Bird Of Paradise #3

   Another one of my favorite flowers to take pictures of is the Bird Of Paradise.  The flowers are large with palm shaped leaves.  Instead of putting in an all black background, I choose to put in a gradient background that goes from black to grey.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Brown Clipper Butterfly #3

   One of my favorite pictures of the Brown Clipper Butterfly.  Taken at The Butterfly House in Whitehouse, Ohio.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Tripartite Daffodil

   One of my favorite times of the year is Spring because it brings the promise of warmer weather and beautiful flowers!  One of my favorite spring flowers is the Daffodil.  I never realized just how many varieties there were until I started taking pictures of them.  A couple of years ago, I discovered this kind at the Allen County Extension Office.  Hands down these are now my favorite ones.  They are so pretty and dainty and the most wonderful shade of yellow.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Blue

   When my daughter was going to the School of Creative Arts at the University of Saint Francis, she had to take a lighting class.  Her Dad has studio lights, so he brought them over for her to play with.  Well, it soon became a fun way to spend a Friday and/or Saturday night.  On Friday or Saturday morning we would go to one of the local florists and buy a few flowers to take pictures of.  We would set up the studio lights and all three of us would take turns setting up and taking pictures of the different flowers.  We would try different ways to light the flower and see how creative we could be in our compositions.  This was one of my favorites.  The Iris itself is actually a purple color, but by playing with the white balance, you could change the color and in this instance, it turned it a bright blue.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Red Chimney #2

   This is another fascinating orchid that I saw at an orchid show.  Once again, the background of the photo left a lot to be desired, so I put a black background in.  This orchid almost looks like it is covered in granulated sugar!

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Tropical Parrot

   This is another shot I got that was totally unexpected.  This zoo had constructed a new building that was more of a learning center.  I went in to check it out and was thinking that there probably weren't any animals in there.  Then all the sudden I see this small tropical area, and sitting on a branch in what little sunlight there was, was a beautiful Blue and Gold Macaw.  He posed so nicely for me.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

African Crowned Crane #2

  Another one of my favorite birds is the African Crowned Crane.  I love their facial colors and the fancy "feather-do" on top.  In this case, I decided to fill the frame to show off these features.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Phragmipedium Cardinale

   Being one of my favorite flowers, about the only places you can see orchids are at botanical conservatories, orchid greenhouses or at orchid shows.  Since I can't take pictures of orchids in the studio, I often have to put in a new background because the background that is already there is often distracting and I really want the orchid to stand out.  This was taken at an orchid show at the local botanical conservatory.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased from my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Once In A Blue Moon

   Every once in awhile, a shot comes to you that you didn't expect.  This was one of them.  I was spending the day at a zoo and stopped to eat lunch. As I was sitting there eating, I was going through some of the shots I had taken.  I had noticed that some clouds had started to appear in the sky and I just happened to look up and see this.  I quickly grabbed my camera and took a few shots.  I really wasn't expecting to get much, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and saw this.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my personal gallery at PIXELS

Eye Of The Peacock #2

   I have gone to numerous zoos and one animal that they all have in common is the Peacock.  The Peacock is probably my favorite bird.  Sometimes you get lucky and see the males proudly displaying their tail feathers.  It really is quite the sight to see.  Sometimes when I find a really willing subject, I try to find different ways to show them off, to take some really close up pictures.  Even though I'm not showing the whole bird, you still know it's a Peacock.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my personal gallery on PIXELS 

Green Iguana

   Sometimes when you are doing zoo photography, you are not presented with the most ideal shooting conditions.  This was one of them.  Not only was the exhibit very dark requiring flash, but the Iguana was behind glass.  Sometimes using a flash when there is glass involved doesn't work out very well.  Especially if the glass is old, very thick or dirty.  If you do shoot through glass, it's best to shoot at the glass at an angle so the light does not bounce right back at you causing a milky white look to the glass.  I got very lucky this time and the Iguana posed very nicely for me.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my gallery on PIXELS 

Violet Clipper Butterfly

   In 2004, my daughter and I discovered The Butterfly House in Whitehouse, Ohio.  Walking in, it was like a little slice of heaven.  Beautiful tropical environment with hundreds of butterflies, flying around freely. It was very easy to spend up to 3 hours in there taking pictures of the butterflies.  We would go several times a year and each time it was like a treasure hunt finding new and exciting butterflies to take pictures of.  Usually they had the Brown or Blue Clipper butterflies, but one year I found this Violet Clipper.  Not sure if they were starting to get these in or if one just slipped in with the shipment of chrysalis.  Sadly the last few years have not been that great there.  It just doesn't look like they are putting in the effort to bring new species of butterflies there or even the quantity. I only went one time this year and only came out of there with a handful of pictures, it was very disappointing.  Don't get me wrong, if you just want to look at butterflies, it's still a great place to go because you will see butterflies from other countries.  But, if you go there expecting to get lots of great photos, you will probably be disappointed.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my private gallery on PIXELS

   

Awwwww.....

  Today I would like to share another lion photo I captured.  This is Onyo from the Potawatomi Zoo. This is another accidental shot I got using the continuous shooting mode.  I like to be able to show my subjects in ways that you normally don't see them.  In this case, a male lion is supposed to be fierce and dangerous, but in this shot he looks shy, bashful and maybe just a bit cuddly.  Onyo has a very expressive face and I have gotten many good photos of him over the years.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my personal gallery on PIXELS 

 

Phragmipedium Richteri Orchid

     Most people know what an orchid looks like.  Most have seen the large Phalaenopsis or Moth Orchids in a wide variety of colors.  But, most people don't know just how varied orchids can be.  They come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes.  Some are so small, you need a magnifying glass just to view them.  It wasn't until I went to my first orchid show that I really fell in love with orchids.  And, each show I went to after that just showed me that you will continuously be amazed at just how different they are from each other.  This past spring, I found out that Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, has one of the largest collections of rare and endangered orchids.  They are housed in the Rinard Orchid Greenhouse.  I have been there several times now and each time I go it's like a treasure hunt, finding orchids blooming that I have never seen before.  Today's photo is one of them.

 Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my personal gallery on PIXELS

 

Royal Purple Water Lily #9

   Shortly after I started to go to the botanical conservatory to take pictures, this Royal Purple Water Lily made it's appearance.  It quickly became my favorite flower there to take pictures of.  It disappears from time to time, but when it's there, I try to find new ways to show it off.  I also like to play with the white balance, so my results will be anywhere from purple to a bright brilliant blue.  The hard part is catching the flower when it's completely open.  The bloom gradually opens during the day and closes back up at night.  Sometimes it doesn't get sunny enough for the bloom to completely open, or they have it in a shady area that doesn't get enough sunlight for it to open all the way.  But, when it does, it really is quite the sight to see.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my gallery on PIXELS

Clematis Miss Bateman

I became interested in photography at a very early age. My mother was the photographer in our family and if you could see the amount of photo albums she has, you would know that our lives were well documented. I don't remember how it came about, but I was given a box camera to use, don't know what kind it was, only that it had very large negatives. I soon learned that I had to savor each frame I used because when I took the last picture, who knows when I would get more film. And, as most people know, film photography could become very expensive in buying film and having them developed and printed. Over the years I've had several different cameras, but didn't buy my first 35mm camera until the early 80's, a Nikon EM. Even when I worked in a photo lab, it was still an expensive hobby. Add to that, that I never took any photography classes, so you could say I really didn't know what I was doing or what I needed to do to take great pictures.

It wasn't until one of our family reunions that my Uncle Jerry introduced me to digital photography. He pulled that digital camera out and he had my full attention. Here was a way to take as many pictures as you wanted at just the price of the camera and whatever medium it used to write them on. So, I did my research and my first camera was the Sony Mavica, CD400. Probably not the best camera, and I look back at the pictures that I took with it and think how horrible they really were, but it was a starting point for me. It was then that I knew I had to learn how to take great pictures.

The first thing I wanted to learn how to do was macro photography. I went to a half price book store and bought a few photography books. It was during the winter time, so I bought a membership to the local conservatory. I spent hours going over the books and seeing their techniques. Then I would go to the conservatory and practice those techniques. I would spent hours there every week, each time coming home so see what I accomplished. I will admit it was a bit frustrating at first, but I was finally starting to see the results of all my labor. Just like with the box camera, over the years I have had several digital cameras. It wasn't until 2005 that I finally bought my first DSLR, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. That is when I really started noticing a difference in my photography. Today I use the Canon EOS 7D. Todays photo was taken with that camera and is a direct result of all the practice that I have put into macro photography.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my gallery on PIXELS

Male Widow Skimmer Dragonfly

   Another one of my favorite insects are dragonflies.  They can be hard to photograph because they seem to take off at any sign of movement on your part.  One thing that you can use to your advantage is that male dragonflies are very territorial and tend to perch in the same spot.  So, once you find one and it takes off, get as close as you can to where they were at and they will often come right back.  Dragonflies are found close to water and you can usually find them along the waters edge, especially lakes and ponds.

Prints and other products featuring this photo can be purchased at my gallery on PIXELS