Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Wild About Wildflowers

Fairy Trumpets
(can you hear the music?)
1/800 second (wind!) @ f/8, ISO400, 200mm

The wildflowers are fantastic this year. Rain almost every afternoon this summer has kept the color show going throughout the forest, meadows and along the roads. Early morning is a good time to photography wildflowers. You can find sunlit flowers against shadowy backgrounds before the sun gets too high and the light too harsh.

Bell Flowers
1/400 second @ f/5.6, 200mm, ISO400

I like to photograph the flowers after a rain or whenever the clouds soften the sunlight and shadows. The images below were captured under cloudy skies.

Wild Geranium
1/125 second @ f/8, 60mm, ISO 400

Paintbrush
1/125 second @ f/8, 60mm, ISO 400


Wild paintbrush glows with the beautiful colors of sunsets. A story is told of a young man who wanted to paint the summer sunset. He was given brushes dipped in all the right colors and painted a beautiful sunset. When finished he tossed the brushes to the ground and now each summer the wild paintbrushes grow red, pink and orange.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the top photo. I don't think we have that species back east, at least not in the places I've lived.

mech said...

I love your flower pictures. great shots and good advice.

Con Daily said...

wren, I believe the species is Ipomopsis aggregata or Gilia aggregata. The flowers are up to 2 inches long and color ranges from red to pink to red-orange. My wildflower id books say the plant is poisonous. That might explain why there are so many here, the animals don't eat them. Either that or we have a huge fairy population hiding amongst the trees and rocks.

Trina said...

The "Trumpe" is one of my favorite plants this year, The picture is beautiful. Happy Shooting!!!!

Leah said...

love the geranium and paintbrush photos! what lovely colors!