A couple months late, here are my beloved crocuses:
No deep thoughts for these. They’re pretty.
Tag: spring
Life is Skittles and Life is Beer
I have not been idle during our unusually long and harsh winter, but I seem to have been unmotivated to post. Well, spring is finally here, and yesterday I found these in full glory right by the backyard gate:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
— William Wordsworth
The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring
The building where I work is in an area replete with flowering crabapple trees. When they’re in bloom, going to work is a particular pleasure, as I can stop for a moment and feast both eyes and nose on the flowers.
I’ve been lucky so far this year to shoot the flowers as they appear; my one big failure was with the daffodils. My wife is partly of Dutch ancestry, and I’ve always been partial to tulips, so it was nice to find these beauties at the park:
April showers bring May flowers, but April flowers bring May blog posts.
さくら
Japan House is one of my favorite places at the University of Illinois. It’s not just a peaceful little retreat; it’s a wonderland of photographic opportunity, and the sakura are in bloom right now.
clouds of perfume
hang in the evening air —
cherry blossoms
hanami —
even the bees
eat well
Still Hanging On
Real life has this annoying habit of demanding my attention, instead of leaving me alone so I can make crappy pictures and annoy the Internet with them. In any event, I haven’t been completely idle, and am making a little project of the stained glass windows in my parish church. For instance:
And also:
These pictures are a compromise between what I’d like to achieve and what my equipment permits. They were taken with tripod on the ground, a long lens, camera tilted up, and framed loosely. It took two attempts to get something usable; I forgot to enable exposure delay on my first attempt, and the whole set was ruined by vibrations from mirror slap. If I can arrange it I should try again, using a ladder rather than my tripod to get the camera higher.
Spring is here, although I’m sure winter will make at least one more appearance before April. We have more crocuses this year than I’ve ever seen in front of the house. For this picture I waited until the flowers were in shade, set a white balance to render the ambient light bluish, and used a strobe with a full CTO to provide the warm sunlit feel.
Nicholas Haggin Photography 