Bees, bugs and bokeh

Always check your cards!!! These images are from two summers ago, but I only recently found them on a CF card. Hadn't even copied these to my hard drive. Could have quite easily reformatted the card and lost them all. And that would have made me sad, because they are perhaps the best bee photos that I've ever taken. So as we wait patiently for spring to arrive here in the land of permafrost, let these images remind you of glorious summer days.

Stick 'em up, partner:

Going our separate ways:

The requisite Bee Butt:

Adios!

Equipment: Canon 7D, 300mmf4 lens at 5.6 1/500 or 6.3 1/320. Handheld in really great light, significantly cropped for composition and very minor Lightroom adjustments. My next, next lens will be a macro!!! You can be sure I'll be planting more orange and gold echinichea as well.

Gallery

Red and Yellow, Orange and Gold

The wicked winds today have likely ended most of the fall color show here in Edmonton. Luckily, I took advantage of the morning light yesterday and spent a bit of time exploring the shrubs around the garden here at Windermere Studios. I experimented with the 135mmf2 and a really narrow depth of field, trying to include rich background colors as part of the composition.

The evening before, I'd revisited a technique I first tried last fall, moving the camera while shooting with a slow shutter speed to create painting like images. The colors of fall seem to be especially well suited subject matter for this.

There are beautiful things all around us. Making time to notice and find interesting ways to capture them is why I take photos.