Perennial rudbeckia

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After the last two posts I feel the need for colour, and what can be more colourful than the bright yellow petals of perennial rudbeckia against the deep blue of an early autumn sky? In our garden we have a few clumps of these striking and long-lasting flowers. They are a variety of coneflower, one of four genera (including Echinacea) of the Asteraceae family, and are especially useful in bringing strong, bright colour to the garden after the flowers of high summer have faded.

My usual view of these blooms is against the leafy backdrop of the borders in which they reside. So, their yellow sits alongside green. However, for this photograph I made the conscious decision to get down low with the camera - in fact I held it at arms length inside the clump - and photograph upwards to place their colour and the shape of the flower heads against the plain blue of the sky. In the RGB colour model wheel blue and yellow are opposite each other. This makes them complementary colours. A feature of such pairs is that when they are placed next to one another the effect is to increase each colour's visual intensity. As the evenings begin to draw in and the first misty mornings remind us that summer is waning, photographing vibrant colours of this sort is my way of hanging on to something of the departing warmth and sun.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

One greenbottle is more than enough

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Some of the world's worst songs are not the output of say, the Spice Girls, Abba, or Justin Bieber* but are those that we teach to young children. The effect on me of songs such as "Michael Row the Boat Ashore", "Kumbaya", "Five Little Speckled Frogs" and "Ten Green Bottles" has been so profound that hearing one of these ditties today re-kindles in me thoughts of preceptorcide**. I know that many children enjoy the repetition, jollity, generally upbeat mood, or even the sentimentality of these songs. The trouble is that, as a foundation on which to build a deeper appreciation of music, they are jerry-built constructions, and may well account for some of the debased preferences of the music-buying public as evinced by what passes for the Top Forty today.

My annual sighting of a greenbottle fly triggered the words of the irritating song about ten green glass bottles mentioned above and the subsequent reflection on children's songs. As usual, I came across the colourful creature as I did a late summer tour of the garden in search of an image or two of the perennials that are now in full flower. When I first became acquainted with this fly I discovered that it has an unwholesome lifestyle and habits very much at odds with its incandescent appearance. Consequently I found it entirely appropriate that its name reminds me of one of the world's worst songs.

* On second thoughts the output of these"artistes" are among the world's worst songs.
** Preceptorcide: a word invented by me for this blog post. Work it out.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bees, rudbeckia and buying cheap

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An executive decision was taken in the Boughen household the other day. When it comes to buying flower seeds next year we are going to ignore the specialist suppliers and their higher priced, exclusive ranges endorsed by famous gardeners, and stick to the cheap and cheerful varieties. In truth we've never bought many "special" flower seeds, but this year they've proved a disaster, either featuring blooms that are not the colour advertised, producing far fewer plants than is reasonable from the number of seeds in the packet, or simply failing completely. We have not been happy!

In contrast, the inexpensive flower seeds that we bought have been very successful, doing exactly what it says on the packet, and filling the areas of our borders reserved for annuals with banks of colour. The rudbeckia, in particular, have been magnificent. A packet of seeds that cost a few pence, containing a mixture of different varieties in the colour range brown/orange/yellow has drawn me and my camera on a number of occasions. They did so again a few days ago when the wind had dropped, the sky was bright (but not sunny), and the blooms were at their glowing best.

I took several shots of the flower heads, of which the second image is probably the best. It uses a composition that I'm fond of, namely filling most of the frame with a single head (off centre), and making sure the remainder of the image has out-of-focus heads. However, once again the presence of bees led me to come away from my task with another image of the busy little workers, because as soon as I lined up a shot, as often as not one landed on the flower and began collecting pollen. This particular bee interested me because it looked like it was wearing a fur coat that was getting a good dusting of the yellow stuff. I'm aware that there are a number of different kinds of bees that venture into gardens: some I recognise, but this one I didn't.

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35 macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100 (400)
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing flowers

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Any photographer who enjoys their garden inevitably ends up pointing their camera at it. Some enjoy capturing the entirety, or large parts, of their plot, showing off the structure of the planting and the seasonal changes that take place. Others home in on details, isolating groups of flowers or leaves, individual blooms, or other garden-associated subjects (i.e. things other than plants). I tend towards the latter approach.

The challenge with photographing flowers is to produce something interesting or new. Interesting is easier of course, though what interests one person may well be of no interest to another. When shooting flowers there are many variations and permutations - group or individual bloom, macro of flower, include leaves or not, angle, lighting, weather, etc. But coming up with something new on a subject that has been photographed many, many times is nearly impossible. One of the few occasions when I feel I've come anywhere near originality is in my image of some geranium (pelargonium) leaves.

We removed some potentillas from a border a while ago because they were aged shrubs, well past their best, producing few flowers. To fill the space until a more permanent solution was possible my wife planted a selection of annuals, including a packet of mixed rudbeckia. I took one of these striking blooms that are now in flower and tried to come up with a different kind of photograph of this familiar plant. Above is the best of the shots I took. I was aiming for a cropped, square image with the centre of the flower and a quarter of the petals centred top left, but the uncropped original seemed to have a better balance of flower to black space.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/4
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On