Orchids

Cambridge Botanic Gardens had a great display of Orchids in the corridor of the glasshouses when we visited last week. These are in-camera composites that remind me the delight of these amazing flowers amid the light and the textures around them.

Light Painting Toft Photogroup

My favourite image from Toft Photogroup yesterday evening was the bottles and glasses lit by glow sticks and UV torch but there were some close runners up with the fairy lights etc

Botanical Studies

Barry and Ken ran a very enjoyable workshop yesterday with Still-life as its theme and invited everyone to contribute some subjects - this resulted in a wonderful collection of vegetables, fruit, flowers, vases, memorabilia etc. I spent all afternoon photographing the different glass vases and bottles plus flowers that were contributed. Unfortunately, I managed to delete the folder of images before downloading but hope to retrieve at some stage. So here are my morning offerings using a lightbox and overhead lighting (continuous or flash), plus a bottle and hops with a light pad back illumination and a shell lit by studio flash. Hopefully my main project will rise from the ashes for later sharing

Art at Botanic Gardens

 On our CCC trip to Cambridge Botanic Gardens, I was distracted from my initial ideas of leaf shapes etc to take images of the plants as they pushed up against the greenhouse windows and by participants on a Botanical Illustration Day. The first image has been processed through Color Effex; all the others are Lightroom-only adjustments. The Olympus 50mm f1.8 legacy lens makes a wonderful portrait lens - very sharp and yet with a softening effect on the skin tones.