retrospective — morning has broken

I’m dipping back into my past Flickr photos and pulling one out to talk about it. This is the first of I don’t know how many, but there may be a few. I’m doing this because I got pulled into looking at my past work, and discovering that I still liked what I had produced 10 years ago.

This photo was taken December 2011 of a three-year-old Ruby on the left and her companion, eleven-year-old Max on the right. Max left us in 2015, after a long and robust fifteen years with us (he was rescued by us in January 2000, and he was already six months old at the time). The story behind this photo is that I had a very rough night and had crashed out on the old La-Z-Boy sofa in the TV room so I wouldn’t bother my wife. The Labs, of course, saw an opportunity to spend that night with one of their favorite persons, so they wound up sleeping right up there with me. When I got up in the morning, they stayed up on the sofa, picking spots comfortable to them. When I came back in there they both sat. Fortunately I had a camera close to hand to capture this moment.

I just like the composition. Both of them are exuding personality, especially Max. It reminds me how much I’ve missed him these past six years. Ruby is still with us, and she’s still my sweatie.

The camera used is the Olympus E-P2, with its ‘mere’ 12MP sensor, along with the m.Zuiko 2.8/17mm. This was during my ‘dark black-and-white’ period, where I was post-processing the hell out of everything because I thought it would look more artistic that way. The only saving grace is that I used a sepia tone which helped to bring up the highlights a bit and added a bit of texture to their coats.

photographing backyard flowers and dealing with red roses

The orchid tree is blooming again, and I’m out trying to get some good photos before the blooms quickly wilt and start to seed. The two photos were taken roughly 12 hours apart, the first right at the end of golden hour and the second in the morning.

I love the mix of greens and purples that the tree produces this time of year.

This little rose was taken in the golden hour, in the shade. I have tried very much to keep the red channel from being overwhelmed. I was trying to pick up the subtle shadows as well as the veining on the petals, while trying to keep the background reasonably out of focus.

Everything taken with the E-M1.2 and 40-150mm PRO seated on a 15-year-old Benro travel tripod. If anything, the tripod allows me to better compose and focus on the subjects. Trying to do flower photography hand-held is a non-starter for me, probably due to my advancing age.

Oh, and it was a lovely 81° F today.