago’s public transit system and it looked a bit daunting to me. I’d lose an insane amount of time in transport and I’d be dragging my gear all over creation… so.. *shrug*.

This is a great place to spend some time learning your camera or a new lens. Obviously what you can see in a huge flower garden will change pretty much monthly. Tulips come in early, but then go out again, roses and peonies come in later, vegetables and fruits flower in the spring and have fruit in the fall…

You’ll run into tons of other photographers out here and relatively few school groups. This place is really big. This place ended up being a big old object lesson for me in Tip #3 - bring your own food. There’s a café attached to the visitor’s center but it’s a little on the pricey side. I normally bring a PB&J, but since I forgot mine, I ended up buying one from them… it was $3 and slightly stale. On the good news side, I’ll remember my own sandwich next time! They do let you fill your reusable water bottle from their tap for free, in fact they don’t even sell bottled water (bottled everything else, sure, but not water) so bring a jug. If you forget, you can get a little recyclable cup, but you can’t exactly troop around with that all day.

The website for the CBG also has a photography section, but it’s a little confusing. The bit that got me was whether or not I needed a permit – for $125. I did not. Unless you’re doing prom or wedding photos or something, you’re good without one. I have not figured out why they list “no alcohol in the garden” as a photography rule. Do we have a rep I don’t know about?

Watch the week’s weather and plan for a bright but calm day if you have a little flexibility. I know Chicago doesn’t get its “Windy City” nickname for its weather, but we can get some good breezes going. Which can really muck with your focus.

For me, at least, this was a huge exercise in shoot the signs. I had no idea how many kinds of tulips there were. Or even that some of the things I was looking at were tulips. (And while I don’t know a LOT of plants, I thought I had tulips surrounded. Not so much.) To the good, they do have a current list of all the plants in a given garden online. (http://www.chicagobotanic.org/inbloom/) so if you at least know where you saw it, you can start narrowing it down. (of course, I’m trying to use it in reverse to tell you all where I found my favorite new flower, and I can’t find it. Gr.)

Also, check the website for their once monthly photo walks. They actually have a professional photographer take you around the garden and teach you the best ways to shoot the plants and landscapes. You bring your camera and learn as you shoot.

If you have one, bring your macro lens. There’s some amazing stuff up close. I found a butterfly in the Circle Garden right at the beginning and a bee the size of my thumb was checking out the Bleeding Hearts the same time I was. Not to mention being able to get photographs of grains of pollen.

Don’t be afraid to go off the paths and onto the grass (unless there’s a sign saying, you know, not to, like by the Japanese Gardens) to get up close and personal to things. When I was there the apple trees were in bloom and there were staff people encouraging you to go walk through the orchard.

To hit:
I’m definitely planning to go back in like September when the trees and vegetables and berry bushes will all be bearing fruit. But even now, late April, the flowers on the trees were awesome (OMG, did the apple orchard SMELL good).

The bulb garden was amazing, but already some of the stems were starting to wither. So check the website to see how tulips, daffodils and such are doing.

But I have to say, my favorite part was the English Walled Garden and the Mr. Fokker’s Poppies. Not just because I’m 12 years old some days and the name amused me (they’re also called Anemone coronaria Mr. Fokker), but because they are gorgeous flowers that photographed quite well.

I thought I covered at least 2/3 of the Garden when I was out there last week, but looking at the map I’m finding a lot of areas I didn’t see. Again, you may want to check out the interactive map on the website and make a plan. Big place, lots of flowers. You’ll probably need lots of time.

BTW, please don’t ask me why the one section is called “The Enabling Garden”. I have no idea who or what they’re enabling. :p 

The waterfall garden. There are three bridges that cross the waterfall, which let you set up your tripod and play with that ‘make water move in your picture’ long-shutter thing everyone (that I’ve talked to) has to try at least once.

You know the ones, the ones that go from this...                                   

To this...

To Miss:
They said there’s a greenhouse of tropical plants in the Regenstein Center, but I couldn’t find it. I suspect it’s there, but personally, since I got such great weather I wanted to spend my time outside.


This is very much a YMMV thing, but I didn’t find the Japanese Garden all the fascinating when I went. Not much color or anything wildly unusal.


And like I said, bring food, the café is pretty pricey, even for a place like this.

So here we are... a photography blog...

So I'm looking at 213 gigs of photos taken in the last year or so and wondering what to post as my first few 'introductory' shots...

This is hard.

So for now I'm going to grab the first five things I see in my archives that I like.

First of all, why everyone who has a DSLR should have a macro telephoto lens.

[Bee on a Bleeding Heart]






Another good reason. I'll post an article I did for something else in a few days about great places to go shooting in Chicago. This happens to be at the South Pond in Lincoln Park.

[Striped Dragonfly on a Blade of Grass]




This is a Black Crowned Night Heron. I was shocked to find out that this bird lives in Chicago. On one walk I saw seven of them in the North Pond. The first one I ever saw was in a swamp in Florida - they grow their herons a little bigger down south. But still, this is a pretty impressive bird to find just steps from Lake Shore Drive.





I did quite a bit of editing on this one, but I do love how it came out. I fixed the horizon, made it black and white and turned up the brightness just a bit. This is a build up of ice on the wooden pylons in Lake Michigan in late February. They remind me of Eagle wings.
[Ice Wings]

I love quirky! This was shot at the Green City Market last fall.

[Magic Beans]







So that's post one. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Let's get some discussion going!